A rant against easements and herbicide.

I am absolutely sick and tired, not to mention saddened and downright disgusted by the way our utility company and others deal with their easements.  Not only is blanket spraying of vegetation within the easements ugly, it is ineffective, dangerous, and creates massive collateral damage.  For a place with some of the greatest biodiversity on the planet, everyone should be up in arms.

The use of Round-Up and other herbicides / glycophosphates has become a default for brush control.  These substances have their place and I am no stranger to their limited, strategic use.  But the way they are being applied is totally unacceptable.  There are many other avenues to achieve the same end which, with 17 years of professional horticultural experience under my belt, I feel would be effective, more cost efficient and beneficial to the environment.

First, let’s look at what is actually going on here.  Crews (of mostly brown skinned workers) are tasked with spraying the vegetative growth underneath power lines and road easements.  I can’t argue that they don’t need the work, or that they don’t work to achieve the goal set before them at great exertion.  I can, very succinctly, argue there are better, healthier ways to accomplish the same, without exposure to massive exposure to chemicals known to harm mammals (read:  us humans).  

On a recent drive from Sewanee to Monteagle, I witnessed such a worker, with a backpack sprayer, hosing down a 30’ tall tree.  He had no respirator, face mask, safety glasses or other protective gear as required from all herbicide Material Safety Data Sheets (MSDS) I have ever seen.  When at the Atlanta Botanic Garden, as recommended on the label, and MSDS, of the herbicide we used, I wore a dust mask, Tyvek suit, and goggles.  Yes, spraying for a couple hours in an Atlanta August was a physical trial, but that was what was required.  These guys are out there with no protection from wind-blown chemicals, the plants they wade through which are covered in herbicide, or, likely, any idea of what they are dealing with as far as the chemicals or the plants.

I once owned and lived on a farm in Jumpoff, TN.  The road frontage was along Highway 156, several hundred yard’s worth.  I was trying to operate a sustainable, organic farm.  Immediately upon acquiring the small farm, 22 acres, my wife at the time and I planted a vegetative border of Virginia Pine and Cedar along the road.  The plants were mere seedlings, about 2’ tall, which we dug up from elsewhere on the property.  The screen was about 100 yards long, 30’ deep, designed to insulate our intended home site from the highway.

In this case, TDOT (Tennessee Department of Transportation) was the culprit.  Not only did the backpack equipped warriors spray everything within the highway’s easement, a truck with a high pressure spray cannon came by to insure the job was complete.  The devastation reached far beyond my fence line, impacting many of the trees we had transplanted, as well as the wildflowers I cultivated along the fencerow.  

This total disregard for proper use, as per the label, and private property, first alerted me to the problem.  TDOT provided no satisfaction after many calls and sending photos of the damage.  This carnage plays itself out every year on our fair Mountain through the auspices of Duck River Electric Cooperative.   The guys doing the actual spraying are contractors, obviously with no regard to the label warnings or proper use.

A few years back, TDOT decided it would be a good idea to blanket spray the road sides along Highway 41 from Sewanee to Cowan, TN.  This rocky stretch, leading down from the plateau, was totally devastated.  An outcry from the community, on behalf of a unique ecosystem and incredible display of plants, ended that campaign.  However, after denuding the mountainside, heavy rains washed out the road.  Repairs and a culvert full of rip-rap (an unmanageable ditch filled with large gravel the size of dinner plates) slowed the erosion but the utility has followed up this summer with additional spraying.

Currently, I live on the corner of Prince Lane and Lake O’Donnell Road in Sewanee, Tennessee.  Across the street from my house is a blue line stream, one denoted on topographic maps as a permanent flowing body of water.  It is small, but there.  My first clue to this recent power line spraying was the death of plants at the junction of Depot Branch and Lake O’Donnell Rd.  A Sycamore, about 8’ tall, began to desiccate before the other plants, all right at the culvert which guides the stream under the road.

As with warnings to protect the applicator, any herbicide I have ever worked with has listed on its label and MSDS a proper distance from water for safe application.  The number that sticks in my head is 100’.  The Sycamore was growing on the banks of the creek.  Let us remember the most susceptible members of such a community are our reptilian brethren - salamanders, for which the plateau is renowned, and frogs, too bad for them.  

