Life – Page 4 – lee-lawmaster.com

Another One Gone and Another One Gone…

Another one bites the dust. Another piece of my childhood, my memories and my life, gone. I drove by today, and the lot is flat. No remnants of the building remain.

Such has become so frequent locally that it’s normal. It kills my heart and breaks my soul.

I lived in this home for a period of time. It had been converted into four apartments. I lived in the two that are facing this google street view image.

I was shoved into this new living situation because “Kathy says you can’t live here anymore” according to my father. Kathy is my stepmother. I don’t know how or why he allowed that to happen. I certainly wouldn’t if faced with a similar situation.

My mother had just moved back from her years long sojourn with her husband at the time, on a drug and alcohol fueled run from the law. They ended up in Lubbock, TX as they ran out of gas to make it to their original destination, Oregon. My mom had spent time there working at a nursery, while they lived in a camping trailer. She had come back alone, trying to get away from him.

She had gotten a job, and a good one, at General Electric. It was at the time one of the largest employers in the area and the largest side by side refrigerator factory in the world. She had rented the top floor apartment facing Walnut Street.

So here I was, essentially thrown at my mother like the garbage. It was odd, it was scary and it was traumatic. It was only a 1 bedroom apartment, my bedroom was the living room. I had no place to keep things, even clothes. Such was my life for that period of time.

It was during this period that I got into some of the most serious trouble I had ever gotten into in my life. It was the summer between 5th and 6th grade. I, like my father had matured physically earlier than my peers. I was six feet tall by then. I met some of the neighborhood kids and started to form bonds, as the move meant going to a new school (that also doesn’t exist anymore). It was a nice summer bonding with those guys, we got into a lot of mischief.

There was a new gas station one block away, called Bigfoot at the time but now a Circle K. Back then, they used to store all of their cases of soda right outside the front door. We hatched a plot to take it all, and take it all we did. With two lookouts, we would run across the front making sure to keep our heads down to not be seen by the employees. We would then drop off our load at the back of the gas station, in an alley. It was a circular pattern that we repeated until we had met our goal. We then split up the spoils and took our booty home.

I, through the connections I had made found out about these things we called “bullets.” No, they were not the item a piece of ammunition fires out of a firearm, but something used on cable TV systems to block premium TV channels. This was before the wave of “digital” everything in our lives. These “bullets” would give you the channel if you placed it on the back of your TV however. So, we banded together to harvest as many of these as possible – to sell on our neighborhood’s black market.

There was a trick to harvesting these “bullets” however, as they were installed on the distribution blocks that fed cable TV access to each home, roughly fifteen feet in the air. Most of the electric poles in the vicinity had steps embedded in them however, making access easier. Those steps didn’t start until about six feet, causing some issues. We would often use trash cans and other items we could find to help us reach our goal. We obviously couldn’t do this during the day, so it would always be late at night when we did this. We didn’t want an unsuspecting person to start looking out their windows when we disconnected their cable service to remove these items, just to connect it back a minute or so later.

Officially called a “Positive Trap Filter”

They were a very popular item, which we would sell for $20 a piece. They worked for Cinemax, Showtime and Encore but would not work for HBO. For HBO, the cable company installed a device that blocked the network and would have to do something in their office to enable the service.

It was during this time that I also became addicted to the act of being a “peeping tom.” There was a piece of my sexuality that was becoming awakened. My stepfather constantly had porn videos playing, or old fashioned pornographic magazines around. It wasn’t all about the sexual end of the spectrum for me however. It was about doing something I knew was wrong and the rush of adrenaline it gave me.

Those were the good times. That was when life was good and my innocence was being chipped away slowly. Then my stepfather came back, looking for my mother. I was actually spending the night at my best friends house when we heard a very loud clatter. It was him, he had driven back from Texas, pulling that camper he and my mom had lived in the entire time.

Soon enough, he had moved in with my mother and we moved into the apartment downstairs. It was “larger” according to the adults, but again I had a couch to sleep on and not much else. My clothes were kept in a cardboard box in the bedroom. The bathroom was so small that only 1 person could stand in it at a time.

The kitchen was straight out of the 1950’s, with metal cabinets and countertop. The stove looked like a 1959 Cadillac, with curves galore.

I had heard a tale from neighbors about that apartment. A trucker and his wife had lived there previously. He came back from a run to discover her in the act of cheating on him with another man. The neighbors said that he shot her in the head in the bathroom. There was a bullet sized hole that was covered by a piece of foam backed plastic and a couple of blood spatters high on the wall. I believe that story to be true.

