Taking It To A Risky Edge In Real Life

I've seen that Top Gun is coming out enhanced in 3D. I probably won’t go see it again, though the music in it is mesmerizing, I don't like how loud movie theaters are these days. I've already seen it at least a half dozen times on TV, maybe more, after I first saw it in a theater and loved it.  It wasn't that I was that interested in Tom Cruise, though he was an adorable hunk clothed in tidy white towels, white briefs, and Navy dress whites in his youth, so were several other buff bodies in the movie. I was more interested in the roaring jets of the Cold War era and have been fascinated with them since the Vietnam War for reasons I won’t go into, but did in my memoir.

I can still get a little chill when a fighter jet flies over and that’s quite often because I live on the edge of a city with several military bases with airstrips. When the huge transports fly over low they make shadows in the yard. I have finally gotten used to the training jets flying around and around in huge circles as trainee’s practice touch and goes around the outer edge of town where I live, but now I can smile at them instead of tear up. I've found that time does lessen painful bruises of the heart.

Maverick in the movie was accused by Iceman as being “dangerous,” but Maverick and his co-pilot, Goose, didn't think so…until Goose and Maverick had to eject during a death spiral and Goose was killed because of a faulty canopy. Then Maverick didn't want to take risks anymore and didn't graduate Top Gun. He didn't get dangerous again until he had to make a rapid choice with Russian Migs firing around him whether to save Iceman and others, and made the brave choice, and became a hero, and then Iceman finally liked him. He also gets the girl in the end...as expected.

I suppose I have a bit of “maverick” in my blood and have had all my life. I've taken it to the dangerous edge a number of times over the years and I'm not sure why. 

Once I did on an inner tube riding in the surf at the Gulf in a “no swim” area with friends. They got back safely but I didn't know how to swim yet and was pulled out by a rip tide so far offshore I couldn't see the coast, and then had to think about being stupid and risky all alone, except for friendly dolphins circling me for a couple hours before the Coast Guard found me. I decided that day I would never again ride a tube in the Gulf anywhere and I never have. Some lessons I learned the hard way.

Again I took it to the edge on the back of a black quarter horse in a race as a teenager because I wanted to win an automatic washing machine for my Mamma so bad I was willing to risk my neck and I did and I won. But Daddy saw the match race and realized the danger and took my horse away to herd cattle on. I actually didn't mind that much because my boyfriend was back in town and I had raced as fast as I ever wanted to and because I had already been bucked off him into a fence post that almost broke my neck. After I got pregnant a few months later, I knew Dad had made the correct choice.

My sister in law who lived around the corner from me once called in the middle of the night, freaked out, thinking a burglar was trying to break in her front door while both our husbands were away. I didn't think twice about the danger or call the police either, they had four young daughters. I loaded a 30-06 hunting rifle running out the door barefoot in a sheer nightgown to chase the stray dog away. That never happened again but I would likely have done the same thing, even though she primly pointed out I was running around the neighborhood improperly dressed after midnight…after she felt safe again. She thought I should rush back home but I didn't...I slung the rifle over my shoulder and walked back daring a real burglar to come along. My next door neighbor was out in his yard smoking a late night cigarette and I waved. Next morning he wanted to know if he was hallucinating.

I once worked for an orthodontist where the famous race car driver, A.J. Foyt’s son was getting his teeth straightened. I mentioned to one of his friendly drivers who brought the son in for adjustments, that I had always wanted to drive a race car.  No problem He invited me out to the track and harnessed me into a colorful car, but after a number of trips around the huge oval going faster and faster with the "real" driver instructing me with yells and the speedometer inching into the 140's, I saw another curve looming up ahead. I backed totally off the accelerator and was satisfied I knew how dangerous that occupation was. He called me “chicken”for more reasons than one but I didn't mind clucking home intact that time. 