Where does this water go?  It flows downhill to Lost Creek and ultimately to Lost Cove, a natural treasure and currently protected, at least on the sides of the cove, by conservation easements.  This applies broadly to any area where rip rap is used.  The only way to prevent vegetation from taking over a rip rap area is through herbicide, which inevitably runs off with precipitation.

So, what are the reasons and results for spraying and what are the alternatives?  The only reason is cost effectiveness.  However, results prove this logic terribly flawed.  Attempting to kill a juvenile Tulip Poplar with a spraying, which only reaches the front half, is futile.  Even young pines, less than 4’ tall, are showing only marginal effectiveness.  The tops may be browned out, but much of the tree is left to rejuvenate next year.  I have seen several clumps of trees where a portion of the leaves have been zapped, but the live bits insure a comeback next season.  This is an absolutely futile approach.

My theory on herbicide use, to which I am no stranger, is the size of the plant must first be reduced, i.e. cut to the ground, then, the smaller flush of growth sprayed.  Let’s say there is a growth of brush, mostly an inch or two in trunk diameter.  Once cut down, easily accomplished with a brush mower, regrowth will be small, vigorous, and much more susceptible to herbicide.  This means less herbicide used, all below waist height, and much safer for the applicator.  Many times I have cleared an area with a weedeater mounted brush blade, and returned the next growing season with spraying, quickly killing the intended target.

Only a few years ago, Duck River went along their easement with brush mowers and tractor mounted mulchers to deal with stumps.  Ornamental plants, and those which didn’t pose a threat to the power lines, such as Dogwoods, were spared.  In my mind, such an approach would solve a myriad of problems and enhance the sustainability of easement maintenance.

We in Middle Tennessee are blessed with a fantastic cornucopia of wildflowers in all seasons.  With proper maintenance, and avoidance of herbicide use, this blessing could be accentuated.  First, mechanical controls, instead of chemical, could be applied to eliminate or control woody plants.  This would be financially and labor wise intense on the front end.  Once the woodies, which actually threaten the power lines and road easements are controlled, the areas could easily be controlled with tractors and brush mowers as the road verges are.  With proper scheduling, both such easements could be maintained with fewer mowings while enhancing the natural display of beautiful wildflowers while achieving the same goal of protecting infrastructure.

Bottom line, how should we go about this, O high and mighty critic?  Simply, years 1-3 would control woody plant growth with brush blades or brush mowers.  This mowing would occur in winter, when the workers could most use the employment and the herbaceous plants not be impacted if not enhanced.  Upon the first flush of new growth, the battalions of back pack sprayers are deployed to spray ONLY the regrowth of woody species.  After such a time, an area would be relatively denuded of trees, the true threat.  Granted, some larger specimens might require more equipment.  I have seen massive saws mounted on tractors to clear branches high on trees from power lines.  Such equipment could be employed.

After this stage, workers educated in basic plant identification (who would be higher paid, and lower in number) could spray the regrowth of woody species which would impinge on the power lines or other easements.  For instance, kill oaks, maples, pines, etc. but leave sumac, dogwood, redbud.  This would mean much less labor and use of chemicals with a simultaneous benefit to the non-threatening herbaceous plants, thus benefiting wildlife, general ecosystem health and natural beauty / public enjoyment and worker safety. With time and technology, mowers could accommodate stumps and such (eliminating damage to equipment) to groom the area.  Furthermore, if this grooming were to take place in winter (again when the work would be appreciated), the growth could be knocked down while encouraging herbaceous plants.

Let’s face it – the spraying of easements is ugly, not an ecological / sustainable choice, and dangerous to those who do the work.  Where I live, and most places within 100 mile radius, would benefit aesthetically and environmentally from the natural growth of native plants.  Annual mowings would enhance the proliferation of these plants, save money and carbon emissions in the mowing, and eliminate the hazards to workers.

Please discuss.