Eventually tales of violence and sexual conquests would come back to the apartment, and they would leave their mark on me forever.

That summer, I had made a girlfriend of sorts. She lived by my best friend and we would talk here and there. Eventually we started talking on the phone a lot. We then began going to each others houses. There was one large difference between us however, she was 17 and I wasn’t 12 yet. Physically, I had the stature of a 17 year old, but wasn’t matured emotionally yet.

One night she came over, my stepdad filled her thoughts of being his secretary of his “company” that he ran (he always worked for himself, but was by no means rich), gave her alcohol and started massaging her. Before I knew it, they were in the bedroom, having sex. I couldn’t believe what was happening, right there basically in front of me. I was crushed on multiple emotional angles. I didn’t even know how to process it. When they finished, she came and offered to perform oral sex on me, but I wasn’t even sure what that was and I didn’t even want her near me. My stepdad paid for her to take a cab home, I never heard from her or saw her again. She and I had been playing “footsie” before everything transpired.

When school began, I was suddenly forced to realize how much of a different area I was in. There was originally two 6th grade classes, but one of the teachers quit. After multiple substitutes, we were finally provided with a teacher who was supposed to be there the rest of the year. I don’t know if she finished the year or not, because I was expelled from the school in October.

Before I get to how, I must explain why. Being the tallest kid in school, I became a target of anger from all of the other boys in my class, except for one who was oddly enough the smallest in the 6th grade class. He was one of the kids I befriended over the summer. I was chased, beaten and terrorized in and outside of school.

One day, while walking home from school the entire population of 6th grade boys followed me, in an attempt to beat me up. This was when I refused to be a victim any longer. My mother surprisingly showed up in an attempt to pick me up from school and witnessed this, along with the single friend I had made. As these boys were throwing rocks and other items at my back, I turned around and threw one of them into the path of a car. He almost got hit.

That however didn’t stop the attacks. A few days later, a group of them came with BB guns and knives, shooting up the apartment and bursting holes into every window. I grabbed the keys to my mom’s Dodge St. Regis and ran them down (no I didn’t run them over). I did however, run over their bicycles – all of them.

Those kids still weren’t deterred. My stepdad had bought me a cheap Daisy BB handgun. I carried it with me anywhere and everywhere I went after that. Anytime I saw one of those kids, I would shoot at them. I had hit a few of them, it’s aim wasn’t exactly precise.

Eventually, I decided to take that BB handgun to school with the intention of shooting everyone I could. The stresses from the horrible life I was living in addition to the constant attacks I was facing from the school (both students and administration) were more than I could bear.

So I loaded it up with all of the BB’s it could handle, and brought an extra tube of BB’s with me. I showed that friend I had made right before we made it to school. I was going to leave it in my backpack but chickened out and hid it in a bush instead. Someone saw this and reported it to the principal. Within an hour they had called the police and placed me under direct supervision.

The police talked to me about how that BB handgun looked like a real one, and how they would shoot someone with real ammunition if they saw someone with it. I was expelled from the school (Templeton Elementary School) but I was advanced to the 7th grade with only having 2 months of my 6th grade education. Much like the majority of educators in my life, they were just passing the buck.

When I got back home, my stepfather surprised me with a beating with a switch that I’ll never forget. I was then driven to Terre Haute to stay in Charter Hospital under lock down for the 2nd time in my life. This experience was much darker than the previous time. I was there for 3 weeks.

I don’t know if there were other complaints made about me to the police or what, but I was eventually put on probation for a term of 6 months. I distinctly remember my father taking me to the homes of each of the boys who’s bikes I had destroyed. He paid their parents for my destructive defense.

So, goodbye 1301 South Walnut. You brought a lot of misery to my life. While I certainly didn’t have a good time while being a resident of your neighborhood, you did leave memories and impressions on my life that I will carry with me to my dying day.

