Running With Scissors Part 1

This is the first edition of my new BLOG. I am calling the series “Running with Scissors” because I hope to communicate that I take chances and I don’t much like it when someone (especially the government) tells me I can’t do something.


As you can see from my photo I am not the guy that likes to just sit and swing nice.

I do not remember what I was planning once I transferred to the cloths line pole but more than likely it was because I saw a challenge and thought it looked fun.

Remember when the playground was fun? We had great swings and teeter totters and merry go rounds. We had monkey bars and tether ball and hot metal slides. The teachers told us to go outside and play and we did. Tag, dodge ball, red rover, wrestling and all kinds of good fun that they yell at kids for today.

I was always climbing on something and I still do., despite my old age acquired fear of heights. I was always getting out onto the farthest and skinniest limb or hanging off the edge or just generally trying to scare the heck out of my mom. More recently, following the ice storm of the winter of 2007, I was out on the limbs of my trees with a chain saw 30 feet above the ground trying to clean up the mess.

I grew up at a pretty good time when a kid could go do stuff without getting into too much trouble. We watched TV and movies and we could go outside and play Cowboys and Indians and Army and not worry about being politically incorrect. Shoot sometimes you even wanted to be the Indians, they had bows and arrows and spears. The little bow I got after my tonsils were removed actually shot arrows. My cap gun only made noise. My mom probably warned me against putting my brother’s eye out but he still has both of them. Later my dad got me a real bow when I was 8 with real arrows. I remember he took me and my brother into a field behind the house and shot the arrows into the air and showed me how far they would go then told me not to do that. I still have that bow and it still works and I neeverrr shot any arrows into the air. Riiiight!

My TV heroes were the Lone Ranger and Zorro and Sgt Preston. My brothers were my side kicks and they put up with being injuns and bad guys and partners in crime. I recall Rob even slept with his cowboy gunbelt , minus the gun. He wore that thing all the time.

Later when my family moved to Africa in the early ‘60s my life really did become an adventure. I was like the son of Tarzan or something. Not that my dad swung from trees but he gave me a chance to have a childhood that only happens in books. There were all sorts of dangers and opportunities to get hurt or killed or to just have fun. With deadly snakes, monitor lizards and giant spiders about, a 10 year old with a good air rifle was as well equipped as Kit Carson - Frontier Scout, another guy I still admire.

In this blog I will address issues important to me. I fear we are a country no longer willing to take chances or to go out on a limb. There are too many people in our lives that are scared to death that we might get hurt or that we might do something that they don’t want us to do. They make us wear helmets and seatbelts, they tell us not to ski out of bounds and to keep both wheels on the ground at all times. They are the ones that cause me the most indigestion. Who are THEY? Why have we given them so much control?

In truth they are not generally evil bastards that wake up each morning with the singular mission of making life miserable for their fellow citizens however, they do feel very strongly that they know best. They only want to help !

When my daughter was a little squirt she showed a lot of stubbornness. (Got it from her mother I think.) Her first sentence was “do it myself”. I wanted to help but she wanted to do it her way. God bless her she still does it her way even if it isn’t the easiest.

I believe that this country is in trouble. Instead learning to do it ourselves we have way too many people that are afraid to try and they want someone else to do it for them. If we were facing the mighty Ohio River standing on the safe side, would we be willing today to board those flat bottomed boats and head downstream to new opportunities or would we sit and wait for the government to help us? I tell you this, if you wait for the authorities, first they likely won’t let you go for your own good and if they do, it will only be after you get a permit, pay a fee and install a coastguard approved throw cushion. Huck Finn had one don’t you know. I’m just sayin.