The Mountain, thoughts

THOUGHTS AFTER LISTENING TO STEVE EARLE’S “THE MOUNTAIN”

11.25.12

I wasn’t born on this mountain, but I almost died here once, and plan on completing the job.  I was reborn here, if that is any comfort, and I do intend on dying here, dying here while watching our morals descend past our need for fuel.  Men have long plumbed the mountains for energy.  Now, however, it has reached the extreme of cost / benefit :  remove the mountain, if needed, to get the energy.  Damn and blast the community for the dollars the mountain holds. 

I have flown the skies of the South Cumberland, surveying the pillage of hardwoods, or the ill placed white pine.  I have lived among the mountains and the mountain folk of West Virginia, East Tennessee, and the Cumberland, watched, studied, and admired their natural heritage, their basic civil and human rights, their spiritual connection to a place, developed over generations, washed away with the ringing of a cash register.

Most don’t know it, or recognize it at least, that not too long ago, many were killed for their connection to their community and their place to spite the company man’s blood lust.  That’s right, over the last one hundred years, many have died in the crosshairs of the Pinkertons, Wells Fargo agents, over energy. 

Basically, it boiled down to coal vs the company store at that point.  When the scales tipped toward something resembling modern day Palestine, with workers overtly enslaved to the script of the boss man, revolt was quick to follow.  Interestingly, the first to pull their piece was the Pinkerton, in the generic. 

The company men leveled water cooled .50 cal. machine guns, produce from or for WW I, against his own countrymen.  These are stories I dread telling my 9 year old, though I know one day, soon, I must.  Hundreds were killed.  Throw in the Mormons, the tally would crest multiple thousands.  This doesn’t even consider the malice we vented on the indigenous people of our great land.

We think our world so stable, so sophisticated that such could never happen again.  Let us, for example, take the mountain top removal situation.  One simple question:  if an outsider came into your community, displaced millions of cubic yards of your surrounding landscape, would you react?  What if these displacements ruined homesteads that had been in place since the frontier stood locally?  What if these displacements resulted in entire coves or watersheds being engulfed in toxic effluent?  And the outsider had nothing to say for himself other than it was profitable?  Methinks you might blow a gasket.

Mining has never been a pretty opportunity.  In the most stable of situations, entire towns lived by the script, indebted to the company store, and spent their lives underground only to expend their lives with the consequences of black lung and cave ins.

Today, things are more sophisticated.  Mining firms actually try to “do right” in cleanup.  I have seen some top notch efforts first hand.  The rub is every calorie of energy today is worth far more than it was a decade ago, hence the lengths a corporate body (not a human body, i.e. citizens united) will go to in the effort of extracting that calorie, consequences be damned.

The current “tar sands” debate is part and parcel of this new frontier.  Without the free flowing wells and derricks of yore, here is a substance which can render calories, despite how many calories go into the process.  The environmental effects are collateral damage, a cost of doing business. 

“Fracking” presents the same pitfalls.  Where have there been fracking operations where there haven’t been flaming faucets?  I know, that’s extreme, but it seems to me inevitable that fracturing layers of geological formations may allow effluent to flow from one to another, say from a drill site to your water table. 

This all boils down to an overarching question which no one seems to be asking:  AT WHAT COST?  Tomatoes in December, a perfectly groomed lawn, constant expansion of the GDP…does it ever end?  Humans can only go so far before they resolve to deal with the situation without the overburden of law and order.

I’m not calling for armed revolt, far from it, at least right now.  What I do want to see, in my lifetime, is a thorough assessment of what shit costs.  What does it cost for me to have constant access to “fresh” water thru my tap, without government subsidies, recognizing the natural elements which can positively affect that system?  What does a gallon of gas, a product containing some formulation of corn, or an hour of lights for my home cost?

Back to the premise – commodity capitalization leading to outright violence.  The coal miner of old, the in the mine at 8 or 10 years old until he couldn’t breathe, enslaved to the company store for food, shelter, everything, no longer exists in my estimation (I may be dead wrong).  

Again, things are more sophisticated – the workers are better trained, better paid, better cared for, and hence more oblivious to the circumstances at hand.  Granted, that is a rough generalization, but it is basic truth.  If you are operating a multi-million dollar earth moving machine, vs pick and shovel in a mine shaft, you are better off than your predecessors.  Now, it is just harder to see.