My older brother and some of his high school jock friends once dared me to drink too many whiskey shots at the kitchen table while our parents were away and I don’t have to tell you how bad that turned out. The jocks all had a mess on several floors to clean up because I couldn't. Brother and I were both grounded for weeks, after he stopped crying and I sobered up and could walk again. A few sips of liquor still makes me feel ill so I shied away from it from then on. I blame Jack Daniels and those shocked jocks for totally throwing my alcohol metabolism  mechanism off kilter 

When I decided to publish my memoir, I knew I was taking me to another perilous edge, but the feelings and reasons that inspired me to write it were more intense than any fear I had of what others might think about it. I have been chastised by a few who didn't like what I wrote about them, but I've  had time to give it a lot of thought, and listen to what others think, and I have no regrets. Though it has caused me a few tears, I can find many reasons to smile about it.  It was my life and I wrote it as I lived it…at full throttle and intensely honest about it. 

It's a miracle I have survived as long as I have and in appreciation, I've slowed way down in my "golden years" to enjoy the fruits of my labor. Figure there is no reason left to take it to another dangerous edge...unless I get a frantic call at midnight.

Human Nature Is Fascinating To Contemplate

George  Martin-excerpt from Game Of Thrones

I have read a lot more non-fiction than I have fiction throughout my life. That preference was probably inspired by my piano teacher in second grade, though I can’t blame the  lesson plan she created for me for the opinions I reached reading about the private lives of well known composers, authors, artists, politicians, and otherwise "powerful" men and women in the annals of history. 

I didn't stop with the classical composers, such as Mozart, that teacher made me read, he was just the first character that surprised me because his personality was so different than what I had expected a musical genius to be in his time period. Amadeus acted more like the uninhibited rock and roll stars of the latter half of the 20^th century. 

Human nature has fascinated me for as long as I can remember.  I was driven to find out as much as I could about “the creators” and “movers and shakers” from early childhood on.  That quirk was probably also inspired living in the "golden age" of so many world known celebrities and leaders with strong personalities in the 20th century. Ernest Hemingway, Kathryn Hepburn, Albert Einstein, Winston Churchill, Ingrid Bergman, and our Presidents, all intrigued me with their brilliance, and fascinated me with their individual personal characteristics.

Dancing down a curious path reading  memoirs, biography's, newspapers and magazines, I came to find out for certain, in print, and in my own personal life, that "love" doesn't always follow the boundaries set upon it by a so called “polite and proper society.” I also found in literature and real life that women are likely to be more ostracised for straying from the "norm" than men are, and have been ever since Eve and Mary Magdalene. I was taught as a child that Mary Magdalene was nothing more than a whore and now I see churches named after her so I suppose time does change perspective.

The affairs of our presidents are certainly nothing new. They have been going on for hundreds of years and probably will continue for many more. From Thomas Jefferson to Andrew Jackson, John Garfield, Warren Harding, Franklin Roosevelt, Eisenhower, Lyndon Johnson, Kennedy and Clinton, United States presidents have had all sorts of dalliances. Never the less, it didn't seem to blemish their honored spots in history, these men all have a lot of schools and airports named after them.

Human nature...it is fascinating to experience, engage, read about, and contemplate. There simply isn't any pattern, rhyme, or reason...we each have our own individual personality's and no two are alike. I still wonder if I would have read so many books if that piano teacher hadn't insisted I research the composers and inspired me to love the library as well as appreciate music. I took piano lessons for 11 years. I've read a lifetime.

 I never composed a symphony or became rich and famous but I did live life long and curious enough to inspire me to write about it. Prodigy I was not. Inspired to live life to the fullest I was. I will go to the grave thankful I was bestowed an inquiring mind, a healthy body, and a free spirit. I've been accused of being honest to a *&!%^ fault and I never could much rein in that part of my nature. I write and tell it as I lived it.

I have few regrets because I am blessed with bright and 
successful children who raised loving and creative grandchildren.

A Legends Position On Banning Assault Rifles

John Boon Kolojaco

I seriously doubt there would have been anyone who could have argued an Americans right to bear arms any better than my Father could have. The photo of him above was taken in the 1920's...he was 18. He was still hunting for food for his family's dinner table and had been since he was eight years old. He used to tell us the story of his Dad allowing him only two 22 caliber bullets to go to the woods to find food for his poor sharecroppers family of seven. Dad laughed when he told the story and said he could always find something for supper out in the woods and learned not to miss because he didn't like to hear his younger brothers yell at him...or go hungry himself.

