I Love My Mother
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Posted:Nov 14, 2007 10:24 am
Last Updated:Dec 30, 2007 8:01 am 4726 Views
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I love my mother; she is the sweetest most tolerant woman I have ever met.
Last night I called her and she told me that if I was there with her she would hold me and never let me go.
Doesn't it make you feel so good when someone you love tells you something like this?
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Veterans Day
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Posted:Nov 14, 2007 10:19 am
Last Updated:Nov 15, 2007 10:27 am 4403 Views
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The other day was Veterans Day, Remembrance Day or Armistice Day it came and went so fast I almost didn’t notice it was here. I was able to find a poppy to wear it was laying on the ground I was happy to find it and later found it came from the British Support Unit (BSU) in the IZ.
You would think that it would be a very special day here. As I went from camp to camp I really didn’t see anything being done to celebrate the dedication that soldiers do for their country. I’m sure that there were celebrations and I just missed them. Maybe I was just unlucky this year.
It's always been a very special day for me since most of my life has been associated with soldiers. Seems like this was one holiday that I always got to dress in my best uniform and pay respect in some special way.
I wondered about what was happening back there in the US. The news over here just didn’t show much a couple specials about the veterans of WWII being respected at the WWII Memorial and short special about the soldiers over here in Iraq.
What did happen back there? Maybe it’s because I’m so isolated at times and just wasn’t in the know. I certainly hope that is not the case. I will save that Poppy and carry it in my ID satchel for remembrance. As for the day, well, it just didn’t feel like anyone had really noticed. Hope they did.
Mirin123
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Fishing in the Euphrates...
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Posted:Nov 14, 2007 7:07 am
Last Updated:Nov 15, 2007 10:34 am 5273 Views
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Well, it’s been a wild two weeks. We have been all over the country in and out of some very interesting places. And, believe it or not it was a peaceful two weeks. It is a pure pleasure to see some sibilance of normality come to the people here.
I was fortunate to go fishing in the Euphrates River something I thought I would never get to do. My friend Sam and I took hand lines and tried our luck on a make shift boat ramp made by the US Marines one afternoon last weekend. We had a few hours of spare time and we were in a fairly safe place so we gathered up some bait which only turned out to be some corn and bread and headed for the river bank.
The water was a clear greenish blue and fairly deep about three meters where we were. You could see a few shad running along the banks and the bottom was covered with a healthy looking water weed and the bottom was a sandy gravel mix. It made you want to put on a snorkel and dive in but of course that was out of the question we were pushing our luck in the first place.
It wasn’t long as fishing goes that we struck up several conversations with the guys who were stationed there and even though we didn’t catch a fish I got a couple good bites and lots of good information about how they were managing to bring them home for dinner.
We found out that the local fish was a predator that loved the little shad that run along the banks but Sam and I were not prepared to do any real fishing and just settled in for a chance at a Amur or Carp with the bait we brought with us.
There were plenty of birds on the river and you could tell that it was a natural migration route long used because of all the different species. Kingfishers were a brilliant green, Herons a deep blue, River Gulls, Sandpipers, Egrets, Doves, Crows, Kites, and many more could be seen on the river or its banks. Just setting there looking at the birds was enough for me.
The current was quite fast and all we had for weights were bolts from some plumber’s tool box but that held the bait on the bottom fairly well. I did get my hand line tangled a couple times but the grass was fairly easy on the line and came loose with just the slightest of pulls. Good thing about the desert is there are not that many trees so the bottom was not littered with limbs.
It felt good to feel the tug of a fish but it just wasn’t our day and after a couple hours the sun began to set and dinner was a cookin’ back in camp so Sam and I just gave it up and started back. By the time we got there the Filipino guys had started a fire in the grill and had four of those predator fish, who knows what they are called, spiced up, buttered and on the grill.
I’m not much for eating fresh water fish but they did smell good and were quite a good size around two kilograms each. When taken out of the tin foil I saw that they had been split down the middle and the skin a dark bluish black with very white meat not to fatty. They had the appearance of something prehistoric and much like a carp with a predator mouth. Unfortunately they were covered with tomatoes which had a very acid taste so I declined to try the fish itself.
It was a good day all in all we had done our mission; went fishing and to top it all off they didn’t have a place for us to stay so we slept outside under the stars. But that’s another story..
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You know you stepped in it
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Posted:Nov 5, 2007 12:29 pm
Last Updated:Nov 13, 2007 12:16 pm 4756 Views
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I was just talking to my favorite English friend about American History.. I thought I had a quite novel comment to make about one of our presidents but his response was a much more clever one indeed.
"Vic do you know which of our presidents never had a college degree"?
"All of them wasn't it"?