Dad isn’t out of work at 40 something due to black lung, the kids are going to college, hell, there’s 401ks and health care including dental.  But at what cost?  Acquiescing to a fog over one’s innate sense of right and wrong seems to be the first casualty.  To those who pick up the peaceful resistance lies a path of red tape, bureaucracy, community resistance and corporate bs.

What is this bs. of which I speak?  How about a positive cash flow, or a quarterly profit, on an investment statement.  Most would see, “OH!!  XYZ Corp. made a huge profit last quarter / year!!  Gotta keep that one.”  So who is XYZ Corp.?   Who is anyone in this acronym landscape?  XYZ is owned by three companies, X,Y, and Z who are in turn owned  by ABC LLC.  Who are in turn owned by…

Bottom line, the investor who glances thru their portfolio noting who makes the greatest profit, and nothing else, furthers the worst behaviors we as a nation face:  natural resource depletion, offshore banking, exporting jobs, you name it..

The traditional working man (or woman, or child) of the past stepped back, said enough, and did something about it.  I have known these people in East Tennessee in the 90s and Nashville in 2011.  We as a nation need to take up the cause.  Do SOMETHING before we are faced with Pinkertons and machine guns.

Please, wake up people.

In Memorium, Feeling Despondent

9.11.12 In Memorium

I woke up on the wrong side of the bed this morning. I didn’t know why, just that I was sullen and despondent from the time I opened my eyes. As the morning revealed itself to me, after I had dropped Myers off for school, the melancholy settled upon me.

Then, plugging into the grid, I fully realized it was 9/11. Yesterday gave some foreshadowing, with the University planting the quad in rows upon rows of small American flags in remembrance. Yesterday, the photo was a pleasant reflection. I have not been to the center of campus, solely by chance, since the flags were displayed. Now, I don’t know if I want to go. Today, the memories of that horrible day flooded in.

When thinking about all the flags in the quad, I reflected on a gathering in Convocation Hall a couple days after the planes hit. It was basically a community wide information session and mutual support / outpouring of grief. At Broad Mountain Farm, the Mexican Sage was in full roar. I had harvested about 5 buckets full just that morning.

Mexican Bush Sage (Salvia leucantha) is a wonderful plant. It towers at about 3’-4’ in its prime, loaded with foot long spires of fuzzy, purple and white blossoms. They are a terrific everlasting, keeping their color indefinitely if dried properly. Due to the trait of lasting, I felt the buckets of blossoms would be a fitting offering to the Convocation meeting.

The meeting garnered several hundred attendees. Professors, students and community members packed the hall to, if nothing else, be together in a time of great hardship. I’ve written volumes on my experience of the fateful events. If I could pick a handful of images which have lasted the past 11 years, it would include the flags spontaneously appearing on University Ave, with the background of hardwoods in full fall ebullience; a woman driving out Jump Off while I was driving in, when the news was still wall to wall on the radio, crying her eyes out; cutting sunflowers on a picture perfect September morning; going over to a friend’s, who had satellite TV, to watch the cascading terribleness of the coming days and weeks; and setting 5 buckets of flowers outside Convocation.

I went into the gathering for a moment, but was far too emotional to stay. The 5 buckets of sage were in my truck, bunched in 3 stem bunches. As the gathering went on, I set the buckets just outside the hall, on and around a majestic bench. There was no missing the display upon exiting the hall. A note was weighted down by one bucket. I wanted people to take flowers home, enjoy their beauty but also remember where they found the flowers and why they were there to be had. This was a totally anonymous action. However, I did sit across the street, in my truck, and weep as those leaving took note of my offering.

I will always be proud to call Stephen Alvarez a good acquaintance. Being a little self-congratulatory, I would claim him as a long time, good friend, and once upon a time, a lifesaver. He has photographed a portrait of my dog. It isn’t everybody who has a proper portrait of their dog by a National Geographic Photographer.

