Magic and Mysteries

  I never had any plans on going to college. I never really thought about it much. Always figured I'd just get a job doing manual labor of some sort. In high school I excelled, well, I really enjoyed my blue-collar classes, welding, metal shop, woodshop, wrestling, art. I threw papers in high school, worked on restoring cars with my brother, did landscaping for a bit, tended racing horses after school, worked at a truss plant, and busted tires up until my mission for the LDS church.  All of this was as I was told to do in working hard and saving for a mission. I was told about saving for my mission as a wee lad, but now they really drill it into the little people's heads (They even talk about going to the temple, taking out your endowments and getting married and sealed to you eternal spouse in the temple, to kids from 4 on up - their messaging seemed really desperate to me the last time I attended their primary services). With my mission savings, I was able to pay for my entire LDS mission and more.

  But, just prior to my mission, I went to the patriarch of the stake to get my patriarchal blessing. Now, if you don't know, a stake is a step higher than a ward, covering all the wards in which actual members meet and attend Sunday meetings. So this patriarch guy was somewhat of a big cheese. And if don't also know, a patriarchal blessing is kind of like a fortune told, or a spiritual road map of your life, even telling what once happened, as well as the wonderful things that will happen. This "promise" usually comes with the clause of, "as you stay faithful" ... I always thought that meant to Jesus and the Truth, but the sentiment can be expressed as different as one patriarch is from another in expressing himself into your "Spiritual Path" that is to be taken as your spiritual fortune, and being promised a spot on the right hand of Jesus. The key is that the blessing is null and void if you stray.

  Anyway, my patriarch gave me the usual blessing, even told me I'd see angels ... 

  The point I'm trying to make is that after giving me a wonderful blessing, he pulled me aside when everyone was done shaking my hand, and he told me, almost in stealth, that he had forgotten one thing.
"I wished I had told you in the officially recorded blessing that you should seek an education. After your mission, I had the very strong impression that you should go to college.", he whispered.

Well, I sure thought a lot about that secret of all secrets whenever I read my official patriarchal blessing. All through my mission I thought upon it.  And sure, being somewhat a plausible wonder if maybe IT WASN'T supposed to be IN my officially recorded version!? Or any version at all. Because maybe it t'was an evil spirit that did'th speak to his mind's ear? Especially if you consider that the long-term effects of telling me to go to college and putting that bug in my ear would eventually cause me to leave my LDS faith. 

Well hell! That had to be Satan!

To which I say, "Thank you Satan. 

Satan, as originally used and understood in the old testament, is an angel sent from god to block a way that would prove bad for you or others. Yes, Satan may appear your enemy, since nobody really wants their way blocked. Seems like everybody wants to get their way, do it their way, and have it their way these days. No one wants their way blocked! So naturally, god's angel Satan is dispersed and made the bad horrible thing he or she may be for telling your stupid baby ass NO, but at the end of the day, Satan was just trying to save you from choosing a path not really meant for you, at least in god's eyes ... but, in the end, it's really your choice, isn't it? At least that's what I heard attending my religion, the sanctity of agency, and personal choices.

Anyway, when I got home after my mission, guess what I did?  Enroll in school?

Nope! I went back to what I knew. School honestly scared me, and no one in my family had gone to college. I became a parts puller at a NAPA warehouse distribution center. It took me getting fired after three months and being told that maybe I was more cut out to be a brain surgeon.

That did it. My secret blessing outside my official blessing was right. Maybe Satan did rule this world after all, as I was told ... as god's angel of bad news and a path not meant for you. I should go to college.
I had a tiny severance and the money I'd saved while working three months, as well as that leftover from my mission fund to do it. 

So I enrolled at the UofU, and against all odds, I chose to become an Electrical Engineer on a High School Minimalists' transcript ... 6 years later I was one. (I put myself through college as well)  ... 12 years later, I was using the same tools I used in college, primarily books, learning my way out of the LDS faith, while going a bit crazy in the process of holding on to what "I Know" against what is known.

But my mind gets to wondering sometimes about what if? Like what if that patriarch, high priest, and shaman of fortune had failed to act in telling me what god and angels, maybe even satan wanted me to hear? Who would I be now? Where would I be?  That, my friends, is a world of mysteries. But, I'll tell you one thing, I'm glad I listened to that wise old man and went to university, and I'm glad he pulled me aside. Where would I be today had I not earnestly believed in the words of that man and that their direction came from God?

Religious things will always be a mystery, and I think that's the way they're supposed to be.  Faith is way too easy when you force yourself to "know" a thing you want to believe outside the realms of scientific inquiry. Hell, that's not faith. Knowing is not faith, and things of faith cannot be known until they actually happen, if and when they do. And if they don't - these stories that go past living - you will be none the wiser, or even the sadder for it. You will simply cease to be.  But at least you heard some wonderful stories while you were here, maybe even lived a few of these fantasies in real life.  Who's to say more what a life is worth than the one who lived it?  And remember, people are really good at telling stories along the lines of their own paradigms. ;)

Crisco Kid Was a Friend of Mine

It's kinda funny when I hear people call themselves or others Christians and talk about Christ. Christ wasn't Jesus's name. It isn't even a Hebrew name. It is a Greek title, Christos, meaning anointed one. Jesus, in all of his life, never once referred to himself as Christ.