Postscript:
That single friend I had made while in that school turned out to be the biggest bully of them all. His mother died when we were in middle school, and he was put into the foster care system. I eventually lost contact with him. It wasn’t until the age of Myspace and Yahoo! Profiles that we reconnected. It was great for the 11 year old me, who always appreciated how he stood by me when it felt like the world was against me. He eventually moved back to Bloomington, but lived a life on the edge. Sleeping on friends couches or making girlfriends just for a place to stay. I offered him my garage for anything, and did whatever I could for him. I even enlisted my dad’s AAA service when his car broke down. He constantly pressured me to let him stay at my home for free, but my wife at the time wouldn’t allow it. I eventually got divorced, and when I began dating again, he started harassing me about it. I had to block him on social media and cut him out of my life on the request of the police. He has a lengthy rap sheet, with multiple convictions but seems to always slide between the cracks of the justice system. Funny to call it that, as his first name is Justice. As of late, he began harassing people making comments on The Bloomingtonian’s Facebook page. The website is operated by an award winning photojournalist who is trying to keep local journalism alive. I’m happy he’s no longer in my life, but sad that he can’t let go of his own sadness enough to not bully and intimidate others.

Random YouTube Wormholes, and how humanity touches me

Yesterday, I randomly discovered something that touched me deeply. I’m not much for vlogging, even though my own YouTube channel is essentially that. That’s where the great algorithms google has created said “hey, you might like this video.”

This is the exact video that was recommended to me

At first, my naughty side was engaged. Then I realized this was just a small piece of a much larger and deeper engagement. This woman was reading the secrets every teenage boy wanted to know when we were young, she was reading her diaries!

So I circled the wagons, and started at the very first video and kept the videos playing. It was around midnight when I stopped last night, not realizing the time. There were only two more videos of the series left, my heart full of those emotions I felt as a middle school / freshman boy.

By her own words, she came from a stereotypical middle class family, had what can be only described as a “normal” upbringing, yet only wanted the love and affection from a boy (or girl) that would make her feel complete. This moved me, down to the core of my being.

At the same age, I never felt liked, wanted or needed by anyone in my age group who was of love or sexual interest. Middle school was the time of my life in school, but much like Rodney Dangerfield I didn’t get no respect! I didn’t know what made girls like boys, but I wanted to be one of those boys they liked.

My 7th Grade picture, middle. They infamously spelled my name wrong.

Back then, I really wore my heart on my sleeve. (Who am I kidding, I still do.) My two go to’s with the opposite sex were cheesy lines and deeply written heartfelt notes of affection towards the ones that made my heart go pitter patter. I still speak with and know several of those girls, and those lines have stayed as memories of way back when.

One was to a girl who I instantly felt comfortable with, we will call her M. I would always ask her if she wanted to “take a magic carpet ride with me?” while passing her. Another girl, we will call her A, I used to essentially harass by asking her if she knew “what the other white meat was.” This was a play on the pork industry’s marketing at the time. Another girl, her first name is the name of one of the boats Christopher Columbus had, so I would ask her were they went? She’s now a professor at the same university I work at. When I took her course (you know I had to), I would bring this up, and even wrote it on my final exam “for bonus points.”

The notes, or letters or whatever you want to call them, I’m not sure if I’ll ever know how they were received by their intended recipients. I don’t even know if they got them. I would pour my heart and soul out to these girls, but never received a response in kind. Never.

But still, NOBODY WANTED ME. It seemed as if all of the girls I wanted actually wanted someone else, or a guy of more social significance had “laid claim to her” as if she were a piece of property. I didn’t understand, I still don’t.

I had my guy friends, people I had known quite literally since I was born, but it wasn’t the same. I wanted someone to fill my heart with joy. Bring smiles to my face just because they exist, all of that romantic stuff kids of this age think of.

I went through a lot of struggle during this time of life. My mother ran off with my stepfather as he was wanted by the police, leaving me alone in a trailer. Eventually I was living there with no electricity, no heat, no water – nothing. I was surviving through the money my dad faithfully paid for me to have lunch. When he discovered this, a new change began. He and I started living with my grandmother, 30 miles away (because my stepmom wouldn’t allow me to live in her house).

A girlfriend would have helped my soul, significantly. I will digress on me now.

Her YouTube series just highlights the struggles that most if not all of us must sadly endure. Those cringeworthy years where we want something – but don’t know how to get it. Don’t know how to understand the signs that someone is interested or not interested in you. They are times that leave an indelible mark on all of our souls.

You could say those times were fruitful for me, as I’ve always been what I call a “social chameleon.” Being able to fit into all sorts of social circles, it has enabled my continued connections to many of that time.