To me, Stephen epitomizes the guy jumping off into the abyss, secured to life by only ropes and pulleys. Sometime early on an October morning, in 1986, I fell off a cliff, or as the vernacular would have it, a bluff. This particular bluff consisted of one very large, flat rock which had fallen on another, squat, rectangular rock. The formation is called “Proctor’s Hall”, as the chamber betwixt the rocks forms a shaft, a “hall”, where University students have imbibed since the late 1800s, as evidenced by the etched graffiti throughout.

When I fell, the volunteer Student Emergency Medical Technicians arrived as soon as called. Granted, I had been at the wrong end of the bluff, paralyzed, for many hours at that point. Stephen was the first down the craggy slope that fateful morning. He asked how I was doing and I managed a thumbs up, which he mirrored, all the while grateful to see them. Stephen was a fraternity brother, as was the second person I remember seeing, Lewis Jones. When he asked how I was I said, “Great. You?”

Long story short, I was beaten and bruised from head to toe. They put me in a basket for a 2 hour haul up the side of the mountain. Then came August, the dog of my life at present.

When my world was dissolving before my eyes, my marriage, my home, my dreams coming unglued, I noticed a stray in our neighborhood of Natural Bridge Road. He seemed to be a gregarious, big, leggy pup. His favorite activity was inciting Little Pig, the neighborhood’s communal dog, into chase, the big stray playing the submissive. Of the three or four sightings of this dog, he was still attached to 20’ of zip line cable, frayed at the end, at least twice.

I had a nice place to live in the basement of some friend’s in Clifftops. Another friend had found me a great house to buy, for a slight premium, before it went on the open market. The Clifftops digs had a proper dog kennel. The new house had a massive, fenced yard. It was then Stephen called to see if I wanted a dog, the canine I now refer to as August West, of the aforementioned portrait.

On one of his websites, http://www.picturestoryblog.com/ , Stephen posted a picture of his godson running amongst the flags in the quad. His narrative was hopeful that his godson’s generation will not be scarred by events like 9/11, as previous generations have been. However, the somber tone of the following quotation echoes and resonates in my deepest thoughts, my sensory memory from that tragic moment and the days that followed.

“I will always be afraid of a beautiful day the second week in September. That particular quality of light will always make me sad, it will always remind me of 9/11/01.”

Stephen Alvarez, 9/11/12

Gun rights, My Thoughts

I have been increasingly conscious and conflicted about gun rights in light of several, recent events, stretching back for over the past year and a half. I have been cogitating over this post for several weeks. Now, confronted with the horrific events in Aurora, Co. I can no longer wait to say my piece.

First and foremost, I want to make some very succinct points:

· What happened in Aurora was the manifestation of evil or psychosis.

· I am not a member of the NRA, and, further, I believe Wayne LaPierre is nothing more than yet another sound byte angling for industry lobbying leverage.

· The United Nations is currently, as in right now, considering actions which could be interpreted as undermining the United States Constitution, as set forth in our 2nd amendment rights. The body is working on a treaty which, among other things, some of which have merit, disarm citizens of sovereign nations.

· The Second Amendment states “A well regulated Militia, being necessary to the security of a free State, the right of the people to keep and bear Arms, shall not be infringed.”

Now, I will go unhinged into the miasma that is the gun rights debate.

I think as a premise to my entire argument is that the Second Amendment, as a portion of the Bill of Rights, is the iteration of what has been bestowed upon man by the creator – inalienable rights, as seen by the founders of our country. These are not privileges which can be offered or negated by the state. One has the right to protect himself from threats, be it home invaders or government gone off the rails.

Since the beginning of man, individuals or groups sought to defend their lifestyle by whatever means necessary. I would like to think that, per capita, that death by violence has decreased in the past 10,000 years, but I won’t hold my breath.

Shooting tragedies are not in short supply. Going back to Columbine, America has witnessed Virginia Tech, Gabrielle Gifford, Ft. Hood, multiple other mass shootings, and most recently, The Dark Knight Rising shooting.

So here is the knife’s edge upon which we teeter – should civilians merit gun ownership? The argument is framed in the lexicon of “gun control” – tightening the parameters of the laws currently on the books as in limiting magazine sizes, banning “assault rifles”. The subtext is a ban on semi-automatic weapons. I concede that I can’t think of a single reason to own a 100 round drum magazine.