And even if it was only those Greek geeks who came after him calling him Christos, Christ wasn't the only christ. There were many anointed ones, especially in the Jewish faith. They were anointing everything with oils, both in and out of sacred rites. Desert cultures love oils, especially for the hair and skin. Calling Jesus the Christ literally means Jesus the anointed one, Jesus the one we oiled, Jesus the lubricated and the moist. I'm sure his hair and skin looked great.

So a Christian is a person who follows only one christofied dude, out of the many well-oiled dudes who came out of the Hebrew tradition of being anointed with special oil and some magic words to attain a title, a religious ranking (keep note that the Hebrew society was a theocracy) and they think calling this guy Christ, rather than by his (modernized) name Jesus, is something more special, more significant than his real name and his true identity. I guess it's just more evidence of how people can miss the tree for the forest ... or the case for the lawyer.

Imagine if Jesus was a Lawyer. Lawyer would be his title. It would be perfectly fine to call him Jesus the Lawyer, or even Lawyer Jesus ... if he had his law degree and license to practice that is ... but to simply call him Lawyer is wrong. Imagine hearing, "Lawyer said, we should all love each other and live in peace together."

Yeah, that would be weird in more ways than one. "Which lawyer said that? And why is he calling himself just Lawyer?", some might ask, especially other lawyers. Others might wonder if that cat was really a lawyer since that message is bad news for lawyers everywhere.

So, since back then, religion was the law and the law was the religion, Jesus was anointed to practice and interpret the law of Moses (The Torah) and minister to the Hebrew people as a public servant, illegally it should be noted.

Around the age of 30 or so, he came back to Hebrew town after a long stay in India with his dad (Life in a Hebrew Town - Hey-um-ma-ma-my, Hey-um-ma-my-yah!) He desired to minister to his own people as he had done with his people in the East (His father was an Indian Holy Man. Jesus was a half-breed). He knew in order to minister and practice within Hebrew society he would need a license to preach and the "proper" anointing from some faction of Judaism (The Essenes) in order to give him some street cred among the Jewish people.

So one night, back home, breaking bread with the family (Joe, Mary, his step, and half-siblings), Jesus heard tell of his cousin John, who was living out in the desert, baptizing and anointing people as disciples in his special sect of Judaism.  Knowing that a place within mainstream Judaism as a priest or man of the cloth was blocked from his entry, Jesus stuck it to the man and traveled out and joined John's practice in the desert.  He eventually graduated his discipleship, was anointed with a ton of THC oil, and sent out to wander the desert, HAF, for 40 days. Jewish numerology loves the number 40, so it probably wasn't exactly 40 days, especially if we're relying on someone high on Kannabis to tell us how long he was gone. ;)
40 is simply Hebrew speak to denote "a substantial spell". Yeah, you'd be talking to the devil at that point too.  This rite was part of his graduation ceremony. So yes, if you asked a mainstream Temple Jew, Jesus was given the priesthood illegally within an unrecognized sect and ceremony.

He began his ministry upon finding his way back out of the desert and returning to mainstream society.  When his folks heard from the neighbors he was back in town after his wild trip out to see cousin Johnny in the desert, they also heard that he was out telling crazy stories about himself, the devil, and god, they quickly went off to save their family reputation.  According to Mark, the earliest gospel, Mary his mother, and a few brothers and sisters went to the place he was preaching, a house, and tried to fetch him home thinking he had gone mad, mostly because he was saying unusual things and implying that he was the son of god.  So much for the annunciation, hey Mary?

This also explains why the godly representatives within mainstream Judaism were so often at odds with Jesus and his illegitimacy. So often they are seen giving him shit and arguing with him. Turns out that Jesus the Christ was not properly oiled or Christed enough for them (they never used that word), which is completely understandable. He got his license to preach on the black market while getting high on kaneh bosm (cannabis). Jesus was unconventional, to put it mildly.

I love Jesus and everything that surrounds him.  So when speaking of Jesus by name, keep your Christ ... right next to your Crisco.  If I were to name Christians properly, I'd call them Jesussians, an homage to both Jesus and Dr. Suess with their wild collection of late told stories called the New Testament (aka The Legends of Jesus).  

And by the really far-out chance that people ever take to following me and making up wild stories after I'm long dead and gone simply because I was rumored to be a well-oiled man who may have been said to say some inspired shit, and do some miracles (like filing my taxes every year), I hope they call themselves Ronions and meet every week in an anointed cave to bake, get baked, lube, eat, drink and be hairy, for tomorrow they dry.

If anyone feels the need to tell some stories about me they must do it with the vile breath of garlic and onions on their lips as they speak. And laughter is the best amen, deep and hard, maybe even farting laughter, but never on purpose, especially in a closed space - Come on man! that's rude and inconsiderate, and violates the spirit of Just Ron the Ron ... Namely, Poo unto others as you would have them poo unto you ...

As you've read already, if people end up worshipping me, I also hope to be known as Just Ron the Ron, the Fun Sun of God, because ya'll need to lighten up a bit, turn off your electRONics, quit talking so much crap on the internet, and go outside more. ;)

P.S. I hope you didn't find all this too anointing, and it wasn't seen as unctuous.  Beneath all my joking there is a very sincere heart and I love you, whatever you profess to be... even a lover of those well oiled.

