I Read the News Today, Oh Boy.

Had to read three versions of the same story to get only a semi-complete picture of the horrible mayhem that ensued here in my hometown yesterday. How can these things happen? We'll never know how a father would think getting the love of his life back would include wounding her and killing her new boyfriend--his own son (whether by accident, as one story suggested, or not).

http://www.digtriad.com/news/local/article/183799/57/Accused-Gunmans-Brother-He-Didnt-Mean-To-Kill-His-Son

In the same story News 2, who call themselves Dig Triad online for some reason, mentions the weapon the murderer used was an "assault rifle" but without further detail. True, it's a minor detail and not very important, and I would hate to think this "fact" wasn't true. The media often have no idea what they're reporting when it comes to types of firearms involved in crimes and throw around the term "assault rifle" rather loosely for whatever reason. Of course, it matters not.

http://www.myfox8.com/news/wghp-injuries-after-shooting-at-greensboro-apartment-complex-20110720,0,2147489.story

Another local channel, Fox 8, reports that a neighbor, mentioned in the other two "articles" as well, actually made use of a privately owned firearm to aid the police officer who may or may not have been single-handedly able to control the fleeing suspect. While the bystander isn't hailed as a hero, the fact that someone used a gun to help counter the cowardly and unlawful use of a firearm shouldn't be left out of a balanced story. Pick up a copy of American Rifleman to read "The Armed Citizen" section if you don't know what you're missing.

You won't see many anti-crime stories involving firearms held by private citizens in your mainstream media. You'll have to get off the beaten path to see how often firearms are used as weapons against crime rather than the centerpiece of crime. Of course, owning a firearm doesn't mean your life is going to be charmed forever after. Bad things will always happen to people.

http://www.wxii12.com/news/28617020/detail.html

One thing that just fills me with disgust is the fact that the victim did everything right. She had moved on and found another man with whom to have a relationship. Wary of her jealous ex-boyfriend she even had a restraining order in place, but that wasn't enough. In fact, some bystanders thought that might have been the trigger to push the maniac over the edge.

Like most lawful people, she placed a mighty faith in paper and professional law enforcement to keep her safe. We all do, just as we trust a yellow line down the center of the highway to keep others from colliding with us on our way to Bojangles. But her predicament just shows us how ineffective these restraining orders can be in the view of a determined and troubled man.

Another thing that gives me pause is that one of the stories quotes the assailant's brother who mentions the shooter had tried to commit suicide "a few days before" the murders! And I wonder why wasn't the shooter getting any help in this regard. To me, that should be a focus of some serious questions. Why couldn't someone on the verge of "snapping" get some kind of help? I'm sure there are several answers, but I want to hear that he didn't get help because he never sought help, not because it wasn't available to him if he had wanted it.

So sad that a little life was cowardly cut short by a jealous rage. So sad that "the system" didn't work. So annoying that I had to read three different versions of the same story to get any kind of accurate picture. And as gut-wrenching as a story like this is at first, I'm surprised that it's already scrolled down and out of importance--what filled an hour long newscast yesterday gives way to more recent tragedies and the obligatory "Stay cool" stories. But that's life.

Sometimes

Sometimes we sleep curled up back to back.

If I hold my breath, I can feel her slowly breathe.

I know If I reach over and touch her,

She'll wake instantly.

And thump the mattress with her tail.

-rbm 

The Halcyon Days at The Rockingham County Gun Club or My Thoughts on Google+

First off, I'm not sure what "halcyon days" means. To me it sounds like a description of warm, heady days long gone--but I could be wrong.


In the beginning:


I joined a gun club in 1996 because I wanted to shoot my 30-30. I bought the thing in the fall of 1984 to shoot a deer, and then stuck it in a closet for fifteen years, only dusting it off when I discovered "The Club" online--dial up that is. And while I was there, shooting my rifle, Mike asked me casually if I owned a shotgun. Well, as luck would have it, I had bought one of those back in 1984 as well, for shooting (at) dove.


That shotgun, that Winchester 120 "Ranger", was the first gun I had ever bought and I mean bought as soon as I was old enough to do so from Best Products on High Point Rd. It was the first gun I had ever hunted with, but it too had found a home behind stands of clothes before Mike asked.