After a 11 year marriage, I ended up reconnecting with many from that time as a method of healing my wounded soul. I wanted to see how life had treated all of those that I genuinely cared about. I eventually started spending more and more time with one of them. At the age of 35, I was still unsure if she was giving me signs of interest, if she liked me, etc. It was like middle school all over again.

On the advice of a trusted friend, after we went to the drive-in (her kids, she and I) I planted a kiss on her as I was walking her to her door. I didn’t want to be in a state of confusion of where I stood in her life. I had to make a move. I was also legitimately worried that I had just ruined this excellent friendship she and I had been forming.

My girlfriend, also 7th grade at the same school. Middle image. We never spoke. WHY???

The constant pessimist, I assumed I would never hear from her again. I was wrong. In a couple of weeks, we will be celebrating 4 years as a couple. It’s been a wild adventure with her, but I think my life would have been much less interesting without her in it.

Had I realized I could look back on my writings 20 years later, and see the inner most thoughts of a younger version of myself, I would have started writing way back then. I hope you are reading this Gretasaur, and I hope you are smiling.

I sent Gretasaur an email and facebook message, just to say thank you. I deeply appreciate those gifts she provided the world, and I want her to be aware of that.

Lenny Bruce is not afraid

I must say, even though I was aware of this pandemic from it’s beginnings, I was ill prepared for it. Something I’m not all too happy about.

I was raised learning how to care for myself in any situation. Fishing, hunting and basic living skills were drilled into me at an early age. Tools such as knives, firearms and trap making are something I have deep seated knowledge of as well.

But here I sit, with no real emergency supplies of food. No water reserves on hand, or portable water filtration systems to use ground water with. No real firearms except my trusty 9mm handgun.

A weapon that was confiscated from me under Indiana red flag laws due to a zealous sheriff’s deputy. It was then returned to me, along with my lifetime permit to carry a firearm after tensions were eased with my ex-wife and legal processes were able to finalize.

It’s true, these items are not something I require at this moment. They are not daily needs for survival. We are but a couple of steps away from them being as such however.

After my divorce, my 2nd Amendment Rights were stripped from me for a period of 2 years due to a couple of reasons I will not disclose here. Once all of that was over with, and the state returned my “License to Carry Handgun.” I thought I would test this approval. So I went to a gun shop and bought what is called a Stripped AR Lower Receiver. This is the only part of an AR that is truly considered a weapon, and requires a background check to purchase.

I passed the background check, I was so happy. That was really the only reason I purchased it. To see if I could. I had no major interest in building an AR-15. I had no need for one.

A year later, an opportunity presented itself where I could purchase a complete AR-15 at a steal of a price from a different gun shop just down the road from me. I sent the guy the funds and went to do the background check as soon as I could. I was denied. Wait, what? I don’t understand? The store owner provided me with paperwork on how to figure out what was causing this and how to resolve it. So I proceeded.

I was now speaking with the Department of Justice and the FBI. (Hi there). In essence, they were saying that I was put on a list. One you can never be removed from. This list (actually a database) is what denies persons from purchasing firearms in this country. I provided them with all of the legal paperwork I had including court orders from a judge to have me removed from said database. That did not matter to them. They ended with essentially stating they were done speaking with me, and any further communications should be done through my state firearms division, leaving a department name and address.

So I started speaking to them, over their own encrypted email systems. According to them, there was no problem at all. That according to my state I have my 2nd Amendment Rights without question. I kept pushing and asking but have still to this day, not received a response regarding the issue with the DOJ and FBI.

As of right now, I am simply waiting until 2022 when I can officially request that all of the records of these events be expunged. Then I will attempt another firearm purchase.

I want to be crystal clear on this fact. I am not writing this with a political perspective, and I do not want my words to be used for any political means. I am giving my personal story of how these laws and databases have affected me personally.

The panic buying, the people not listening to their governments the hoarding made me realize I was not equipped to defend myself or my family should it come to that sort of situation. So I have begun building an AR-15 from that stripped lower I purchased a couple of years ago from a licensed FFL that required a background check.

I purchased a complete lower parts kit from Palmetto State Armory, a well known supplier of firearms and firearm parts. I started building last night, I have found it as interesting as enjoyable. I haven’t worked on weapons since I was a teenager and civil war re-enacted.

So far, I have only installed the Magazine Catch, Bolt Catch and Trigger assemblies. This unit has a trigger guard built in, which many do not.

I have found that I will need an armorer’s tool in order to torque the buffer tube correctly. But I should be able to assemble this lower without any other special tools. They help, but are not required.