Fearless Leader of the Ronions - Just Ron the Ron
Note: We didn't know what the fuck he actually looked like so this depiction is as good as any

To Sheep, Perhaps to Cream - Udder Calm

Friday, April 9th, 2021

Last night I had a very strange dream.  I know, some, maybe most people don't like hearing about other people's dreams a whole lot, especially when they're just a jumbled bunch of weird nonsense that means and makes more sense to the teller than it does to the told. And of course, they just have to give you all the details.

With that, I'll tell you the weird, wonderful dream I had last night ...

I dreamt that I was myself as an old man, like 20-30 years in the future. I was still living on the family "farm" and tending my place, my personal garden of Eden. As usual, I was out moving dirt and muck around, enjoying the emerging bugs while cleaning and repairing my ditches to be ready for the annual irrigation waters which were soon to come. I was much slower and deliberate now, and progress was slower too. Doggo was "helping", as always, never able to pass up a good dig with all the wonderful smells being turned over or set loose. Like help from a kid, sometimes his digging and investigating was more a hindrance than a help, but he made it up more than good with the company.

 I stopped at one point to straighten my back and rest. I was a bit tired, hot, and working up a sweat. As I paused I thought to myself, "What a very peaceful and happy life I've had.", in a sort of strange recollection of all the years that had passed since this dream started. These were beautiful memories of things that hadn't happened yet, and some sad things too as I searched the time lost to a future state. But, "All sad things are born of love... and return to it" I heard my mind say. Plus, at my age, I'd learned the drive to always be happy was a false god, and detrimental actually to true happiness.  "Into each life, a little rain must fall" also came to mind ... as well as the lyrics to Here Comes the Rain Again... by now a very oldie and still a goodie.

I called it a day and gathered my tools as dark clouds were forming from the south and the air was cooling. It started sprinkling a bit, a cool, almost welcome rain that happens while the sun is still shining. The sun was about to call it a day as well, going down among the still white clouds leaving along with it over the near horizon. The western sky as usual was exiting in all its vibrant glory. "This is like the perfect backdrop for a storybook tale of good and evil", I thought as I stood and admired it.

Seeing dark clouds and storms sweeping in on my left, in a growing mass seemingly devouring the distant Earth with rainshadows streaming downward beneath, raised a strong sense of impending doom ... But I thought, "Nah, that's just my instincts telling me it's about time to take cover from the cold dark wetness to come. It's simply that mammalian urge to keep my fur dry and warm." Ah warm!", I thought. As I looked to my right and up above the sky was clear sunny and setting and producing magical rain that seems to come from nowhere out of the clear blue sky above. I've always believed that this rain had a certain kind of magic, and to get wet in it was a kind of lucky charm, a blessing or baptism by angels. Aside from being magical, these rain sprinkles were so often refreshing and nice on a sunny day.

Shortly, my bones started to take chill with the rain sprinkling me cool and wetting my clothes as I stood enjoying this heavenly drama. The heavens before me and on my right were retreating in a seeming surrender to the dark forces coming on from the deep south. 

"Looks like we got ourselves one hell of a storm coming," I said to my hound dog, Cooper, who was curiously observing the same scene in bouts of stillness too, seeming to ponder the end of a good day and enjoy the cool wetness - more yummy smells being stirring up whose sources needed discovery.

As he wound his way back to me and sat again to observe, I touched his wet head and said, "Let's get our hides inside." He followed me in as I turned to walk toward the house to clean up and get into some dry clothes.

I made myself some clam chowder, the quick kind out of a can, much like the dog's meal.

A bit later I started feeling ill. I couldn't decide if it was from the clams or the cold, maybe both, but feeling like crap, with nausea and fatigue, I took to bed, feeling under the weather. You know how a bad bout of flu makes you feel like you're dying. Well, I was sick and fatigued and felt like I was going to die, just like I always felt when really sick, but this time, in my sick dream, I knew. I somehow knew with certainty that this was going to be the one to come true ...

Uneasy, I woke up just then, back in bed, a little upset and feeling cold and sniffling. I realized I was completely uncovered and cold so I sleepily pulled the twisted blanket glob at my feet sloppily back over me. As I drifted back off to sleep, feeling much warmer and the overtones of my death dream still in the air, it felt like my old man's body was being lowered softly into a hole, into the blackness, the eternal still and calm. 

"This is my death!" I thought in that place between wake and dream, feeling a wee bit panicked, but I was too tired to care and willingly sunk down in it ... into complete darkness, silence... total sensory deprivation. Ahhh - Death, the ultimate relaxation.....The eternal Zzzzzzzzzzzzs

As my mind drifted off into nothing and my entire body rested in this blackest black hole ... a floaty, comforting, and drifting black hole you should know ... I experienced complete and udder calm as we often do in our nightly surrender of all consciousness set to rescue the brain from madness.

Somehow in this udder stupor, I realized that I was back in my dream as my older self who had just gone to bed ill and experienced his death. Seems I died from too much chill to the bone... or from my love of clams.

After how much time, I don't know since I was dead to the world, suddenly, like two neurons waking to spark up a conversation, I saw a flicker, a pin of light that sparkled and expanded and swelled to a soft white-yellow glow all around me as I arose to consciousness again - like a reboot. 