The next weekend I threw it in the truck and before I knew it, I was standing on the semi-circled Skeet field with four other guys I barely knew. I think I busted about 18 clays that first time with my trusty pump gun, but I was hooked. And that first encounter started an addiction to shotgun sports that I still manage and enjoy to this day.


Now in those early days, there was just one "problem" at "The Rock". There was only one skeet field. One field for about 25 of us regular shooters. With only five shooters on a regular squad, there were many times when most of us were waiting to shoot.


Well, it was hot in the summer, so we built a shelter for shade. It was crowded and standing room only so we built picnic tables to sit on. And someone would cook, and we all would chat and visit and eat! Food would be brought in, and drinks, and cakes and then more laughing and more shooting. Some fast friendships were made under that shelter waiting to shoot.


What made the time so enjoyable and special was that, here, at The Rock, the CEO of Aero-Atlantic was hanging out with a Dumbass Carpenter. The VP for Lorillard Tobacco Co. was there hanging out with Mike the "Elevator Man". Sawmill workers rubbed elbows with double-degree'd engineers. Car mechanics huddled over grills with school teachers--it was such a mix of folks that ordinarily would never hang out together.


A guy like me shooting with his $165 Winchester pump-o-matic could be found whipping some guy with a $10,000 Kreighoff or Kolar shotgun. (It might've happened that way--that's the way I remember it anyway! Lunch Round anyone?) The filthy '97 Ford F-250 I drove could be parked beside a Mercedes in the gravel lot on any given Sunday.


The tales, lies, and other stories that came out under that shelter prompted the co-opting of the saying, "What comes out at The Rock, stays at The Rock." It was a good time to be learning the fine art of shooting skeet surrounded by men, though precious few women, that could make you laugh your ass off...


And then it started. "Why do we have to sit around an wait to shoot when the Trap Shooters have four fields to shoot on?"


A plan was hatched. A handful of us asked the board if it were possible to have more fields installed--but were told to go away. So...a handful of us joined the board and worked the inside. And then this hodgepodge group of buddies, united in a love of waiting-free skeet shooting, overcame every obstacle that the old guard, and county government, threw in our way. And soon enough...our work done, we dropped off the board having acheived our goals.


This whole process took years, but we got three fields, and we got our no waiting! And that's when a curious thing happened. Suddenly, the shabby trucks were staying with the shabby trucks in the new lot. The shiny Kreighoffs were clustering with the shiny Kreighoff K-80's and Kolars and Beretta Double E and L's...The normal, socioeconomic cliques were weaseling their way onto our fields for the first time.


The cooking had stopped long before, and now that old shelter was "miles" up the hill from the new fields, gone was the hub where we'd all eaten, cajoled, shared tactics for conquering fragile little clay discs, and solved the world's problems. Gone too were the good times when people would mingle and laugh when they weren't shooting, and all it took was getting what we wanted.


I kinda saw it coming, and kinda predicted it while soaking in some Mexican food and beer before a board meeting long before the first spadeful of dirt was ever overturned, but no one ever listens to me.

How Radiated Popcorn Changed the World

I was right as rain until I was at Ashley Weaver's house one summer's eve after a group of us had been to a show and someone produced a flat pouch of something called, "Microwave Popcorn." And then, after it was thrown into the newfangled device of the decade--that is, a Microwave Oven--I watched through the perforated-metal-reinforced glass door as this pouch swelled and popped (and then later smoked) until it was full of what amounted to instant popcorn! Albeit, somewhat charred...


Like a sucker, I had spent my young life huddled over a stove, heating oil, adding seeds, listening for that first *pop* then shaking for minutes until the moment before burning when the pan was lifted and dumped into a bowl. All the while I'd be shielding my eyes for those few hold-out kernels that would pop in the bowl and hurl themselves into my face...or worse...onto the floor. But here, in Ashley's house, surrounded by the smelly smoke of burned corn and oil, and the "Ooh's" and "Ah's" of us uninitiated, the sleeping giant of instant gratification was awakened in me.


And now, looking back, I think that's when the whole world, at least the giant country I live in, decided that later was too long to wait for anything--the end of civilized life as we know it came to a screeching halt when the corn lobby teamed up with the Amana Engineers to make us want it all, and want it now. By the way, the corn lobby has moved on to global domination, but that is another story.


