My Mask

I have taken off my mask.

For just over two years, on two different blogs, I have shared a little bit of who I am. I am a follower of Christ. I am my wife’s friend as well as her husband. I am a father to three children. One of them is a cardiac kid who gave us quite the scare a few years ago. I am a homeschooler. Along the way, I have dropped hints of my familiarity with Alcoholics Anonymous. I am familiar with that program not because I am an alcoholic but because I am the adult child of an alcoholic. Most of all, I am grateful. I am happy to be alive and grateful to God for His protection and guidance along the way. I couldn’t have made it this far with Him.

All this time, I have blogged from behind a mask. Oh, I told myself that I was blogging from behind a mask because of the need for internet safety. I blogged from behind a mask to protect my children from the bad guys who might seek to find where I live, and harm them. The truth is that I blogged from behind a mask because I was not comfortable with letting anyone see who I really am. So, I chose a very good looking mask, Cary Grant, and wore it in the blog world. Everyone enjoyed it.

Yesterday, that mask came off.

For the time being I am going to honor my wife’s request and use the black and white navy photo that ended yesterday’s blog. I won’t use it for long. I’m not a 23 year old kid standing on the battleship Missouri (yes, that is where that picture was taken) posing for an award photo. There’s an amusing story behind that photo that I will have to write one day. Major Havoc has been Jonsing me for a chance to take my picture for weeks. He wants his own camera. I am going to let him take my picture. One of the pictures that he takes should be good enough to accurately show the face of the 44-year-old man who writes this blog.

I learned an enormous lesson last month. It wasn’t an abstract lesson or a theoretical lesson. It was a concrete, real world lesson, one that I started to understand when my daughter was in the hospital and I felt like one of the apostles on the boat in the middle of the storm, staring at the sleeping Jesus in disbelief. The lesson is simple.

I learned to trust God.

I took off a mask that I wore for 35 years and revealed one of the most damaging events of my life. I decided to finally trust that God would protect me from harm and go ahead and tell people who I am. I took that leap of faith and God did not let me down. I cannot describe how refreshing the air is when you take off the mask. Freedom is incredible.

The Bible is filled with stories of people who were told by God to do something. Some did as they were told. Some didn’t. There were rewards and consequences for each choice. I trusted that God would protect me and I was rewarded with an outpouring of love and support from readers of this blog that has been nothing short of astounding. For that I am grateful to each and every one of you for the manner in which you responded to three October blogs that were probably very difficult to read. They were difficult to write, too.

You were amazing.

Along the way I’ve learned something that truly surprised me. I’ve learned the enormity of, “Me, too.” I will not tell you how many people contacted me privately to tell me that they have an event in their past that is similar to mine. A few are regular readers and many of them are not. The number is quite large. Most of them do not have the court story to go with it. Justice, at least here on earth, was not served. In my community, I have met people who saw a book that I was reading, asked, “What’s that?” and entered a conversation where they exhibited genuine Grace and understanding from personal experience.

This experience has helped me to clearly see how widespread the problem of physical and sexual abuse is, and how many people are looking for help. I found mine through a long and painful process of meeting God and understanding what He can do for me. It was an active effort over the course of many years. It challenged me to re-evaluate who I am, what I believe in, and how I behave. It gave me practical scriptural knowledge (it still does!) and a sense of direction. He’s been waiting for me to get to this point in my life for a long time. I finally caught up.

For weeks now I have needed to write this post and say one thing to each and every one of you who reads this blog.

Thank you.

Happy Veterans Day

In 1983 I left high school,

where I acted in a few plays.

That summer I wondered about my future while I sold hot dogs at an Orange Julius. I decided to enlist in the Navy

so that I could learn how to take a punch.

I was a cook on board a submarine for two years.  

This picture is probably classified. If I suddenly stop blogging it means I've been arrested.

After two years on the boat I transferred to Naval Support Force Antarctica.  I lived on the ice for one year at McMurdo Station

.
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 

at the base of the volcano Erebus.

 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 

That tour of duty gave me the opportunity to visit New Zealand

 
 
and live on a sheep and cattle ranch for a week.
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
I served for five years.   I served with men who saw combat in Vietnam, and who spent more time underwater and on more submarines than I spent in the Navy.  They taught me what service and sacrifice means. Along the way, I learned a little about who I was and where I was going.  
 

I served.