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Yesterday
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Posted:Nov 5, 2007 9:02 am
Last Updated:Dec 30, 2007 8:03 am 4618 Views
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When we were in Fallujah yesterday we had a situation that put us out in the open and we were blocked from being able to transfer our principles in a safe location.
We had to have the principle brought out to the main road and they delivered him in a Bucket
loader, construction vehicle.
It was quite comical to see the guy coming up the road with all the Iraqi's watching with him inside the loader with his luggage in the bucket.
One of the old Iraqi men watching looked at me with a smile and I smiled back and shrugged my shoulders. He smiled too and shrugged his..
It felt good to get a bit of amusement out of what a year ago would have been a situation I would never had put myself into. It all went well and no mishaps or confrontations occurred.
Thinking back it was good for us to be out there with them; showing that we meant no harm and of course getting the same reactions from them.
We got out of there but still 45 minutes would
have been a death sentence last year at the same time.
At the gate here at home base we were held by the guard force because we had signal smoke in the vehicles.. you know the canned kind that we use for concelment or marking LZs.
Now we had machine guns, pistols, rifles an thousands of bullets which were all ok but they were all concerned about us having signal smoke.
Of course it took digging out the authorizations and a bit of ramp and rage to get through but we finally did.
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On Thanksgiving and Christmas
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Posted:Nov 5, 2007 3:37 am
Last Updated:Nov 13, 2007 12:18 pm 4205 Views
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I grew up surrounded by a big family. Even though my immediate family was small, just Mom, Dad and Sis, my Mom and Dad had really big families and there always seemed to be someone around from one of their sides of the family. Mom had six brothers and sisters and my Dad had nine brothers and sisters. There were so many cousins and further extended family members I have never even tried to count them.
Of course my Grandma’s and Grandpa’s had their own brothers and sisters, so, as you can see it was a sea of people every Thanksgiving and Christmas when they all usually came together. As a it was the most wonderful time of the year for me. Even though there were differences within the families we all seemed to come together in harmony and all for a good cause which was to meet with each other when most of the year we were all to busy too.
As a it didn’t matter to us what the grown ups were doing all we cared about was playing and having a good time. Generally, the boys played football and the girls who knows what they did. We had time to go over all of what happened to us during the summer and talk about how bad school was that year.
The food was the most wonderful collection of delightful things to eat since everyone tried their best and brought the most special of what they could cook. Both families were Christian families and of course before the meal began we all joined hands and one of the elders would provide the blessing of the food and of the family. In the early days it was Grandpa’s and later the older Uncles that usually did this and would confirm to us all that a powerful spirit existed among us all.
Yes, and afterwards some would sat around the TV and watch the ball games. It’s traditional but while watching most everyone was interested in finding out about each other and all the good stories would be past on to add a little humor to the afternoon.
The women would provide us all with good old Grandma and Auntie kisses something we all had to endure and really deep down inside enjoyed very much. I still like to get those kisses and miss them very much when I’m not able to go.
There were always a family that were not able come. It was felt by all and yes there were times when it was because of differences between others in the family but there were other reasons too; military service, war, work and sickness were just a few. But mostly we were all there and together and for a it was the most wonderful time and established in our spirits the true meaning of family.
Going beyond family this time of the year is also for the true meaning of the two holidays being a very religious family church was a very big part of our lives. These two holidays always involved church activities. There are build ups to each and of course the gatherings there were almost important to us as the family gatherings.
Thanksgiving’s importance was paramount to Christmas and Easter. Usually, the four Sundays prior we would begin studying why it was so important to be thankful in Sunday School. Just as we did in public school and within the family we learned what the holiday was all about and it ended with a strong sermon at church on its importance within the family and our society along with that wonderful dinner and family interactions. It was something we all expected and all looked forward to every year.
We often had the annual “Thanksgiving Play” at school and the school was always decorated quite nicely. Most people didn’t decorate their houses but you did see a few who stacked up the corn stalks and put out the pumpkins. One thing is for certain no one back then worked on Thanksgiving and everyone seemed to bring together the families and it was a time for really giving thanks to what we had received.
Christmas was the most magical for and just like Thanksgiving we had another religious holiday of giving thanks and understanding of what life was about. It was instructional as well as magical. The story of the birth of Jesus was the center of all the churches activities. The Church play was always done by the . Again, there was a build up of instructions given in Sunday School.
We were able to pick out a tree sometimes going out into the forest and chopping down one ourselves; then decorating and sprucing up the house. Things smelled of cookies, eggnog, oranges, tangerines, nuts and scented candles and of course the tree. We went about buying or making presents wrapping them and putting them under the tree. Music filled the air and there were times we would drive around just to look at the different lights on the houses.