My Grandfather sharecropped and raised cotton for the same man for over seventy years. He had to pay the landowner half of what he produced so they never had much of anything, especially during the Great Depression.

Dad said he was very lucky to have been hired by a prosperous sulphur company he worked at for over 42 years...taking only one sick day off with the flu in all that time and he resented having to be sent home that day intending to have a perfect work record. He started the job on his 21st birthday, a month before the crash of Wall Street in 1929. He claimed he got the job due to his excellent baseball skills and was able to help his family survive the Depression. The company hired him to play hind-catcher 

on the company team, baseball was something else Daddy was very good at

.

Dad also raised cattle and baled hay and made more money at that than he did at the company so my siblings and I were much better off than he and his had been. We got most anything we asked for whether it be a fast quarter horse or a hot-rod Ford. My parents rose from dire poverty to the very successful Middle Class using good 
common sense and a lot of hard work.

Daddy never did give up his love of hunting and the woods is where he spent every vacation in the fall and early winter all his life. I used to hear him say he wouldn't kill anything he didn't intend to eat except rattlesnakes and that's only because Mamma refused to fry them. Mamma did have her limits...but not that many. We found
out Mom was almost as good a shot as Daddy.

Martha Rose Kolojaco

I remember Mother crying most every one of her wedding anniversaries  in October for years because Dad would be off hunting on it. Daddy had a terrible wreck in 1971 and almost died spending three months in intensive care  and when he finally recovered, Mom made him retire. She said she had enough money saved and Dad was 62 and still had his cattle and hay business and a great pension so he decided to quit his "day job" and focus on what he really liked to do...hunt, bale hay, and tend his cattle. 

After dad "retired" is when Mamma decided the only way she would ever get to spend   

their anniversary with him was to join him and she began to bag her limit also. They traveled all over Texas, Wyoming, and Colorado big game hunting every fall.

Daddy had a number of his prize animals stuffed, white tail and mule deer, a couple of elk, a bear, and an antelope.

My Father was one quarter Native American Apache 

and looked it, acted it, and was very proud of it.

This photo of Dad was taken in West Texas just a couple of years before he died at the age of 84. He had to have a hip replacement after the wreck and it bothered him as he got older...but never enough to keep him out of his beloved woods or make him miss a shot.

We often ate wily wild turkey for Thanksgiving when we were growing up. Dad was very good with a turkey call.

********

Daddy would have never thought of buying an assault rifle with a large 

ammunition clip for any reason because he never wasted bullets. 

He learned not to at a very early age. In fact, he would have been

the very first one to shout they should never have been allowed

to be sold to the public any more than a nuclear bomb should be 

and should be banned except for soldiers and law enforcement.

No REAL hunter ever needed an assault rifle and mass murderers and drug

lords are non partisan and this should not be a partisan issue!

Common sense is what that is and my Father was

a legend in his own time because he had

an abundance of it.

The Wisest Of All Sermons

I found this yellowed newspaper clipping tucked in a little worn book of inspiration copyrighted in 1884 in a 100 year old farmhouse I was helping clean out in the 1960's. 

It still strikes me how ageless these wise words are. From what I was able to find out about him, Rev. Roy L. Smith was a popular Methodist evangelist in the early 
20th century.

Peace On Earth Remains 

The Wisest Of All Sermons. 

A River That is Congo-Of Rulers and Ruled

http://www.amazon.com/River-That-Is-Congo-ebook/dp/B009WR25QO/ref=tmm_kin_title_0?ie=UTF8&qid=1356468395&sr=1-3

Available from Amazon in both print and for Kindle

********

A River That Is Congo-Of Rulers and Ruled 

is a historical novel of one man’s heroic struggle against the greed, cruelty, and terror of a corrupt government in colonial Africa. 

The protagonist in Of Rulers and Ruled is Pierre d’Entremont, a Frenchman who because of the collapse of the La Banque de d’Entremont, must earn a living. With his military training his best option is to enter King Leopold’s military service in the Congo. He has been told that one can make a fortune quickly in Leopold’s Congo Free State.

Raised in an environment of affluence, gentility and with a deep sense of honor, Pierre is appalled by the atrocities perpetrated on the natives by the colonialist. Pierre went to Africa to make a fortune and stayed to fight an evil system. 