If You Give Your Kids Imagination

If you hold a helium balloon by the string and pretend that it is lifting you off the ground, and call to your children to save you before you float through the basement ceiling and off to the stratosphere, they will cling to your legs and pull until you are all a pile of giggling family on the floor.

If you take a package containing a new shirt and tell your seven-year-old son to hold still because there is a fly on his head, and gently whack him on the head with the shirt several times, exclaiming, “Oops, it moved!” each time, your five-year-old daughter will collapse in fits of laughter. The boy will enjoy it, too.

If you pretend that your children weigh roughly the same as an elephant, and “struggle” to pick them off of the floor, pretending to lose your grip and catching them before they fall, they will squeal in delight and beg for the Heavy Game anytime your hands are empty.

If you say, “Get ready, get set, stop!” when your children are lined up for a race, they will groan and smile. If you then say, “Get ready, get set, wait a minute!” they will laugh. On the third attempt to start the race, if you say, “Get ready! Get set! Fart!” they will become a puddle of merriment on the driveway.

And

If you take your young children’s shoes off of their feet, pull off their socks, pretend to smell their feet and exclaim, “HOOOOWEEEEEE, stinky piggies!” while tickling their feet, they will enjoy it so much that when they are older and have really stinky piggies they will still expect you to sniff so that they can chortle.

Except for the 12-year-old with feet the size of an old Buick.

And we are thankful for that small blessing!

I Have No One to Blame but Myself

It’s my own damn fault. Let’s just acknowledge that at the beginning. I should know better, but like the man who keeps striking his thumb with a hammer and is too stupid to move it out of the way, I keep returning to Home Depot for my minor hardware needs. Oh, I will NEVER make a major purchase from Home Depot after they earnestly attempted to stick me with a faulty $450 generator two years ago during an extended December power loss. That was the day that the store manager told me that they didn’t accept returns on generators because people tried to return them after power was restored. I informed him that my house was still dark and cold, and invited him to come home with me to see how long he lasted before his teeth started to chatter. All I wanted was a working generator, but since they did not have any in stock, he could just give me back my money, thank you very much. I won that battle, but it was a fight I never should have been in. That was the same power outage where I seriously considered kissing the big burly Georgia Power and Light men when they rolled down our street to return power to our block.

Home Depot is not the only game in town, but it is close to it. For simple purchases of things that do not have moving parts, Home Depot is okay. Honestly, how can they screw up wood?

Bernice answered that question yesterday afternoon.

Bernice and I have history. First of all, she’s ancient. Bernice's wrinkles have wrinkles. Secondly, she’s completely unafraid of demonstrating her complete lack of awareness of either basic customer service skills or job proficiency. Bernice is living proof that the youth of this country don’t have a monopoly on stupidity and sloth. Generations ago there were lazy and stupid people, too. When young lazy and stupid people grow old, they become old lazy and stupid people. Then they get jobs at Home Depot.

Think I’m being a little mean?

Several months ago, I was given a Home Depot gift card as a "thank you" for being in a wedding. When I attempted to use it, it did not work. There were two bar codes on the back of the card, and I had scanned the wrong code at the self service check-out station. The Boss and I love the self-service check-out station. As she is fonding of observing, she usually meets the friendliest, fastest, and most competent cashier at the self-service station. Once in a while the cashier is a butthead, but not too often, and always when I am shopping.  What I was unaware of that fateful afternoon was the fact that one of the bar codes should have been removed from the card. It was the bar code used to purchase the card at the grocery store. There was a separate bar code for redeeming the card at the Home Depot. Bernice was the attendant at the Home Depot service desk where I sought help for my dilemma. She told me that “they” had nothing to do with “those cards” because “those cards” weren’t sold at Home Depot. If it didn’t work, I’d have to go back to the store where I purchased it. Translation: Bernice didn’t have a freakin’ clue how to do her job.

“This card is identical to the cards you sell at your registers,” I told her.

“If it wasn’t purchased here, I cannot help you,” she replied.

“Your company will sell these cards but you will not honor them?” I asked.

“You need to return to the store where the card was purchased,” the autonamaton monotoned.

After a trip back to the grocery store where the card was purchased, an attendant at their service desk explained the mistake, which allowed me to return to the Home Depot later to use the card.

Thank you for nothing, Bernice.