Once finished, I will find a pre-built upper assembly to purchase, and this weapon will be complete. All parts simply delivered to my home. No background checks. In many ways, it’s like shopping on Amazon.

I can then begin to stock things to feel comfortable in a “end of the world” situation, like MRE’s, ammunition, and a water supply.

To some, preparing for the end of the world or society is something only crazy persons do. To me being prepared is never a bad thing.

The New Normal

It’s been a while since I’ve written. I’m really trying to make a conscious effort to not keep up with writing my thoughts. It’s important, especially in times like the ones we are having now.

The entire world is now dealing with the effects of the COVID-19 virus. Infections and deaths are rising at a exponential level. It’s a situation I’ve never seen in my life. As a parent, it’s scary. As a person, it’s scary. As a survivor, I feel like I’ve been waiting my entire life for this.

Last week, the governor of Indiana initiated a Stay-At-Home order. Indiana University has instituted it’s pandemic plans by extending spring break by a week and moving all learning to online. They have also asked that nobody come to campus unless it is absolutely necessary.

As of this writing, there are 22 confirmed positive cased of COVID-19 in Monroe county. I have been watching the numbers on a website the state setup. I expect that number to increase significantly over the next few weeks.

As a IT Professional supporting the School of Medicine in Bloomington, this situation has made work a very difficult task. In the weeks previous, I spent all of my time building new laptops and preparing my staff to work remotely, by giving them the information and tools they needed to keep working. Over the past few months, my remote support abilities have been all but taken from me, as I specialize in direct and personal support. I hope my leadership works on returning those soon.

IU has stated nobody will lose salary or PTO due to this situation, and I am greatly appreciative and grateful for this. Many right now are unemployed or have completely lost their jobs. However, since technology is everything now, I have been inundated. I take my job very seriously, and my faculty and staff need my help right now more than ever. I will not falter them in their time of need.

I am of a split mind when it comes down to how to look at this pandemic in the long term. In the short term, I am hunkering down with my girlfriend and her children. Sticking together and practicing this new term we have all come to learn called “social distancing.” My lifestyle is pretty much what social distancing is all about, so it does not bother me.

However, I feel carelessly unprepared for this. I keep no food at home. Also, if it becomes as crazy as the store shelves look out there, I don’t have the weapons to protect myself or my family. Yes, I am serious.

Regardless, I am a survivor. I was fortunate to have a childhood that gave me lots of gifts. I spent a lot of time on a family farm. Sure, my skills are rusty, but they are there. I can find a nice spot in the woods, build a shelter, hunt game and gather edible finds. That does not scare me.

I must say, we definitely have biblical signs of the last days upon us. First was the locust invasion in Africa. Now we have a worldwide pandemic that would have definitely been called a plague in times past.

I have ordered more parts for building a rifle. I am ordering cases of US Military MREs (Meals Ready to Eat), and will ensure I have portable water filter systems.

No matter what happens, me and my family will survive this. I only wish the rest of humanity the best as we struggle with a pandemic that hasn’t been seen since the Spanish Flu.

Pandemic

Two weeks ago, I got sick. It was a sinus pressure buildup in my head. My head pulsated with migraine like pain.

After taking a week’s worth of Mucinex, the pain went away, or I thought it did. It simply moved to my chest. For the past week, I’ve been dealing with chest congestion. It hasn’t been fun.

Then, the only words I really have for this come from Star Trek The Next Generation, “shakka, the walls fell.”

News of Coronavirus and COVID-19 spread like wildfire. I wasn’t sure if this was just the next hot story in the news cycle or something to be legitimately concerned with. I’m still on the fence in all reality. But I am taking all of the actual news I get under advisement.

In my work at the IU School of Medicine, I’m fortunate to have personal and professional contact with doctors and experts in the medical community. Their calm, keeps me calm.

I’m one to live light, so that I do not have a central base and I can bug out easily. I know others are not as fortunate in that regard. I live knowing I can go to many places across this and other countries if I need to. Connections are everything I have.

My girlfriend recently needed to go grocery shopping and we were shocked to find limits of 4 cans of any item in place at Aldi. Kroger having similar limits as well. Toilet paper seems to be the thing people are hoarding in the USA for this pandemic, I really do not understand why.

I know my thoughts are rambling through this blog post, where I typically try to keep them on point, but I must get these things out.