Looking beyond our own borders, improvised explosive devices / car bombs / suicide bombers continue to wreak havoc on Afghanistan, Iraq, and Pakistan which would not be the case if the US hadn’t stepped in the cow patty which is the region.

Speaking of the region, what are some of the victories of the last 2 years? The first that comes to mind is Libya, where the private ownership of weapons allowed an oppressed people to rise up against a dictator of 30+ years. Where would those guys have been were the UN notions been in force prior to their uprising?

The same is happening in Syria. These bold, fearless people protested for over a year, peacefully, taking casualties from the government all the while, before breaching the commitment to armed revolt. Now, it is clear the Assad regime will only fall to overwhelming military force.

Granted, in both of these cases, outside arms were funneled into the revolutionaries by empathetic nations. I wouldn’t be surprised to learn, 30 years from now, that the US and others did so covertly.

Why do I mention these 3rd world “failed” states? Because, simply, we are not above pandemonium in our own streets. The riots in the aftermath of Rodney King’s assailants skipping charges should be proof enough. These things can happen here. We are not some “special” or “sacred” nation, far from it. We are a nation, like any other nation, who has internal security issues. Why should we believe we are “above” such violence? Even our Western peer state, England, recently witnessed massive, violent riots.

For a very long time, we were secure in the notion that the state would cover all needs re: civil order. Unlike other countries (Israel, Mexico, ad infinitum), we feel we are somehow secure, safe, beyond violent retribution. This is not reality. This is also the clash between our Constitutional Rights and the present situation.

Unfortunately, and that is not said to be snide or understate the violence, there was a guy in Colorado the other night who took matters into his own hands. Little has been released through the press about the person or personality of the shooter. What is known is he had 2 x .40 caliber Glock pistols, an AR-15 .223 caliber, and a 12 gauge shotgun. He had a 100 round magazine on the .223. He used tear gas and had his apartment wired to explode or burn. He had thousands of rounds in his possession. Looking back for an analogous situation, I am drawn to Anders Behring Breivik, the murderer of 77 people in Norway, someone who knew of no other way to address his grievances.

Please don’t think I’m taking this lightly. Although Breivik may be of a different stripe, enough details have emerged about Holmes to get the picture of someone who simply checked out, leaving the reality of day to day life for that of his own machinations.

When one is in the full throws of a manic / psychotic episode, “reality” holds no water. The thoughts are completely divergent from the necessary – food, water, sleep and hygiene – all gone out the window. The focus is the interior, self-created narrative, the “real world” does not exist. Holmes, undoubtedly, believed in his actions to the degree that it consumed his life for at least 4 months prior.

Think about that - Holmes set out to do nothing short of fuck shit up. I could imagine his singular focus on this task, manic obsession on the ingredients in his fatal stew. Throw in the whole Batman fantasy (I admit I have not seen any of the recent Batman / Dark Knight movies) and I envision someone who actually believes, whole heartedly, he is an evil genius, an enemy of the Dark Knight himself.

Back to the subject of gun rights…Holmes weapons and ammunition were purchased legally. God only knows where the Libyan’s or the Syrian’s guns are coming from. The uprisings, call them Arab Spring or what you will, have shown the necessity of the right to keep and bear arms. The Libyans shifted rather swiftly from protest to armed conflict. However, the Syrians took the assaults for over a year. Finally, and not to my surprise, an armed insurrection has risen to oppose the Assad regime. There will be a time where we face tyranny in this country, and our last resort will be armed resistance. It is for this instance that the 2nd amendment was written and must stand unaltered.

We must realize, as a nation, as a culture, that evil lurks even in the best of men. And, that said, evil can materialize at any moment, for any reason. We in America have lived far too long in a cocoon, immune to the violent upheavals of so many other countries, to not experience such violence in our own country at some point.

Chris Hedges, in his truthdig article “This is What Revolution Looks Like”, gives an excellent, brief, discourse on the parallels of historic uprisings and where we as a society stand today. His opinion is bleak. In his article, he quotes the historian Crane Brinton in his book “Anatomy of a Revolution”, surmising we have entered the second step of revolution, the elite trying to suppress dissent.