Credit cards were the next thing for me. Sure, my mom knew how to play the "Layaway" game. Even I had dabbled in "pay now play later" for toys and such. But when I got my Belk's card, all that lame waiting for new shoes was over. All that fondling and coveting upright vacuum cleaners was a thing of the past. I could get what I wanted/needed immediately, but to make a long story short, think of the words "downward spiral"!


And that's where this country seemed to be pre-2008 and the collapse of the western economy. We were building houses with no money in the bank. We were buying houses with no money in the bank. We were refinancing those houses--many times to pay off huge credit card debts--with no money in the bank. It was all so much fun!


Cable TV brought music videos and movies into our homes, but now, that's not enough either! Now we want to watch what we want to watch when we damn well want to watch it! Then the TV cable brought us the internet as well because dial-up was such a slow waste of time that, given back all that time I wasted sitting there waiting for pages to load now, I'd be able to write a book.


These days of course, we want our internet everywhere we go. And true, sometimes seeing a weather radar (back to those microwaves!) at a ball game could literally save your life, but getting ball scores or watching episodes of The Kardashians in traffic is nothing but the popcorn-induced need for gratification. Wasn't it CK Lewis who made fun of people who crabbed about their WiFi in the Sky being so deathly slow on flights?


Wanting what you want now isn't at all a certified bad thing, but some things aren't meant to be had yesterday. Like courting a chick--scroll through your kids' text messages when they ain't looking if you want an education in the courtship of the modern, gotta have it now, teen or 'tween. 


Even elections are swayed by the "instant", sometimes holographically-enhanced coverage. We don't want to wake up and find out, we want to stay up blinking all night at the screen and watch our guy lose...or win. We ain't supposed to know until "the morning after", like Christmas. You'll get your bike when you get your bike.


Even retailers try to suck us in with "instant rebates"! Gone are the folding and mailing of receipts along with a carefully filled out questionnaire and our hopes of a monetary return months from the purchase date--if at all. I reckon merely lowering the price just ain't as appealing as something that we can have "instantly".


Anyway, it just seemed to me that the huge leaps and bounds in technology, which helped coax us all out of slow Southern Living started with that flat, expensive pouch full of Native American goodness. I mean, if one could stand around for two minutes and thirty seconds for a good wholegrain snack, then one shouldn't have to waste time on more complex things like the daily news or even a favorite fruit grown out of season from a continent far far away.


It was shortly after the popcorn introduction that Sony Walkmans put my favorite music in my head when and where I wanted it. Then the slow and awkward cassette tape gave way to the CD and the Discman, which gave way to the MP3 which, so far, is about as self-gratifying as music on the go can get! A whole record collection in your hip pocket--heady thought for us kids who grew up timing eight track tapes so we could hit the "track" button, thus changing tracks to hear that one favorite song over and over after tuning out the tunes we hated.


These days, just for fun, and personal salvation--seems microwave popcorn is chock full of things that'll kill you dead if you actually eat it--I set about ruining our "glass" cook top with that Mom-taught and age old practice of shaking them kernels in a pan. I wish I'd paid more attention to her technique when I were younger because I used to love the lid-lifting ending to her adventures in making enough for her, Dad, my Sister, me, the three dogs, and my first cat who thought chasing the popped-to-the-floor escapees was big fun!


What's even weirder to me is the fact that my kids don't know any different. They think Life is supposed to come screaming in on a cable or picked up at Wal Mart and sweep them off of their feet. Rarely do they get the gumption to enjoy the slower things in life, like a hot-ass summer day with absolutely nothing to do. Those were the days, when at their age, I'd hop on my bike and ride the sixteen mile round trip to try out that newfangled chicken place called BoJangles. Or ride to Sedgefield Stables to scoop poop for the aforementioned chicken money.


It's not their fault I suppose, seeing's how I let that cable worm its way into our home, and drag them to Wally World when I want a new toy for them or I, but rather than take the blame, I look to that smoky bag of ruined, yet quickly eaten, popcorn at The Weavers' house way back when. It was that spark that set us all on our way down that bustling, never-quite -quick-enough road to now.