I have a weakened immune system due to a skin disorder and medications I take for that disorder. Social distancing is something that comes natural to me, as I’m an introvert by heart.

My job has been very mixed on this front, as I answer to different people. My director wants us all to come in tomorrow, while the university’s stance at this moment is work from home if you can.

No matter who you are, or where you are from (I don’t know if anyone even reads this blog), stay safe. This is a time when social isolation is good for humanity, so do it. If not for you, do it for me. I am one of those who could literally die from the spread of this virus.

I’m going to leave you with a great song by a great man with a great band called Half Pagan.

Basement Fixed, Wallet Destroyed

Two winters ago, I had a flood event happen in my home that had never happened before. Copious amounts of water in my basement. Clean it up, and it would be right back. Until the water table fell, it would return.

I had a room mate living in that space at the time, and I felt horrible about it. As I had told her the basement never flooded. I had warned her that there might be a small puddle in a couple places – but never flooding.

We had a couple of heavy rain events this winter, and the same flooding returned. However, I was able to find exactly where the water was coming from. It was coming directly through my fireplace, and into my basement. I covered the cap with plastic, but that didn’t stop the flow. It was coming through the ground.

So I immediately reached out for quotes to get this fixed. Not a band aid, an actual fix. Most of what I was faced with was what I call a “bubba” situation. People telling me that they’d put a drain in for me, that’ll fix it. No it won’t Bubba. That will just mask the issue. One person, a guy I moderate a group with lent me a water pump to help get rid of the water until I got the situation resolved. That’s an amazing gesture, one I appreciate immensely.

I decided to go with a small family run crawlspace business. They gave me a plan, which they executed just as was explained. Their charge was more than the others, but I think it will pay dividends in how dry my basement will stay.

They called 811 almost a week ahead of time, to make sure my utilities were marked, but the company that does that only marked my fiber line for telecom. Thankfully I have had this done several times and roughly know where all my utilities run.

From this image, you can see what they are doing. They dug this hole around my chimney, and then ran a trench for the drain. While digging the trench, they broke my water line. It didn’t run directly to my meter, and instead did a zig-zag.

They then cleaned the area and covered it in asphalt tar, a thin layer of plastic and a thicker bubbled layer of plastic to create an air gap. Many times, water is pressed through concrete block walls by pressure alone. This will will mitigate that.

The aforementioned bubbled plastic I mentioned. The drain is constructed of a section to gather water made up of drain tile with a fabric covered section to keep it from becoming clogged, with a run section that only moves the water to an exit.

After they finished this section, it started raining. They were unable to complete the job for a few days. They then back-filled, trimmed the plastic back and covered the raw dirt with straw.

Since the dirt had become saturated from the rains, they were unable to grade the ground as proper as they had liked. They told me to call them in a few months and they will come back to smooth the yard up more.

This is where the drain ends. I haven’t decided what I will do with this spot, as it changes how I have mowed my grass. I will probably put in some rocks or landscaping feature to help with this.

In the end, I had to use all of the few hundred dollars I had been able to save and go in debt by $2000 more to get this work done. I’m really feeling the financial pinch but am thankful to be in a situation where it is not the end of the world.

My goals right now are focused on lowering that debt amount and enjoying a dry basement.

Walkabout

Last week, I took a trip to my familial homeland. It’s a place that much like Rodney Dangerfield, doesn’t get any respect. I respect it though, and it will always have a place in my heart. So much, that I have it tattooed on my body.

Keep it easy on the gas ’round these parts or Joe P Law will make you pay

I didn’t have many reasons to go, I just needed a break. I felt as if I was sinking deeper and deeper into a depression. Nothing that I tried would get me out of it. I knew this would.

The one reason I went however, was to give my uncle the driver’s seat out of dad’s IROC. It was ripped on the edge, and trust is more important than anything else to me on this car. I trust the man with my life, and I trust him with dad’s car. After looking it over, he believed the best route would be to completely replace the seat covers with new ones. Something I didn’t want to do, but his experience is trusted and valued. So I bought new seat covers for the front seats, a $600 expense I wasn’t expecting. They will be custom made and sent directly to him. Where I will then come back in a few weeks with my other seat to have brand new seat covers on the front seats.

I spent some wonderful 1:1 time with my 3 beautiful aunts, all of which I love and adore. They feel like the only family I have left sometimes.