Since the passage of NDAA, the label “terrorist” has been applied to the Occupy movement. Police-state situations have visited cities across the country. Across Europe, austerity and the infringement of the EU in sovereign states’ affairs, protests are far more heavily attended, often over 100,000 in the streets. Greece is seen on the edge of being ungovernable by the international press.

It would seem the US is trying to get ahead of the curve. In the extreme case of disarmament of civilians, such protests would pose less of a threat to general order.

The UN ATT treaty (look it up), from my perspective, challenges the US Constitution. Mind you, I don’t carry a pocket constitution or quote amendments, but I am very opposed to intra-national organizations threatening my nation’s sovereignty, in any way, shape or form.

This is where the far right wants to draw the line. Individual rights, individual sovereignty are the buzz words. “The Liberals want to take all our guns away.” “The UN decries the flood of small arms into conflicts domestic and international”. But what has this to do with the US?

First of all, upon but a few minutes of looking at the UN website, I realized this was something which could propagate tentacles stretching into every crevice of the 2nd Amendment. This shit called for disarmament of civilian populations who would otherwise have the legal right to own a firearm. Again, I don’t flaunt an NRA membership card, but I was pissed. Here is the United Nations, 193 voting members, deciding whether or not I could, as an American, possess a firearm.

What does this mean? It means that 192 nations can vote whether or not the United States should allow its citizens to own a gun. The primary reason the right to keep and bear arms was in the Bill of Rights was to define the rights of the individual, as granted by the Creator, which included the resistance to tyranny.

Of course, there are those who go even further, claiming that these tragic mass shooting events are “False Flag” psychological operations. In other words, “psy-ops”, events staged for the purpose of manipulating public opinion for the sake of policy making. Granted, these folks could talk you into JFK / moon landing / 9-11 stories that actually make sense on some level. In this case, the argument is the UN wants to 1) require registration of all guns in the US. 2) use registration to locate and confiscate weapons. Basically, relieve the people of their weapons thereby diminishing the security threats to the state. Sound familiar?

Well, here we are, in the good ole’ US of A, with almost as many people as guns. Obviously, many Americans own none, while others own several. How do people validate owning that many firearms?

Well, owning several, I can say it started with my heritage. My father had several of his father’s shotguns, Brownings, from the early part of the 20th century. The first time I fired a gun, it was one of my grandfather’s, a 12 gauge with no recoil relief. I was about 7. It laid me on my ass. The fact that they were Brownings, and all three of us were named Browning, instilled a special affection for these guns.

By the time I was 8, I was dove hunting. My father had given me a single shot .410 with which I took down about 1 of every 10 birds. By the time I had finished 8th grade, I had earned all of the marksmanship awards the NRA offered at the time. There were discussions of the Olympics at the gun club (the range of which was ironically located beneath a bar). When I was 13, I received a 20 gauge shotgun, a beautiful Remington 1100 I still shoot, in recognition of my graduation from Junior High School. I purchased my first gun at age 14, with money from a summer job digging ditches. It was a Remington Speedmaster .22 with a scope. The shop mounted and sighted the scope. I think I paid $135.

Enthusiasm for shooting was the singular commonality I shared with my father. When we would go shoot clays, or hunt, he was entirely focused on me and helped me learn the safety and marksmanship skills I now impart to my son.

My father had headed up a crew to go goose hunting every year. He would manage the applications for the lottery for blinds, get all the hotel reservations made, and be rewarded with his costs covered. I was thrilled to be included in 3 of these hunts. They were the utmost in male bonding: wake up at 3 am for breakfast and head out to the preserve. After receiving blind assignments, we loaded in old army trucks for the pre-dawn, inevitably extremely cold, ride to the field.

We were 3 to a blind the first couple years. Then, it was Dad, a high school classmate who followed dad to Georgia Tech and ended up on the NCAA Basketball championship team, and myself. Watching Mr. Riley, all 6’ 10’ of him crawl into a blind was priceless. These guys had it figured out – a catalytic heater placed under the bench in the blind, our laps and legs covered with a tarp, we dined on sausage biscuits and V-8 warmed on the heater, and endured often below 10* temps.