There is a town called McAdenville in central NC that every house decorates with lights and scenes for the holiday. Religiously we picked up my Aunt Blanche and Grace each year and drove over to ride through the town and talking about magic that town certainly made us feel the wonder of the season. I don’t know if they still do that there because seems like I heard that the power bills had just gotten to much for people to bear and then again I heard that in the spirit of Christmas the power company deferred the bill for that month for those who chose to put on the show. It would have been a wonderful gift from the power company if they did.
We went out in groups to Carol from house to house, the church choir always put on a special show and the town seem to teem with it every where you went. There was a visit with Santa of course and the local town Christmas parade, tens of thousands of people always lined the streets. The school bands marched through the streets, floats and beauties flowed by and cotton candy, candy apples and hot spiced apple tea smells filled the air. You most certainly had to wait to the very end when Santa paraded by with all his reindeer and his sleigh. It just wasn’t Christmas with out it.
Getting back to the point I was making about thanksgiving coming for a third time in the year. Yes Christmas is most certainly a time for thanksgiving and this is when we most often do it with presents to each other. It is a time of giving and of course receiving. A time when we know that we are going to get a pair of socks from Auntie and a time of understanding why she gives time to us every year.
You see she gives everyone of the socks so as not to play favorites and to ensure that she gives a gift to each and everyone even though her meagre social security income can hardly afford it. She did that with care and you can tell she picked each and everyone and wrapped them all, so, she always got a heartfelt kiss of thanks from me for that simple gift of socks.
Yes, we also gave of to ourselves. Those that cooked did it with labor and joy to see the satisfied smiles on those who enjoyed. We play with the because its fun and we enjoy. The decorations are pleasant to see and smells are wonderful aromas that only come this time of the year. The games we watch on TV are the accumulation of the teams struggle and the excitement of it all is what we’ve waited for the whole year.
We go hunting and fishing and walking in nature because we have the time to do it and most often we don’t do that by ourselves. We join together with family and friends because we just plain don’t have time the rest of the year to do so. I try and give to the unfortunate because it makes me feel good to give back something of what I’ve been blessed with. The plays, the music and the TV shows are all uplifting and good for our souls. The whole time period renews the spirit and prepares us for a new year.
You don’t really know what you have missed until you miss it. I love this time of the year and instead of being here like I have for the past three years I’m going to have some wonderful holidays and I most certainly wish it all for you.
Mirin123
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Snappin’ Turtle Soup
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Posted:Nov 3, 2007 7:18 am
Last Updated:Nov 5, 2007 1:19 am 5323 Views
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My Grandfather on my father’s side of the family always had Snappin’ Turtles in a little pen beside his house. He was the best turtle man in the county I wouldn’t doubt the best in the state.
His house, unlike my mother’s father, was in the town, a cotton mill town down deep in the old south. This town was one of those that had hundreds of homes built by the factory most of them the same shape and color as those towns go.
It wasn’t very exciting for us since most cities offered nothing natural for young to do but we always loved to go over there just to see the turtles. Jay as he was called because his first two initials were J.A. had a real reputation for making the best turtle soup around.
He would go out in early spring and catch the turtles when they came out of winter hibernation and pen them up in his little turtle pen and feed them like hogs all summer. In early fall we would get together and have a family reunion and fix up a huge turtle soup which is a lovely soup with a flavour all its own.
The turtles were caught in a variety of different ways. He would take picker sticks from the mill and old clothes hangers and wire a hook to it and bait it will chicken or fish. Another method was to take used Clorox bottles and fix the hanger to those and bait the same way.
But the most interesting was to go wading in the creeks and do what is called grappling. Now, the basic definition of this term kind of gives you and idea about what this all concerns, “To grapple is a form of wrestling and that is just what they would do”.
Usually it involved family and friends and most often only men. Five or six would get together and work in two teams. One team would be dropped off at one bridge on the stream and the other would drive over to where the stream intersected with another bridge along is flow. They would then work there way along the stream and meet somewhere in the middle.
Two men generally worked along the banks and one would hold an old tow sack.. meal sack.. where the turtles would eventually turn up.
Now the real work involved sticking your hands up under the banks where the water generally washed out a place for the turtles to hide. They never ceased to amaze me at the technique involved in pulling the turtle out.
First you had to find the turtle. They generally did this by sticking a stick up under the bank and poking it around. A turtle shell will sound hollow if you hit it just right where a rock would certainly sound solid. On occasion I did see my Grandfather stick his hand directly up under the bank but I’m sure it takes more than a bit of experience to do that kind of thing. I certainly was never brave enough to do it the way he could.
