Bloggin’ on

So much to say so little time. Just what you wanted to hear huh? That I got more to say. And I guess I should clarify that I have lots of time, I just don’t use it very wisely. Too many good books to read mostly. Some TV but not that much more. Because of the heat I mean. And of course there is the internet. That can be a huge consumer of time. But in my case the time is spent waiting for this old slow piece of crap laptop that I have to do anything. I think it is tired and has become curmudgeonly and learned how to pout. So mostly it’s the reading I think. I found a couple of new authors and they are to blame.
Maybe I should go over the rules for the Blog…….. OK now that I’ve covered that, I admit I probably have changed the focus for the Blog a little, or a lot, over the last few years. Do you realize I have 144 posts, 145 now, starting in March 2006. Wow! It use to be that I covered travel and places and just used it as a means of keeping in touch with family and friends. It was and still is that. But now it begins to be an opinion platform too. I’ve always been opinionated, who isn’t? But with the current state of affairs I almost feel an obligation to become a little more vociferous about my views. Mostly though with my audience I think I’m preaching to the choir. Mostly! And if that’s not the case then you need to listen more carefully. Big Grin there !!!
So we’re in Wal-Mart (go figure) yesterday and I’m sitting on a bench while Kat is off looking and touching and this mother and kid come by and as often happens the kid has come through the toy, candy, or cereal isle and didn’t get what he wanted. So it starts!! It begins with the moaning and goes through crying to laying on the floor throwing a tantrum. At first mom handled it OK but then she just kind of gave up. So this kid screams through the store for all of 30 minutes. And for 30 minutes I am chewing on railroad spikes and spitting out tacks and have blood running out of my mouth. In the past I have asked parents if they want me to ‘take care of that’. This time I couldn’t trust myself to do that. But I mean, “give me a break”! I know that it is beyond political correctness to the point of being dangerous to discipline a child in public but gee whiz. Gee whiz ???? I really don’t think that Adult and Family services is going to show up and take the child if there is a little discipline. I know you can’t beat them to a bloody pulp like you would like to, but you can’t let them win either. Take them home and beat’em. Just kidding! But what about some loss of privileges or a spanking or something. Kids don’t have to win if parents have some spine. Parents in charge make better children. Just braggin’ but ask my daughter. Had to put that in there. ‘Nuff’ said! No it’s not. I am reminded of Joey and Rachael. When we stayed at the park in Schertz for two months in May and June Joey and Rachael lived with their single parent mom in the trailer in front of us. Sometimes there are more permanents, as we call them, in RV parks then others. And they are not always retires and RV’ers if you get my drift. But I’m not trying to be derogatory or too judgmental. It just is what it is. Anyway, Joey and Rachael would come over and hang-out with us quite often, especially Joey. Neither of them had what I would call a real healthy up bringing. Mom had a decent job and kept food on the table but dad was mostly gone and hadn’t been much of a factor other than being a bad influence on Joey. Joey was 17 and in the same grade as his 14 year old sister. One year of that may have been medical which may have been from lack of attention and bad judgment, maybe? Still Joey was a good kid and we talked a lot when I was outside carving and he just got use to coming over and hangin’ out. We even took him shopping and to lunch a few times. As it turns out Joey had a 14 or 15 year old girlfriend who was pregnant and was facing rape charges and potential support payments to his girlfriend. The girlfriends mother apparently only wanted her daughter to have the child for the support payments and Joey couldn’t stand her. He wanted to be involved with the child but that wasn’t going to happen because of the mother. It appeared to be a real mess. Then when school was out Rachael mostly disappeared and we found out she was living with her boyfriend. Then the boyfriend and his family lost their home and moved in with Rachael, Joey and their mom, Rachael was pregnant and who knows what else. Just before we left Joey’s truck driving dad had showed up and offered to take Joey on a trip to the west coast for three weeks. Apparently they had patched it up a little after his dad showed up for a while. Joey was looking forward to it and it seemed like a good idea to me. But that is the last we heard. I’m going to have to write to Joey and see how it goes? And of course this whole thing goes to the moral of the story. Which is, parents need to be winners.
There’s more but I’ll put it in the next blog. It should follow real soon!  But before that, scroll down, you may have missed a couple of posts :)