William Julius Maron 07/03/53 - 08/19/11

The last time I Shot with Bill at The Rock, and the last picture I ever took of him. Memorial Day, May 30, 2011

My buddy Bill died much sooner than later. He'd found out he was sick a year before this picture was taken. On this day he had shot two rounds of skeet and then sat down and said, "That's it for me." 


Bill was a kindred spirit and the big brother I never had. He would drive anywhere to shoot a round of sporting clays no matter how far as long as someone was riding shotgun and the beer was within reach. He liked to laugh at himself and others and did so often--especially at my shooting.

May 30th, 2010, a year before the above photo and shortly after he told me he was sick, and a day after Dennis Hopper died of prostate cancer.

He was a deep thinker despite his bourgeoisie tendencies. A confident person and a hell of a shooter, Bill would never let the opportunity to eat, drink, and be merry slip past.


I never got to see the golfer Bill--he probably would have been alien to me. But I did get to see Bill the fisherman when he took me and JB on the Intercoastal Waterway around Southport, NC a year ago this week. That was the trip of a lifetime for me even though I am not a real fisherman.

August 16th, 2010, a year ago this week. We were all going to go this year too.

It was cool to see Bill and JB in their element catching skates and fish while I baked in the sun and drank beer not having any luck. It was near these waters that Bill shared the saying, "If you're going to drink all day, you have to start in the morning."


Anyway, you know how it is; the Bill we knew slipped away shortly before his body gave up, and all that was left was our tired friend who was in pain, unable to care for himself and at the mercy of others which I'm sure he disliked...my heart goes out to his wife Shawn.


I wish I had known his middle name was Julius! I could have worked him over good with that.

Bill at this year's Drake Naylor Invitational. May 28th, 2011.

Well good-bye, Bill. How quickly we lost you. May you rest in peace.

The Countdown Continues: Sloppy Seconds Part 1

If you've been keeping up, then you know all about the challenge to take at least one game animal with every rifle in my safe without choosing the same rifle twice. You also know that for the up coming 2011-2012 season, I already get to use an old French MAS 36 and the venerable M1 Garand. But if this season is going to be like last year's, then I'm going to have to use more than two rifles.


So, in line next for this season are some rifles I have owned for years but rarely see the light of day and so far, never get carried afield. These are the guns I bought because they appealed to my (and I mean this very loosely) collector's eye, and they only get taken to the range to punch holes in paper and test handloads. Oh, did I mention that they're all leverguns?

A pair of what they used to call "Gold Trigger" Marlins.

First up is the Marlin Model 1895SS in 45-70 Government. The cartridge was adopted by the U.S. Army back in 1873 for their Springfield Trapdoor rifles. It was an "Indian Fighter" cartridge, though, in the Trapdoor Springfield, a crazy retro-refurbishing of the Springfield muskets from the War Between the States, the rifle and cavalry carbine were single shots. That fact might have help put Custer's men in the ground (what was left of them). The Warriors were armed with levergun repeaters while the cavalry were armed with the single shot trapdoor, but that's another story!


The bullet is .45 caliber obviously, and the cartridge started life as a black powder number. And any factory loads you buy are stoked to a chamber pressure with that fact in mind. The big corporations don't want to blow up your old Trapdoor or vintage Winchester Model 1886 by making their ammo too hot for older guns. Luckily for us handloaders, there are many sources that give you data for loading your own cartridges to specifications commiserate with the modern-manufactured models.


My Model 1895 wasn't made way back then. This modern action is similar to the ubiquitous Model 336 that came out in its present form in 1949, but called 1895 I reckon because it hearkened back to when the old model '95 was a big bore hunting rifle as well. My rifle was manufactured in 1981 when I was 15 years old, but I didn't see it until I traded into a few years ago. It wasn't until 1984 that I was old enough to buy my first Marlin which was also my first rifle ever. I still have that one by the way, but it has to wait until I get through the rest before I can hunt with it again.

The 45-70, note the Williams sight.

This 1895 Marlin sports a Williams receiver sight and the factory brass bead out front. The success of the open sight hunts last season with the 1903 Springfield and the Model 30 Remington have me thinking I can pull it off again. Also, with modern jacketed bullets, and plenty of smokeless powder behind them, this gun kicks as hard as any rifle I have ever shot. If there were a scope atop it, I daresay, I might have a matching ding in my brow from practicing off the bench at the range. I just don't want to worry about that, so she'll stay as an iron sighted shooter for this upcoming season.


The only problem I can foresee is the same thing I encountered with the Marlin .444 last season. It might be too much gun--hell, it is too much gun for deer. Shot placement will be key for harvesting a deer without blowing the animal inside out and ruining more meat than necessary. I'll be up to it I'm sure, and I'll let you know what happens.

The .375 gets a vintage Leupold M8.

Next up is the Marlin Model 375 in, you guessed it, .375 Winchester. Winchester came up with this cartridge in 1978 for a variation of their Model 1894 which they called the "Big Bore" because they had to beef up the receiver to handle the cartridge pressure. Marlin saw some promise in their competitor's creation, but since the Model 336 receiver was already plenty strong, all they needed was to re-barrel their rifles in the "new" cartridge even if it were from Winchester.