Being neither old nor young, with little sense of my own identity except the vague recollection that I once was an old man who died, I looked into the source of the light, the brightest part streaming in, and moved toward it. This must be "a white hole!" I thought as I curiously pushed my face toward it, delighted in my discovery, and thinking maybe its discovery might just win me some kind of science award and notability. What a discovery! There are White holes too in the universe! "Maybe it's what is at the other end of a black hole!", I thought

Surprisingly, the light was not hurting my eyes much at all even though it was ultra bright. Squinting hard, I put my eye up to the pinhole and had a peek. As I pushed my face to it, it stretched out wider. Squinting out the light hole, the brightness soon faded away as my vision returned. I saw a whole new world out there appear in the light before me!

So I stuck my nose and head out of the hole, as my eyes cleared the hole I opened my now sticky eyelids, and there I was, alive again!  I was being born!  "This must be my new life in Heaven!", I thought.  I was so happy!

Just then, I was squeezed hard out of the hole in one last push and hit the straw strewn ground wet, facefirst in the dirt. With shit in my mouth, I looked up and saw the hole. It belonged to my mother... a goat. "I've just been born into heaven as a goat, and the portal to it was a doe's vagina... do re mi fa so la ti DOE!  The hills are alive with the sound of ... Baaha ha ha hah!!

I was all white, with a tinge of yellow, like the glow of light that enveloped me and brought me back to life. I had beautiful long goat legs, long ears that I could always see in my periphery, and hooves for hands and feet. 

"I'm a goat. Hmm... so this is what it's like being a goat, huh?"  Mom was licking me know... It felt nice, being licked, and even nicer being licked by someone you love.

"Hmm, why am I a goat in heaven?" I thought taking a swerve from my goatish reveries. "In the bible, Satan took the goats and Jesus took the sheep. Jesus was the good shepherd, which makes one think that Satan is a bad one? The same Satan who is often depicted as a goat, horns. cloven feet, a tail! ... Baphomet is a goat-man, and now I'm a goat who was a man!

I must be in Hell!" I thought and felt a bit worried about what was to come. I consoled myself in a weird way, seeing that my worries of going to hell were right. It always feels good being right.

Looking about it was a nice barn with a nice warm patch of straw in a wood worn corner and the side of the barn was warm from the spring day sun outside.

"Oh well, it seems like a nice place.  Who knows...?"

I stood up on my wobbly legs after a short time and nuzzled into my mother's teats.  Soon forcefully in my mouth and butting the bag, the milk began to flow as I sucked it in. It tasted like ice cream, delicious nutritious warm ice cream, and mom smelled so wonderful.

Full of warm creamy milk and feeling great and full of life I mused, "I think I'm going to like being a goat" as I licked my fuzzy goat lips. I laid down in the straw and licked my nethers ...  "I'm a girl!? I'm a girl goat! What the hell is going on here?"

Just then the door to the barn opened and the bright light poured in around the silhouette of a human-like creature making its way toward me. "This must be the Devil", I thought, and I was a little afraid, especially with all the recently unsettling events ... Afraid that is until he walked out of the silhouette and I could see his face. 

It was me from the past!

All I could figure is that when I died as an old man, I must have traveled back in time to the day Roxanne was born, the first baby goat born on my farm, March 15th, 2021. And now I was her and she was me, in the future that was now my past. 

Immediately all my fears went away because I knew I was in heaven knowing how much I had loved me as a goat. I felt completely secure anticipating all the wonderful years of my life to come with this goat lovin' devil ...

Sadly, that's when I woke up, and the light was again coming through the window blinds. Turns out I didn't die, in the present or in the future, although I did have that firehose diarrhea going on all day - musta been all that sweet goat milk in my dreams... or all the ice cream I ate before bed.

Joking aside for a moment, I woke up feeling strongly that heaven can be anywhere ... anywhere you feel loved, protected, and secure. It's anywhere you look with a grateful heart. It's where always know and trust that your needs will be taken care of with plenty of food, water, sunshine, and companionship. Most of all it's a place where you are fully allowed to just be you, with calm correction when necessary, and always loved and admired for who you are, and only expected to be such, who you are ... even if you're a goat, maybe even especially if you're a goat.

And that's why you should always be kind to animals because one day you just might be one (Pssst! you already are), in another heaven you never knew about, in another time, or another place, or maybe, just maybe, you're one right now, running around in on "God's Green Acres", in another place and time, or maybe in the same place and time, while the other you sits and frets about their taxes.

Besides, in my book, if you take good care of kids and animals and give them a good life, full of love, full of opportunity of experience and expression, you are a god, a creator of heaven and peace. You are a god in their heaven, and the keeper and provider of their udder joy and calm, even if you're a goat. 

The End

P.S. I hope my dream comes true someday. Until then I plan to love my kids, my animals, you animals, and my goats, especially Roxanne, who may just know more about me than I do right now ;)

Me as a Goat - Roxanne

My Pervy Duck & Coming Into Easter

Dabid and Dwebra 

When you raise a baby duck around baby chicks, and she turns out in due time to be not a dame duck but a dude duck, just be aware that you're now about to witness something weird. We were going to name her Deborah, but now he's Dabid. Thank's Tractor Supply!