Here's what happened...

Hmm,
Not much. In fact, looking back, I realize that I was knocked unconscious and that if I hadn't woke up, then that would have been it I suppose. Because it was lights out, and then it was lights back on. Then the suffering really kicked in.

The first thing I remember was the face-down almost fetal position I was in and the realization that my ribs were broken... and that I couldn't breathe well. Then the sudden realization that my collarbone, but for the thickness of my skin, was broken and jutting jaggedly out, but not through, my skin.

Then I remember Jaime asking me--yeah, I almost, in my biggest failure as a man and father, killed him too--"Are you all right?"
And me saying, for the first time ever to my little boy, "No. I'm not. Get help."

The boy had to continue on a trail he had never been down before in his life, in the woods, alone, to get me help and he did. This 10 year old boy was my hero. That hardly ever happens for me...

And while he was gone I tried to sit up, did so, and figured out that I had broken my neck and pulled all the muscles and ligaments that hold my head on straight so that I couldn't sit up without holding my now lumpy head in my hands...like The Thinker.

And gasping there, waiting for Jaime et al, I knew I was fucked.

When the other menfolk gathered around me to see the damage and ask, "Are you all right?" repeatedly, I told them my diagnosis, but like all men everywhere in the world, their, and my first instinct, was to get me on my feet. They dragged me up, and I willingly tried as well knowing if one can walk, one can make it. Well, my head rolled back and kinda lolled around uncontrollably as I stood and I jerked my hand out of Lowell's or Tay's hands and sat down again.

I knew I was fucked. I knew I needed real help. And I knew I needed to get out of there to a hospital. By now, also, real honest to god, broken bone pain started to set in as well. Real pain, not the fleeting wisp as when you stub your toe or hit your thumb with a hammer, but a serious, droning ache from all over that consumed every thought I had.

Well almost. I summoned a towel to wrap around my neck twice with a few twists at the end to immobilize my wobbly head. I got Tay and Lowell to pick me up and scoot me into the passenger side of my truck that I'd summoned as well. And then Tay drove my truck--did I mention we were so deep into the Virginia mountains that no one had a cellphone signal--out to a spot on the road that an ambulance could actually make it to.

Of course by then, in an attempt to salvage my manhood, we made the decision to drive to Martinsville, Va. ourselves with Lisa at the wheel. And that's what we did. After that, it was all pain. When we got to the hospital they came out with a wheel chair. By then I had stiffened up so badly that there was no way I could unball myself and get out of the truck--not to mention I had a broken neck. Sadly, when I got the help I really needed, I was strapped down to a back board and remained so for about 10 hours.

At this hospital, I got my first CT Scan ever! Really cool to see later--I have copies! But before I got a long ambulance ride back to Wake Forest Baptist Hospital (the worst fucking place in the world) we got treated to one of the funniest things that happened that day.

Now, for some reason, they had to email the CT Scan to another country for a "real" radiologist to examine, and we ended up waiting for hours for this ethereal doctor to check out my x-rays and get back to "my" doctor with the results. My doctor must have been blind or something.

Anyway, And the ER doctor who was "helping" me must have been in the hospital's international x-ray command center that was just a few yards down the hall when the results came because we heard him shout, "Oh my God! he's got a broken neck!" Also, we heard commotion as he loudly shared this information with anyone he could find...but the funny as hell thing was when he walked into my cubicle and calmly said, "Mr. Mothershead, it appears you have fractured your spine at C2 and there's not much we can do for you here..."

The whole time I was thinking...no shit.

So, nothing spiritual happened, no bright lights, no choirs, no life flashing before my eyes. All of which reinforced my feeling that there's nothing after this life, just as there was nothing before it. And I'm stoic. "Only by being prepared for your death can you ever truly live," is what Christopher Moore put in his book A Dirty job and I have done so since about the time I was eight years old.

I mean, like I've written before, It won't take ALS or cancer to "teach" me how to live. It makes me sick when i read or hear when folks say, "I didn't know how to live..." or "I didn't know what was precious..." until they're faced with death. My whole life I've known it's just down the road...

No, near death doesn't mean anything to me, just that I cheated it again...life changers are smaller, louder, and poop in their pants for their first two years.