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Friday FireSmith – I saw a Cat

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I know where I was on August the 25th, 2023, because I have a photo. Not of me, not at all, no. I got a partial photo of a cat. Grey, striped, with a white shoulder, it ran away as I drove down the driveway, and for reasons I cannot explain, I snapped a photo.

I called my neighbors and they, too, saw this cat, but it ran away from them. A stray, a feral, it really didn’t matter at all for nothing small and helpless is going to survive out here. Coyotes, bobcats, owls, hawks, venomous snakes, alligators, foxes, and humans with guns who might think a bullet is a mercy for a stray all live here. Starvation, if it lived, parasites, heat, and a host of stinging insects awaited this animal until something killed it.

            There was no way I could take a cat it. Wrex Wyatt had a dislike for small mammals.

Several days later I looked out of the front door window and there was this cat, walking up my mama’s wheelchair ramp as if it meant to simply walk right through the front door. I opened the door and the cat fled. I was too shocked to get a photo, but I did start putting out food, and the food began to disappear.

            I’ve been hungry. Not just simply wanting to eat, but not having food and not knowing where food was going to come from, or when. Whatever else may be true, no animal I can get food to is going to feel that.

            For reasons I won’t not try to explain at the moment, I started calling this cat, “Aqaba.”

Pronounced Ack-a-baa. I would go out on the porch with the bowl of food and sing out, “Aqaba! Aqaba! Kitty, kitty, kitty!” and put the bowl down.

            A week later, I could see him hiding in the woods near the house and when I called he came out, a little bit, and then stopped.

            Eventually, he made his way into the garden to wait. One day I called him and he came running out of the woods and stopped in the garden, and watched me, and crept a little closer.

            And this was as far as Aqaba would get. I talked to him, sang to him, kept food and water out, but there was a line this kitty was not crossing.

            The last week of August I began setting live traps for Aqaba, but he wanted to part of them at all, and refused to go in. On August the 30th, hurricane Adalia slammed into South Georgia, creating more flooded areas and knocking down trees. The power went out. Somewhere in the woods, Aqaba Thomas, the Cat Unexpected, had either lived or died. I set out food for a couple of days and sang for him. The food was untouched. I waited. There was no sign of Aqaba at all.

Take Care,

Mike

Friday Firesmith – Gonzo, the God of Thunder!

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The one thing I never got used to in the Army was you could wake up one day and be living in the same room as a complete stranger. Okay, that was also one of the things that were cool, but I got stuck with a cigarette smoker once, and damn.

Some guys from another platoon got stuck with Gonzales. “Gonzo,” was his nickname quickly, and it was hard to pin down at first, I mean, other than his last name, but after a while, we realized Gonzo was doing a good job at hiding a few, uh, quirks.

Okay, here’s an interesting tidbit. The Army had this contest for “Soldier of the Year,” and to get there you had to get Soldier of the Month, Soldier of the Quarter, and Soldier of the Day After a Three Day Weekend and Not Be Hungover. Basically, Soldier Of Meant you wore your dress uniform well and could answer a lot of Army based trivia.

Gonzo missed Soldier of the Year by one slot. He came in second.

Hang onto that one, okay?

Stationed in South Georgia meant guys from other parts of the world, and Gonzo was from Salt Lake City, had never seen a thunderstorm like we have, with thunderbolts and lightning. Gonzo came unglued. Lightning freaked him out. His room dogs told the story of Gonzo yelling at God to stop it, and locking himself in the bathroom while screaming.

Then there was the Sergeant Murrey Incident. Murrey was one of those guys who was not only a lifer, but thought everyone else ought to be, too. You cut him, and Sgt. Murrey bled Olive Drab green. We were out in the field one night, and Murrey got us lost on tank trails, just Murrey and me, and he had no idea what to do next. Finally, I started marking intersections with cans to show him we were going around in circles.

But we got back to the perimeter late. The password had expired and yay! Gonzo was manning the gate. He wouldn’t let us in. Murrey “ordered” Gonzo to let us in. Gonzo refused. Murrey started to step over the Concertina Wire barrier and Gonzo flipped his M-16 around and was about to swing away at Murrey’s head.