It's highly possible he thinks he's a chicken, having known nothing but since he hatched. Dabid loves and protects his girl friends with full "Who's your duck daddy?" devotion, and they love him too. He's good for finding yummy wet duck things when out grazing and his chick hens like the lucky duck things he finds too. They're delicious!

Yes, he protects them and loves them like his own, literally. FWIW - Ducks make better lovers, with a round, not pointed beak, and flappy feet that can't dig too deeply, so it doesn't feel so harsh getting grabbed by the neck and pinned down with clawed feet pushing and climbing on your back when it's a duck, instead of a rooster, as I can only suppose. Yes, they were mateys too.

I thought that all Dabid needed was a "real" girl to make him happy, and straighten him out so he could actually enjoy the fruits of his "labors", and of course hers. 😉 So I found him a girl duck who was an outcast from another flock of ducks, a short stocky Rouen duck ... She was an oddball too, just right for my oddball duck. Bringing her home, I thought they'd hit it off just swell, both being weirdos among their own.

Well ... as soon as I put the new girl in his presence, she showed him what a girl duck really was, putting on all her ducky charms. She definitely gave him the mating signal (of course she did! He's a real handsome fella, loved by all the chicks!), and he was on it, like water gettin off on a duck's back! "Great!" I thought, "It's working!" 😊

But afterward, he ignored her as I let them all out of the coop and his last chicken girl jumped out to go outside for some daylight. They ran off together as Miss Duck followed at a distance in what looked and sounded like jilted love-em and leave em complaints ... again the outsider. Poor Dwebra 😔

Shortly after I got the Dwebra, I got a series of roosters for my two last chicken hens, who had survived my hunting dog growing into his natural instincts ... and his balls. I had started with 4 hens, and lots of eggs on the regular, but a few raccoon raids and fencing mistakes later and I'm down to one chicken and Dabe the Duck ... sadly to say, my last viable hen, a Red Sex-link.

I tried separating them off, the ducks and chickens, putting the ducks in the barn because the last rooster, Stallone, wanted to be with the hen and Ducko Dabe was not letting him have his girl, just like the others. But the ducks kept escaping the barn, wanting to be out and about during the day ... and whenever he did, Dabe was not having any rooster nonsense around his girls. Right out of the barn he would run to them, ditching Dwebra, and only wanting to hang with them all day. Whenever Stallone came near Dabe and his babes, Dabe would duck dive and shuck and jive right at him, in a threatening manner.

Everyone knows you don't cock block a rooster, and Ducko Dabe, although giving the worst at first, soon began to learn that lesson, taking the worst at last, as that rooster got tired of his attacks and blocking his advances. Respect the Cock!

Ducko is now missing most of the feathers off the back of his head, as he lunges at Stallone and bites his back and wings, and even pulls out his feathers at times, drawing bits of blood around the neck and wings as it got worse. At the worst point, Stallone tore off a big clump of feathers from the back of Ducko Dabe's head, with a bit of skin attached to the pulled feathers and some bleeding. When I noticed this last attack, I triaged Dabe and stopped the bleeding. I was relieved to see he was okay, and it just a flesh wound as I kept telling him, "I hope you've learned your lesson, Ducko. You drew first blood." 😉

Sadly, shortly after that event. Stallone was mobbed by the dog as he jumped the fence to go roost by the house at dusk one evening (his favorite place) and I forgot to shut the dog inside in time. I didn't notice he was gone until I woke up the next day and didn't hear him crowing.

He was my favorite rooster-man. Such a gentle man with me and the kids. So friendly and calm, he would always come up and see what you were doing if you stood around long enough looking interesting, and especially if you got down on the ground. He'd be right up in your business, like a consultant on whatever you were working on. He'd even jump on my back and shoulders when kneeling on the ground, and when I stood up to get something he would ride around like a parrot, clucking and crowing in my ear, sometimes grooming my hair.

I mourned him well when I found him dead. I hugged and carried him around until I could finally lay him to rest. Of course, I was angry at the dog and angry at myself. The dog didn't mean to kill him, he's just too "Lenny and the Rabbits" with things he loves too intensely. When I finally found him under the large pine tree in the backyard the next morning, Stallone was intact with all his feathers and no signs of injury. I'm guessing that the dog grabbed him too hard while he was chasing him around and bit him with his big slobbery mouth when he finally caught him, which must have punctured something, but he didn't tear him up or eat him in any way. Doggo probably just wondered why the rooster had stopped playing after he recovered from his incredible hulk moment. I wondered how long the rooster had lived before he died under that tree. The dog had gotten a hen just like this before and still living I took her inside and treated and disinfected her wounds and put her in a box under a heat lamp. She only lasted that day before she passed.

Shortly after this, when my last rooster died, my last hen was taken by raccoons. Yeah, it's really sad and heartbreaking, even now, but as a silver lining, now Dabe and Dwebra are being regular ducks together, with no more barnyard brawls, and a lot of duck doins ... and she's sitting on a nest of fertile eggs!