Well, you can imagine my disappointment yesterday when I could not purchase a 24 inch long 1 x 6 board because it would not register when the attached bar code was scanned. The register dude tried to make it work, rang up a WAG amount under a fabricated product name, and completed the transaction. He was friendly, but made no attempt to solve the problem, preferring to just move me through his line as fast as he possibly could. And I was being nice. When I saw the receipt, I returned to the wood aisle and determined that I was over charged. I went to the service desk and spoke with a pleasant woman who immediately turned me over to…

Bernice.

Bernice informed me that they would have to return the purchase and then re-sell it to me. She scanned the board’s bar code. The message on her computer screen stated that the board did not appear in their stock.

“Oh, here’s the problem,” she told me, patting the piece of wood. “It doesn’t exist.”

“What do you mean it doesn’t exist?” I asked. “It’s right in front of you. It has a Home Depot sticker on it.”

“You don’t understand,” she explained. “Look at this message. We don’t stock this item.”

“Yes, you do. I took it off of a shelf in this store and placed it in a shopping cart from this store. You stock it.”

“I really don’t think you understand what I am telling you,” she continued, pointing to her computer screen. “Can you read this? We don’t stock this item.”

“Really? Then how did it get here? Do you think I smuggled this board into the store so that I could pay for it?” Or did I just pull it out of my…but that thought went unspoken. Seriously, if I could do that I never would have left my garage.

She managed (after shaking her head in disgust at my abject ignorance) to return the cost of the board plus tax, but after trying unsuccessfully to page a living person in millwork, and after determining that the batteries in her walkie-talkie were dead, I left without my wood. (One of Bernice's co-workers commented on how the volume on the PA system was unusually low all day, but neither made an effort to get that problem corrected.) The Captain and the Major were with me this entire time, being their usual chaotic and havoctic selves, so my patience had been tested to the point of near failure.

Today, I discovered on a return trip to the store for small items to repair a gutter that the bar code on the wood did not match the bar code on the shelf. And absolutely no one in the store exhibited an iota of initiative to correct the problem.

But I fixed my gutters, so all is well.

Dog-free Friday!

I slept uninterrupted last night. It is the first time in months that I was not awakened by an energetic, tail wagging, incessantly whining beast who needed to go to the bathroom and wanted to jump the fence to knock over the garbage cans, explore the unopened bags inside, enjoy an early morning snack, and the head off to sniff the world. Twice. The Big Fuzzy Dog, who shows absolutely no signs of missing his canine compatriot, casually joined me in the bedroom when he heard that I was awake, and only then made moves to show me that he needed to go sleep with the chickens. All of this happened because we drove out to a farm in northeast Leavenworth County yesterday and gave the coon hound to a family that will enjoy her and use her to keep their farm free of critters. That’s a win-win, even if the young beast was a little disconcerted when I climbed into the van without her and drove off.



Captain Chaos, a popcorn and potato chip junkie, found me at the computer this morning. She immediately asked me to make her breakfast, and then launched into an accounting of all the owies and boo-boos that she recently acquired.

“Will you give me chips for breakfast? In a bowl? Some chips? Please?”

“You want potato chips for breakfast?” I asked.

“Yep! Chips will make my foot feel better,” she explained sweetly, holding up one perfectly uninjured foot for inspection.

It is amazing how well their powers of argumentation develop at such an early age.


Yesterday, Major Havoc wanted to play a game. He picked up two sticks in the front yard and handed one to me.

“Here, dad. This is your targeting device.”

Behind him, General Mayhem nodded his head with understanding. He’s played this game before.

“Targeting device?”

“Yeah. Now, aim it at the tree there.” He pointed to the maple in our front yard.

I took aim, threw the stick, and hit the tree trunk.

“That’s great, dad!” the Major exclaimed. “You won fifty points!”

General Mayhem smiled. “You’re playing to one thousand.”

“This could take awhile,” I observed. “At fifty points a hit.”

The General just laughed.

Major Havoc took aim with his stick, threw it, and hit the tree. “Look at that!” he cried out. “That was worth 250 points!”

“The point system is sliiiiiiiiightly rigged in his favor,” the General observed.

“You think?”

My second throw hit the tree trunk, earning me another fifty points, while the Major’s second throw was a glancing blow that ricocheted off the side of the tree and into the street.

“That was worth 350 points!” he called out as he ran to get his targeting device stick.

I think politicians play by these rules, with the majority party always setting the point value in their favor, and against the tax payer. Will we ever elect people who do not play like 7 year olds once they get into office?

Just wonderin’…