I said "new" because this cartridge closely resembles the good old 38-55 Ballard that was a black powder number from 1884. Somewhere along the line, Winchester hung its name on the cartridge as well. The two are only closely similar in dimensions rather than chamber pressure. In fact, you could chamber a .375 Marlin cartridge in a rifle chambered for 38-55 Winchester from back in the day, but the gun would blow up in your hands--not good.


My Marlin was made in 1980 and I bought it from my buddy Brian at his shop a few years ago. (Remember, he's the reason for the countdown.) Having shot it already with cast lead bullets and jacket soft points, I know for a fact that recoil isn't too awful. So with that in mind, I topped this rifle off with a vintage M8, 4X Leupold. Since the rifle's from the eighties, I figured the scope ought to be too. The "low" four power doesn't bother me, and shouldn't bother anyone else who knows what they're doing. It does a fine job in North Carolina woods.


I do admit that a scoped rifle is better than one with just open sights. There's no comparison--especially for *gulp* 45 year old eyes like mine. The old saying, "I can get on target quicker with iron sights," is just hard to believe at dawn and dusk. Cross hairs are the original "red dot" sights, and if you've done your range work, you know the bullet will go where the cross is, more or less, out to a hundred yards or so in these lever guns. I'll only use iron sights in the morning as the day gets brighter and brighter and the sights get easier and easier to see and use.

Tentatively on the queue this season I also have a different model of Marlin: A Model 1894 in .44 Remington Magnum. This diminutive little carbine hasn't changed much since, well, 1894 except that it's made with stronger steels for modern smokeless powder of course. The cartridge it fires was introduced around 1955 for handguns and the hunting with them. And Marlin followed in the tradition of "cowboys" who liked to have a rifle chambered for the same cartridge they stoked their sidearm with.

Poor "Dead Guy's" gun. Mine now.

The Bullet is really .429 caliber and not .44, but it doesn't matter; it's a hard hitting, hard kicking combination. The recoil is pretty hefty due the the light weight of the little rifle and the heavier weights of bullets. And since it was never a blackpowder cartridge either, even factory loads will be as powerful as any sane person would need for taking game or defending hearth.


The rifle is straight-stocked and very handy. The downside however, is that while the .44 Magnum is a stomper cartridge, it only does so for a somewhat limited range. All these Marlins require flat-nosed bullets since they all are loaded by a tubular magazine. And when filled, all the bullets rest upon each other head to tail so that if a cartridge's bullet were pointed and was poking the one above's primer, and it gets jostled under recoil, it could detonate a whole column of cartridges in the magazine which of course rests in the shooter's hands! Again, not good. 


So flat bullets it is, but when they're fired, they loose velocity very rapidly meaning that past that aforementioned hundred yards or so, they might not be as reliable. With that in mind, I'm not going to stretch the 1894 out past 75 yards or so. To do so means I'd probably end up having to track a deer even if it were hit just right. I mean, the cartridge and carbine will kill game, but sooner's better than later when shooting deer. I honestly think the results of hunting with this carbine will be the most interesting of all three of these.


The 1894 I have was made in 1975 and I bought it from Brian's predecessor at the shop. Coincidentally, his name is Brian too. Anyway, he told me it was brought in by a widow and when I bought it, I christened it, "the dead guy's" gun. I hope somehow this "dead guy" who passed before he could get all his shooting done knows that his little old Marlin found a good home. And now, after ten years of bruising friends' shoulders and ringing steel at the club, it's going hunting.

The .44 Mag also featuring a Williams aperture sight.

I wouldn't dare put a scope on this little gun, so it too has a Williams receiver sight and the factory front bead which means this rifle will be primed for a morning hunt. To scope such a fine little and lightweight carbine would be silly and silly looking--I know, I've seen it done by another hunter. Even the smallish M8 would be a third of the Marlin's length and add eight ounces or so, so forget it.


Well, as for Marlins, the only three I have left are another Model 444 in .444 Marlin from the '80's , another Model 336CS in .35 Remington from the fifties, and a modern 1894 in .357 Smith&Wesson Magnum. I hope I have enough time for them this winter, but if I don't, there's always next year, right, lord? The only one that gives me pause is the 1894 in .357 Magnum which is chambered for a handgun cartridge that many, myself included, think is just at the edge as "enough gun" for deer.


Oh, the .357 Magnum will do it, but the deer better be close, and the shot placed right where all the picture books on hunting highlight. Again, handloading to the rescue as I'm sure I'll get the heaviest jacketed bullets (or lead solids that seem to be gaining popularity lately--everything old is new again) and charge them as fast as I safely can to make sure that any shot I take will be lethal.


Well, that's where we're at for now. As always, I'll keep you posted. I have a feeling that there will be a lot more disappointment this year as I use more rifles with open sights. I just don't think I'll be able to connect as much without the ease of magnification. Not that I'll miss, but that conditions and positions will have to be just right before I commit to squeezing the trigger. A slightly irregular shot with a scope is easy, but with open sights I'll be waiting for the classic broadside...so what if one wanders off on me...remember, it's North Carolina, there'll be another deer along in five or ten minutes.

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.