I was also able to get fertile eggs from my hens before they were killed and they're now in the incubator and should hatch soon ... So my chickens will live on in their offspring if and when they hatch ... I sure hope I get another chicken like Stallone - I miss him the most. 😥

I think the coming Easter will be a Happy Easter since that's about when my chicken eggs are due to hatch! By that time I should have all my fencing up and the ducks and chickens will have their own places, and hopefully, by then, Ducko Dabe will be fully content to simply be a duck. He is so now.

P.S. - If Stallone is resurrected this Easter, with a son of his hatching out among all my incubated eggs, I will call him Rambo! ... Or Jesus Junior, because in my book Stallone was a son of god among all the roosters I've known before ... and I've known enough roosters to know a great one when he comes along .... Just like Jesus. 😎

Stallone Crow'n

Happy Duckling Easter! Even if it's a little weird, sad, or perverted this time around ... and as always, be sure to listen for the cock to crow, especially if your name is Peter. 😉 😛

Hair of the 21 Pilots: Guns 4 a Son of A Bitch

I had a wonderful realization this morning. "Isn't it wonderful that I love, and I mean absolutely love my teenage son's music?" I was moved to tears of joy thinking this while driving to work this morning and listening to a live version of Twenty One Pilots, Guns 4 Hands. I love this group, and Tyler Joseph is one talented dude. Not to mention Josh is a killer on drums ... And this group will be one that we share together through time, a shared love and admiration that binds us together. Music is good for that. I often think of him when listening to this group, and I know he thinks of me. He got his mom to take him to their last concert with him. She came out loving the experience. I love that. 💗

You see, my music at his age put me and my dad at a distance. I still remember him stomping my Nazareth, Hair of the Dog, 8-Track, into the fibers of my bedroom carpet, when I was playing a certain track, a little too loud, on a Sunday, just after church. 

Hair of the Dog <-- link to song

I remember as a 13-year-old boy, the same age as my son now, seeing the look on my father's face, the anger, the rage, the hatred, and seeming all of it directed at me as he yelled at me his contempt and I backed away. I felt right then, a searing realization that he didn't love me. Me, all of me. This was something about me that he didn't love. There was much more in that look than just hate for a band. It was a face void of love, and full of hatred, not just for Nazareth, for me, for my taste in music and my reckless out-of-bounds playing of it on Sunday. He was calling me out for bad behavior. I loved Nazareth ... still do ... and I don't need to drink and swear, fornicate, get tattoos, or do drugs to do so... You know, the "evil" stuff.

So after my father left in a huff, I, still in shock with my finger hooked on my loosened tie, paused to recover from Crush-afflixion of Nazareth. The room was now in stark silence, and my mind was in "wow, that just happened", mode. I sat down on the edge of my bed, halfway through my routine of undressing from church. I remember sitting there motionless and dejected, as I looked at the broken pieces of plastic, and the tape guts bleeding, spooled over the floor. I loved that album. I thought of the work I would have to do to earn the money to buy a new one.

I realized and clung to the idea among all the evidence from times past, that my Dad still loved me, but he certainly didn't love my music. He hated it. He thought it was evil and vulgar. I understood that. I think that's what attracted me to it in the first place...that, and their kickass artwork of Dragons and Demons and Monsters on their albums. It was like naughty candy to my brain. An escape from the reality of pure white Mormonism... an allowable escape... But, "Not in my house on a Sunday!"

On Sunday, you stayed in the box - On Sunday you honored The SABBATH! ... Makes me wonder if Ronnie and the boys could have rocked my Dad's world on Sunday without retribution with tunes off Heaven and Hell? I'm sure it could have passed muster if done more quietly. I recall my brother Steve rocked the walls a time or two on Sunday, beating on his Drums in the basement. Now that was loud, but devoid of offensive cuss words... well mostly. I'm sure he swore a time or two when he lost grip of his sticks.

If Steve was anything like me, one of the first things we would do after church on Sunday was go down to our room and take off our church clothes, eager to play. Sunday was me-time because dad couldn't make me do chores or work around the yard, neither could mom, and I didn't have school. And during me-time was when I freely explored the things I was interested in. It was my free time. Away from church and away from school. I loved the Sabbath as a kid. 😉.  And the time it truly glowed was when I got time off the clock just to be me, and explore what I wanted to explore.... in the days before the internet ...

I was still in my church clothes when the album got destroyed, so Dad won on a technicality. Being dressed as a Saint and listening to Satan, I was out of bounds. Dad=+1, Son= -666 I kept my mouth shut and claimed the loss deserved... knowing now there was something my dad hated about me, enough to crush it to a pulp.

The point is, my Dad didn't like my music when I was my son's age, and it put somewhat of a wedge between us ... although he did begin to come around later after my LDS mission, there was never my love for Hard Rock or Metal in his heart.

I didn't know that he secretly loved my Queen albums until I arrived home and found him smiling and happily engaged in the basement theater room, watching them perform live in concert on his big-screen LaserDisc system... What a shock! It was a Twilight Zone moment, one that my current self, had he been there, would have asked, "What the fuck is this!?"

But, thinking about it, I do remember him one Sunday, when I was 12 or 13, coming up behind me as I tried to learn "Lazing on a Sunday Afternoon" on his piano. Curiously, he asked me about the song and I told him it was by a group named Queen and showed him the songbook I'd borrowed from a friend. He sat down next to me on the bench, picked it up, and looked it over, keeping his finger in my page. Satisfied, he set it back down on the music stand, back open to my page, and said, "Carry on." and went back to doing whatever he was doing. Maybe that's where the seed was planted? All I know is, it was a real trip coming home off my mission and seeing my conservative, old-fashioned-music, Lawrence Welk bubble-blowin dad, tripping out to Queen on the big screen. I loved it!