Synopsis of Of Rulers and Ruled

Within the first month in the Congo: Pierre becomes sick and nearly dies, makes an enemy of Harou, the most powerful man in the Congo, and on the way to his posting must always keep his gun nearby because the captain has said, “Dead or alive you will get off my boat.”

His first post is at the trading post of Bombula where the garrison commandant has recently died. When he gets to Bombula he discover that the sadistic Claude Armonde has murdered the former commandant and has taken control of the garrison and makes Pierre his prisoner. In order to put an end to Armonde’s maiming and killing of the natives, and to get away himself, he has to kill Armonde.

Armonde was Harou’s friend and Harou suspects Pierre killed Armonde. The natives know what happened, but the word of a native cannot be used in the Congo court against a white person.

After killing Armonde he finds Armonde’s journal, which records the atrocities he and other agents and soldiers have committed. Pierre makes a copy of that journal and turns it over to Roger Casement who is a member of the British consulate sent there for the express purpose of verifying the alleged atrocities committed by King Leopold’s agents and military. 

*****

Amazon Reviews

"Only someone from this time period and region could portray the Congo and its inhabitants in such exquisite detail. It was a thoroughly enjoyable read. I couldn't put it down!"  

"Paul's book gives a on-site feel for those who want to understand what happened in the worst history of colonial Africa. You will be transported back in time to feel, smell, and see the treatment of the natives in the hands of their colonial rulers"

 *****

Paul Stam

"Having grown up in the Congo in the 30s-40s I have a special interest in, and concern for that country. The current events in the Congo are heart wrenching."

About the Author

Paul J. Stam, was born in the northeast corner of the Belgian Congo where he grew up listening to the accounts of the old timers, some of whom were the first whites in that part of Africa. Just before the end of World War II, when he was 15, Paul came to the United States with his parents. After graduating from high school he enlisted in the U.S. Navy, serving aboard a destroyer during the Korean War. His tour of duty completed, Paul attended the University of Minnesota and later joined the staff. Among other things, Paul has been a foundry worker, salesman, university teacher and administrator and sailboat skipper. Paul is now retired and lives in Hawaii.

Paul's blog Paper, Mud and Me
Pauls website www.paulsbooks.net

paul@paulsbooks.net

Other great titles from ATTMP authors are available at:

http://www.amazon.com/s/ref=nb_sb_noss?url=search-alias%3Ddigital-text&field-keywords=%22all+things+that+matter+press%22

Don't Mess With A Sharp Police Officer!

If you ever testify in court, you might wish you could have been as sharp as this policeman. :)

He was being cross-examined by a defense attorney during a felony trial. The lawyer was trying to undermine the police officer's credibility .....

Q: 'Officer --- did you see my client fleeing the scene?'

A: 'No sir. But I subsequently observed a person matching the description of the offender, running several blocks away.'

Q: 'Officer, who provided this description?'

A: 'The officer who responded to the scene.'

Q: 'A fellow officer provided the description of this so-called offender. Do you trust your fellow officers?'

A: 'Yes, sir. With my life.'

Q: 'With your life? Let me ask you this then officer. Do you have a room where you change your clothes in preparation for your daily duties?'

A: 'Yes sir, we do!'

Q: 'And do you have a locker in the room?'

A: 'Yes, sir, I do.'

Q: 'And do you have a lock on your locker?'

A: 'Yes, sir.'

Q: 'Now, why is it, officer, if you trust your fellow officers with your life, you find it necessary to lock your locker in a room you share with these same officers?'

A: 'You see, sir, we share the building with the court complex, and sometimes lawyers have been known to walk through that room.'

The courtroom exploded with laughter, and a prompt recess was called. The officer on the stand has been nominated for this year's 'Best Comeback' line -- and I think he'll win.

Remember Those Who Gave Us An Incredible Gift

PLEASE REMEMBER

Disabled American Veterans

Never forget the sacrifice they made for us.

www.dav.org/

"It’s what’s really at the heart of all the holiday hustle and bustle – a deep desire to make the holidays memorable and meaningful.

But no amount of sparkling lights or pretty bows could ever compete with the satisfaction you’ll feel when you 
make a difference in a hero’s life this holiday season!"