With Murrey screaming at Gonzo, and Gonzo screaming back, half the battalion woke up, crawled out of their tents, and eventually, someone came over to me and asked what the problem was, and gave me the password. I yelled the password out to Gonzo and he grabbed the wire and let us in. Murrey wasn’t done. He wanted Gonzo written up. But the rules were rules and Gonzo had followed them. Murrey was scolded and he never got over it.

Gonzo went on to grab second place in Soldier of the Year, and he took a couple of weeks off to spend with his family in Utah. We never saw him again. He stripped down to his underwear in a shopping mall and ran screaming through the place until the cops came, ran him down, tackled him, and arrested him.

I never got used to living with some of the people the Army stuck me with, but I’ve never run out of writing material.

Take Care,

Mike

Friday Firesmith – 4th of July

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As we celebrate the 4th of July, I consider the origin of the war that brought this nation into being. The “shot heard around the world” was fired on 19 April,1775, a year before the Declaration of Independence.

The British considered the colonies as part of England and subject to rule by King George III, and most colonists did as well. But in two small villages in Massachusetts, Lexington and Concord, locals had begun to build up a supply of rifles and gunpowder. The British heard about this, and decided a show of strength was in order to seize the weapons and put an end to any thoughts of rebellion.

As soon as the British began their advance, five riders were sent out, Paul Revere, Samuel Prescott, Israel Bissell, William Dawes, and Sybil Ludington.The countryside was raised against the Redcoats, yet they were not fully aware of what was happening.

Just before dawn on 19 April, 1775, seven hundred British troops arrive at the village of Lexington, and sweep past the local resistance and kill seven or eight men, including the local militia leader. Emboldened by their success, they march on Concord, pass through but then discover close to five hundred “Minute Men” have taken positions all around them.

The Brits retreat, while the Minute Men advance, and the “shot heard around the world” is fired.

From that point, the British are in an orderly retreat in as much as they can be, and the locals are firing from behind trees and from higher ground.  The British suffer horribly on their way back to Boston and the first battle is an American victory.

The idea that a group of ill-trained rebels can take on the best army in the world and beat them should have told the British military something of the nature of warfare against the colonists, but no one thought the war would last very long and there was no doubt the regular British Army would do anything but crush the rebellion.

The war would grind on for eight more years. The British were bled white by the Colonial Army as increasingly, George Washington realized he did not have to win the war, but only not lose it.

In 1781, the British suffered a major defeat at Cowpens, South Carolina, and many on both sides, saw this as the beginning of the end. The French Fleet destroyed the British in September of 1783. British forces trapped by Washington at Yorktown Virginiaand by October of 1783, the British had nothing they could do but surrender.

The Fourth of July, 1776 was not the end of British rule but rather the beginning of the fight against it. Yet during the seven years between those two dates, Americans from thirteen different colonies came together as one to throw off the yoke of the most powerful country on earth.

This brief and very condensed version of events, should in no way diminish the idea that unity of a people, not force of arms, is what made the most difference in a nation who would be free.

Take Care,

Mike

A nice bit of wisdom from Mike Rowe

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(in 2019 Nike places the Betsy Ross American flag on a sneaker line. Colin Kaepernick criticized it and the decision was made to cancel it. The following was taken from Rowe’s blog and his response is quite impressive)

Dear Mike,

Why would anyone in their right mind support Nike after this latest round of nonsense? Why would any public company with an image to protect take advice from an athlete? How can our attention be sucked up by people with nothing better to do than complain about fireworks and tanks on the fourth of July? Our country seems be losing its mind, or at the very least, its sense of history and perspective. As a man who has always seemed comfortable with our country’s flag, I was hoping you might have some insight to share on this, especially today.