After the shock, or maybe because of it, I sat down on the end of the couch next to him and we watched it together. "Boy, a lot can happen in two years.", I thought. It was a weird arrival back home, fresh off my mission. But this was sacred space. Dad and I, smiling and happy together, in the same room, listening to and enjoying the same music, and admiring the same players and performers. It's one of my best memories with my dad ... that and watching his Gaslight Theater program together ... and I don't mean attending church. It was a series that happened every week late at night, where they played a famous old movie, usually black and white.

After my LDS mission, my musical interests started away from rock and heavy metal, into new wave. I blame groups like The Cars, The Buggles, and Yazoo .... and that guy who threw an early Peter Gabriel cassette at me, saying, "Check this out kid!", as we both rifled through a sea of cassettes in the record store's discount bin. I picked up the cassette and looked back and forth at it and him. I smiled and said "Thanks!", holding up the cassette to him. I was a bit embarrassed, and now feeling somewhat obliged to buy it. It could be any kind of weird stuff this dude likes ... But the album cover had a man with half his face melted off. That alone made it worth $3.99! I had no clue who this Peter Gabriel guy was as I left with him from the record store. Back home I rescued him from the cellophane and let him tell me stories in his songs to some really cool music. What a treasure thrown at me here. And how did I not know that the melty-face guy used to play with Genesis!? I loved Genesis! Duke was a masterpiece.

In his later years, my dad liked Genesis, and Phil Collins, and other popular songs, but not much Peter Gabriel. He liked some of my new music too, like Depeche Mode, Erasure, TFF, New Order, Peter Murphy, and Twins like Thompson and Cocteau ... This was the music I played while I lived with him while attending my last year of college, and he was now living as a free man, with another man. He actually asked me to play the Cocteau Twins one day, and I lent him those albums.

Despite moments of anger and disagreement, I always knew my dad loved me. He loved kids, and he loved being a kid, just like me. Although, his childhood was riddled with the tragedy of losing his mother at 7 years old and later his dad when he was 22. With my mother, fate was kind enough to wait until I was 53 ... and it still hurt horribly. I can't imagine losing someone when you need them so much, but his oldest sister Merle picked up the slack and took him into her life and home. He had a great bunch of beautiful sisters, and one grumpy oldest brother, old enough to be his dad and my grandpa. My father loved his family and his kids. I planned to have kids someday too. It was certainly on my list of LDS things to do... Many times I ponder that, if not for the LDS church, and my father believing their judgment and advice, I wouldn't exist ... but that's another story of iRony.

As I grew up, I'd always heard of the Generation Gap, and I'd often get this fearful assumption and dread that I would hate my kid's music too. I dreaded repeating that separation with my kids. And thinking ahead, I planned on it ... It was a fear that never happened, as I'm not fighting demons anymore, having left the LDS church around 2005. I don't believe in evil forces or evil influences anymore, except those in real people. Nothing supernatural, they're just bad players, all by themselves. I know who I AM... enough to endure, and even embrace what others would call evil, without it changing the goodness in me. Except for my coffee drinking, my love for an occasional beer or alcoholic beverage, and my swearing, I'm still basically that good LDS kid my parents raised to be responsible, honest, kind, etc... well minus the LDS spin on reality too. I continue to learn that honest and kind are often a balancing act, with silence replaced for honesty when honesty would not be kind. This was pretty much the gist of my blog on discretion and lying.

My dad wasn't really angry at me right then. He was afraid of the Devil, and a believer that the influence of evil music, as he was told by the prophets and apostles, would lead to my demise and destruction. He was fighting him that day, with the Foot of Gabriel, The Stomper of Moroni, and The Shoe of Shadrach, Meshach, and Abednego! ... Righteous indignation is the best high ever...
(Shadrach Meshach & Abednego)

He was fighting foul demons, the ones I was entertaining, and the fear of losing me to Satan's influence made him afraid and angry ... I guess, it was a lot like me trying to get him to quit smoking, something he did till he died, after leaving my mother and living his truth as a gay LDS man. Cigarette smoking was a major cause in his death.

Makes me wonder if my dad were alive today if he'd love Twenty One Pilots too. Maybe it could have been a multi-generational thing ... My son Aaron was the only child of my three that he held in his arms while alive. My dad died when Aaron was just over a year old, in November of 2006. And if life goes on after death, I'm sure he loves my kids. I certainly know that he does, as much as his DNA and life are expressed through me. I hope in knowing me, my children will know what a wonderful man my dad was, even when he was smashing a thing I loved to save me from evil.

It also makes me wonder which of my music he'd still stomp today ... and that makes me glad I have it all backed up electronically. ;)

I know this has been a bit long-winded, but these are the thoughts that exploded in my mind today over the course of just a few minutes, that I had to put to paper, as I realized, "I Love my kid's music!" and What a blessing that love is! 💓
Guns 4 Hands

No Regrets?