After you hear that sound there are two basic ways of getting the turtle out. One you poke the stick around until he gets agitated enough to bite onto the stick, they don’t usually let go.. After that you pull him out if you can but often it involves sticking you hand up under the bank and grabbing onto the turtles tail and pulling both by the head and tail. I saw my Grandfather just stick reach up under some banks and just pull them out with out the stick.
If you look at a Snappin’ Turtle’s shell its plates have sharpened points as it recedes to the back, smooth going toward the front. Grandpa said you can always tell where the tail is and his mouth is by feeling the shell that is if you were brave enough to stick your hand up under the bank.
Well, needless to say I was only a small and I never was interested in sticking my hand up under a bank. There were times when I saw him pull a snake out from under there dropping it between us just to see us jump. So, you can imagine I wasn’t much interested in doing that.
As for making the soup.. It’s pretty simple since the turtles are mostly in the mud they have to be scalded cleaned, scrubbed and skinned, the meat separated from the shell and internal organs thrown away. The meat is then boiled until tender and the water drained off. Milk is added, along with butter and a little tomato paste and seasoning for flavour. Some people like to also, lightly flour and fry the meat but I personally thought it mostly to tough and stringy.
It’s a wonderful soup and probably a lost art in most of the modern world today. It has a strong fish like flavour and even though it sounds yucky it is a delightful delicacy for the taste buds. As for grappling I don’t think you will see too many people do this either; it’s a lost art, it was nearly when my Grandfather was doing it.
Mirin123
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Here we go
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Posted:Nov 3, 2007 5:53 am
Last Updated:Nov 5, 2007 3:49 am 4156 Views
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Jumpin’ through the hoops again
You need it done before day ends
We’ll do it for you that’s the truth
Even though it costs our youth
The only thing we hope for sure
Is that your lack of planning does have a cure
Mirin123
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Trout Fishing
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Posted:Nov 3, 2007 5:37 am
Last Updated:Nov 3, 2007 12:12 pm 3399 Views
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For me,,, there is nowhere better to be
than going fishing; don't you agree
The wind, the rain and even the cold
can’t stop me from this passion of old
Tying flies, making the line, preparing the reel,
natures solitude, this stream is surreal
The rise of the fish line goes tight
Oh my, my what a fight
Gently cradling him in my hand
So as not to hurt and to return as planned
Watching gratefully as he swims away
To be caught by another on another day
Mirin123
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I have an addicted friend
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Posted:Nov 3, 2007 5:10 am
Last Updated:Nov 4, 2007 9:59 am 3873 Views
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I’m sure many of you have had experiences with friends, family or professionally with someone who has been addicted. Recently, I discovered a friend has a serious addiction to narcotics.
It was a complete surprise because for years I had thought that his addiction was just with alcohol and not something as far remote from my mind as was an addiction to narcotics and alcohol.
He was very good at hiding and manipulating everyone into believing that his problem was something (even though one would consider it a serious problem) in our society that is a lesser of two evils and a more socially acceptable problem mainly because narcotics are illegal.
As I was contemplating what happened and thinking back it became more and more obvious to me what he had done. I became more and more disheartened at not having recognized what he was doing earlier on. I started to blame myself and feeling like I should have been more vigilant in dealing with the situation when I thought it was only alcohol.
When I finally found out the real truth I started putting the pieces of the puzzle together and as the whole picture fell into place I began to see how much of a fool a person can really play you for. It hurts beyond belief, it’s like when a loved one cheats on you and that feeling of being defiled comes over you.
SeekingGigi made a couple postings about alcoholism and how it affects the people around an addict. If you have not read his blogs I highly recommend you taking a peak at what he has to say. When our loved ones and friends do something like this it’s sort of like the Death and Dying process when we find out; Denial and Isolation, Anger, Bargaining, Depression, and Acceptance.
We all deal with it in our own way within ourselves and most certainly those that are addicted have their own processes to go through. Often we see that when someone is in this bad of shape that the recovery process is not going be an easy one for all of those involved.
A word of warning to those who have never dealt with this situation these people will do anything to get what they need. And, you don’t realize this until it happens to you no matter how much you read or see on TV or in the Movies; until you experience it you just don’t know how far they really will go.
Then it comes down to how you deal with it. If you love someone or really care for them it is the most disheartening thing to see them in this way. The first thing most people want for this person is to see them cured of this addiction but what we don’t realize is that this is a process that has a very low chance of recover.
The process takes as much strength on our part as it does the addicted person. We have to then decide if we are willing to invest our lives in theirs. Most often people just don’t have to strength to carry it out.
Already I see that what was agreed upon for him to do he is manipulating his way around and frankly I don’t think there’s a chance in hell he will get out of this. He’s an addict and I just have to accept the fact that it’s not going to be an easy thing for us to go through and ultimately I’m probably going to loose him as a friend.
Mirin123
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