By the third year, Dad was too sick to follow us into the field. Then, one other man and I took the blind. It was horrible weather for hunting geese – bright blue skies, unlimited visibility, birds flying too high to shoot. Ideal conditions would be grey skies and precipitation, preferably frozen. Somehow, we were the only blind that got our limit that year. Mind you, we were only allowed 8 shells apiece on the preserve. I took two Canadians and brought home 6 shells.

My father retired as a much decorated Lieutenant Colonel United States Air Force officer. From my birth in 1966 until his retirement in 1981 , we lived in constant awareness of the Cold War. The enemy was always at hand. “Red Dawn” had yet to come out, but such a scenario was played out many times by my friends and me. This manifested itself in various ways – toy armies and tanks, digging foxholes to surveille farms neighboring the base, and shooting everything from bb guns to a .357 (with parental accompaniment in the later).

When I married, my bride was vehemently against having guns in the home. This was a thorn in the relationship from the beginning. I wanted guns, primarily because I enjoyed just going out to shoot targets with friends. Latent memories of shooting with my father fueled my desire for bringing the guns I owned, stored at my family home in Kentucky, to my current home.

Secondarily, I still feel strongly that children should receive at least rudimentary gun safety lessons. As with a large body of water and the ability to swim, it really doesn't matter if you can swim, as long as you know the dangers of water and how to avoid them, an inevitability in anyone’s lifetime. This head in the sand approach of my wife, and my desire to expose our child to guns, was exemplified in a potentially horrific way.

Wife, child of 4 or 5 years old and I were at a neighbor’s, visiting a new litter of Boykin Spaniels and helping install a new VCR. My boy came into the bedroom, where I was wiring stuff together. The neighbor, being without regular child traffic, was far from policing her house for hazards. On the nightstand was a loaded revolver. When he saw it, he immediately picked it up, swinging it around two feet from the three adults, asking if it were real. Needless to say, all three adults were near apoplectic and diffused the situation quickly and, thankfully, without incident.

At that point, MB, my son was far too young to be responsible with a firearm, but certainly old enough to learn the dangers therein and how to deal with a found weapon (if you see one, don't touch it and find an adult). Here, the nanny state, which existed in my home and threatens our individual sovereignty, was totally out of the loop with reality.

As could have been predicted, at age 7 MB was presented with the opportunity to go shooting with a friend. My now ex-wife called after the fact and said she had given her permission. Honestly, my feelings were hurt that his first shooting outing was not with me, if for no other reason than I wanted to make damn sure he understood basic safety.

Since our divorce, I have retrieved my few weapons from Kentucky and purchased a couple. I also purchased a .22 for MB’s last birthday, his 9th. All of these, as well as ammunition, are kept in a secure situation under lock and key.

This is all to say I have strong ties, deep attachments and sentiments to private gun ownership. I do not buy into the rhetoric that any movement toward gun control is a bad, conspiratorial act. A 100 round .223 magazine? Come on, that is over the top. A 30 round magazine? Who knows. Banning all semi-automatics? No way. UN imposing itself on the 2nd Amendment. Hell no.

I wander, and now will attempt to synthesize the above thoughts:

1) Guns kill people, no doubt about it.

2) An individual’s right to protect himself, his property, loved ones, and even oppose tyranny is inalienable. This requires weapons.

3) The global situation is in decay, with this decay eating itself up the foodchain from the 3rd world to the 1st world.

4) Armed revolt is, at some level, inevitable. Tea Party folks are calling for it and they are not alone. The far left is calling for armed attacks against institutions, (ie the petroleum industry).

5) As the world becomes more tumultuous, we in the US will ultimately be dragged into it.

6) The government seeks to “get ahead” of the coming crisis vis a vis militarized crackdowns by authorities and suppression of individual’s ability to defend themselves with weapons.

So, there, I have said it to the best of my ability, as coherently as possible. I thank you for reading this far and encourage you to comment.