Over the course of everyone's life they're dealt a handful of regrets.  Some encounter more disappointments than others, but life has plenty for all.

I often hear people proudly state that they have none, "I have no regrets in my life, my mistakes made me who I am."  
I can see that angle.  Yet this statement bugs me.  It feels a little like denial, or the inability to admit error. My life is just the one I need. My choices made me who I am. It feels proud and egotistical. Like saying, "No flies on me".  

It's a common human trait to have a strong aversion to correction or admitting error, and maybe this attitude is just an extension of that thinking. I think this denial of regret is just another manifestation of the human inability to admit that things go wrong in my life and they're not always good. The inability to admit that, "My choices or thinking is not always good". We'd rather believe in our charmed fate, like everything that happens to us good or bad is part of some sort of divine destined path.
Maybe it's simply putting a positive spin on the typical stuff that happens to everyone.

Every regret is not always a mistake.

Like a game of poker, life is a gamble, and we don't control the cards we're dealt.  We really have no idea what we're going to get, but we do try to make the best choices with what we're dealt, and put on our poker face.  Many times our bluffed bravado blazing boldly forward with a bad hand is our undoing ... sometimes it works.   Sometimes we underestimate our chances with a mediocre or good hand and foolishly fold.  At any rate, I think this statement of No Regrets is often a poker face, at least.  And at worst, it may be a sign of some degree of psychopathy or sociopathy.  They have no regrets/remorse either.

So, like everything, there is a healthy middle to acknowledging mistakes and showing at least a little bit of remorse.

Speculating on the past, although having the potential to be very informative and instructional, is fraught with the woulda-shoulda-coulda, if only's, that halt our forward progress, and our living in the moment of what is today, and what we can make happen in the near future.   The trouble with this is that the future of every choice is hinged on the present moment's choices, and all we really have is the present.  We do the best we know how at the current moment.  There is no golden ticket with choices. Each decision made in the present, is wrapped with our current place in time and understanding, and the chock full of unforeseeable consequences and pathways.  There are no perfect choices.  Everything has a flip-side.

My mother's life story was often filled with regret about who she married, and the what-ifs of how her life would have been if she had chosen another suitor who was wooing her at the time.  She had a few at the time she chose to marry my father.  The most prominent one I remember, is a man named Rodger.  Rodger proposed to her and she took his ring over to my not then Dad and tried to influence his decision toward her.  She obviously loved my dad more (although she would say she fell in love with his family, all a bunch of beautiful happy sisters whom she loved to be around). No, she married my dad, who as it was turned out to be gay. After 32 years of marriage and 6 children, he came out.  I've analyzed the dynamics of why my mother chose my father, and I think it had a lot to do with her mother's love and acceptance - she claimed it was a rarefied thing.

I think this too can be a bad thing, obsessing about the past and trying to make it different than it was - a useless activity.  I think it's good to reminisce and think about your past only in the effort of the joy of remembering, and also to help you steer yourself into the future, hopefully avoiding the mistakes made back there ... self correction.

Typical Regrets:
Relationships that go sour... marrying the wrong person.
Staying in a sour/bad relationship too long
Doing anything you don't find fulfilling too long
Sacrificing for unappreciative undeserving people
Helping people that use and abuse you, and take advantage
Career choices
Believing the stories and lies of a religion/organization
Not being kind or more involved with someone who has died
Not going to college, or pursuing a wrong suited degree
Not applying yourself to education when it was free
Being responsible for someone's pain, hurt, downfall, or demise

I'd rather be told the bold and even hurtful truth than remain stuck in my own  ignorant delusions.  But sometimes it's our delusions that keep us going ... sometimes it's our positive talk that fuels our fantasies, and our fantasies, when grounded, become some form of our reality.

I would deny no one their fantasies, those of escape, and those of a better future, as long as they are within the bounds of basic human dignity toward others.  I just post stuff like this to help myself think, and be honest, and hopefully you too.

You see, in my own self-inspection I have found that my biggest fear is that other people are thoughtless, self-centered, deceitful narcissistic sociopaths, and so someone saying something like, "I have no regrets."  sends up a huge red flag.

So, I guess, at worst, the takeaway here is that this could be seen as advice to sociopaths/psychopaths, to stop saying that. You're giving yourself away! ... also, while you're at it, stop lying. :)

Ephemera

I truly believe that Life is Eternal... not my life, but life as a thing that happens and continues in the universe.  I guess as much as the universe is an eternal thing, I think that life, as is obvious from our very own existence, is part and parcel of the material thing we call a universe or reality.

If you think of it, you have a bloodline, and existence that goes back through the tree of life.  Every one of your ancestors survived long enough to procreate, all the way back through humans, hominids, mammals, dinosaurs, etc, even back to the first simple forms of life.  You come from a long line of life... and this is your moment, in this small slice of time to continue on in the chain of life, life that is attendant to the material world... and maybe there are forms of consciousness, that we don't associate with life, but who, however, are very much alive.

I have a friend who believes that if something is not eternal, than it is not real.  I however think that there is nothing eternal, and all existence happens in an ever changing round of time and circumstances.  Our time bound existences, that disappear with us, yet always pass on life to the next generation - THAT is real.  Change is eternal.  And what is imaginary is to think that anything lasts forever....without changing in some way or another.

Happy Universe!