I then went on a mission. Something I had thought about but never attempted. I went to Tahlequah, marched into the Cherokee Nation headquarters and asked what it would take for me to become a member. The staff was wonderful and very helpful. I knew my great-grandmother was on the Dawes Roll, which is the requirement for entry. They told me that I actually could enter via my grandfather. I just needed his death/birth certificate, the same for my father and my birth certificate.

One of my aunts provided me with my grandfather’s death certificate. Another gave me a copy of his birth certificate. When I returned home, I ordered a death certificate for my father and birth certificate for myself. Now I wait.

I felt refreshed and ready to take on the world, my trip was over. But why stop the adventure there? I decided to take a route home that I had never taken before. I decided to take a southern route via I-40 to Memphis, where I visited a place of eternal rest.

The most peaceful and calming cemetery I had ever been to.

It was a rash decision, based on my happenstance. An author who appeared in Ken Burns’ Civil War is buried there. His colorful and vivid oratory sparked interest in the subject for me from an early age. I felt it was a duty to pay my respects and thank him in the best way I knew how, for the gift he provided me as a young boy.

I’ve never been a big reader unfortunately, and had never read any of his works. I just purchased one of his novels and can’t wait to read it. If his writing skills were as good as his vocal ones, I know I will love it.

I’m back home now, where my amazing girlfriend missed me. I missed her as well. I’m finding my soul to be as complex as it is empty at times. I need quiet reflection. I need times completely alone and quiet, and I need ways to escape the mental anguish I continue to face. I accomplished that during this trip.

Now to begin a period of financial self restraint, which I’ve never been that good with.

Auld Lang Syne

As twenty nineteen draws to a close, I welcome those roaring twenties with open arms. The teens have been primarily full of hardship and strife for me.

I lost both of my grandmothers. My father passed away unexpectedly. I had a horrible divorce with implications that still impact my life.

On the upside, I finally gained full time employment for the first time since 2006, and then within a year I advanced my career to a place I never thought I would be professionally.

I went on some wild and crazy adventures and found love again. But I constantly feel as if life is not worth living due to those losses I faced. My hunger and motivation just aren’t the same anymore.

I look forward to twenty twenty. May you bring some of the same things you brought the twentieth century. I’d love to see society step up it’s apparel, lets bring class back to our lives. I want to see the optimism of my youth make a return. I want to see my daughters grow, learn and continue to become the things they want to be.

My plans for twenty twenty include finally beginning to drive dad’s IROC-Z, revisiting New Orleans and continuing to try to get myself over the grief I face on a daily basis. I never imagined how heavy my heart would feel five years post my father’s passing.

My life motto since that event is tattooed on my left forearm, something I stitched together from a letter my dad wrote to me while I was at church camp.

I only hope I’m making him proud.

Trashy

Since around Thanksgiving I have seem to been accumulating trash. The orange trash bags required for the system of trash disposal I use seem to have been a unicorn around here.

It’s a good system, a system I have used and been involved with my entire life, ran by my county’s solid waste district. They sell rolls of these orange bags at local retailers. They also provide many recycling options. They even have an area where you can leave things that still have use for others to pickup and take.

I try, and always have to recycle as heavily as possible. With the recent holidays however, the amount of trash in this house has become too much!

I had a conversation with other people on the social media site NextDoor about this, which made me no longer feel like I was going crazy. Through them, I discovered that I was right. There was only 1 retailer in the county that seemed to have any, and they were literally a 30 minute drive away.

People have since posted images and stated they have been seeing them at closer locations to me, so I shall venture out to once again try to find these mysterious Orange Bags.

Once I accomplish this task, I hope to get back to working on the IROC. I want to get the installation of these speakers completed. I also might remove that sagging headliner in preparation to recover it. I then have to take my little piece of sunshine back to her mothers, something I loathe but such is life.

Pass the Tylenol

Yay, I got sick for Christmas.

I’ve had nothing but killer sinus pain coupled with post nasal drip.

So while I’ve been surrounded by children who have done nothing but drive me crazy, I feel like crap on top of it.

I did get some really good presents however. I got a clip that attaches to my handgun that lets you carry without a holster, and a Wyze Cam Pan. I’ve found recently that I need to keep a better eye on my home when I’m not around. I also got some much appreciated things to help me with the Camaro.

So, where ever you are, no matter what holiday you participate in – I hope you got to spend time with your loved ones. Appreciate the time you have with them, because tomorrow is never guaranteed.