Karen Murphy

Hi Karen,

I think Nike has the right to decorate their shoes with whatever flag they desire. I think Kaepernick has the right to offer marketing advice to any company that’ll take it. And I think you and I have the right to purchase whatever brand of tennis shoes we choose. The reason these rights exist, is because we live in the United States, and the reason the states are united, is because we decided, two and a half centuries ago, to be free of our British masters. So, we fought a war. Happily, the results of that war made us a free country. Then, four score and seven years later, we decided we could not call ourselves a free country, as long as slavery existed. So, we fought another war. Happily, the results of that war made us freer still. Had either conflict gone the other way, our county would not exist – not as we know it, anyway. And the flag we fly today would look nothing like the one I’m proud to stand for.

In other words, I’m tempted on this day to remind you that there’s nothing inherently dangerous about a sneaker company currying favor with a woke athlete, or fellow citizens complaining about displays of patriotism and military might. On the other hand, I think Ronald Reagan was right when he said we’re always one generation away from losing the freedoms we currently enjoy. Along with the siren song of socialism, the persistent promise of “free” stuff, and the breathtaking level of censorship on our college campuses, I worry about the growing belief among many that we can somehow improve our present by erasing our past; by toppling statues, outlawing “problematic” symbols, or rewriting specific pieces of our history in ways that leave us feeling less offended. George Orwell said it best…

“The most effective way to destroy a people is to deny and obliterate their understanding of history.”

Of course, Orwell also said this…

“If liberty means anything at all, it means the right to tell people what they do not want to hear.”

In other words, we can’t deny Kapernick’s right to speak his mind, but we shouldn’t ignore the flaws in his thinking. He has argued that the Betsy Ross flag is “racist,” because it flew at a time when slavery was legal in America. By that definition, aren’t crosses are also racist? Weren’t they on churches attended by slave-owning congregants? Why not demand their removal? What about the Bald Eagle? Wasn’t our national bird flying around when slaves were held? Why not protest it as well? What about the Great Seal? E Pluribus Unum? The Liberty Bell? It rang countless times while slavery was still the law of the land. Why not demand its removal? Kaepernick’s argument is unpersuasive, not because it’s unpopular, or unpatriotic. It’s unpersuasive because it’s completely void of logic.

As for the presence of tanks in parades, I’ll triple down with Orwell, even though its somewhat suspicious to quote an English writer on the occasion of our independence. But it’s tough to argue with this one.

“People sleep peaceably in their beds at night only because rough men stand ready to do violence on their behalf.”

Sleep well, Karen.

And Happy Independence Day

Mike

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Friday Firesmith – Fred and Rose West

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If you’ve never heard of Fred and Rose West, they’re the British couple who murdered at least a dozen people in England back in the late 1900s. There’s an interesting Netflix series on it, three episodes, and you have to wonder how they managed to kill for so long without getting caught.

Couples who are serial killers are rare. Sexual depravity among serial killers is not only common but almost universal. Ted Bundy was the first American serial killer to be loved by the press, and therefore the public, but Bundy’s behavior was sanitized by the press. Even as news stories talked about his soaring intelligence (which wasn’t true) and his ability to charm women (which was overplayed) they left out the necrophilia and cannibalism. Bundy’s undoing may have been an odd form of suicide for he wandered down to Florida and murdered a twelve year old girl. Florida will execute someone for that sort of thing, and Bundy knew it.

Fred West denied his wife, Rose, had anything to do with the murders, and for years they both said he was the sole murderer. She was a prostitute operating out of their home, and Fred liked watching.

While Fred was in prison for a short while, his daughter from a previous marriage was murdered but the body was not found for over twenty years. Fred led them to where the body was hidden, and this is where the story gets even stranger than ever before.

The ten or so women who were murdered, and Fred West confessed to all of the murders, was one thing. But the murder of the eight year old daughter of Fred West and his ex-wife, was pinned on Rose.

No confession, no murder weapon, no cause of death, no witnesses, and no evidence of time of death, yet Rose West was convicted of this murder and nine others. Fred had conveniently committed suicide in prison before the trial.

Do I think Rose was involved in the murders? At the very minimum she had to know about them. The one victim who escaped claimed Rose was a willing partner to rape and attempted murder. Yet that is one witness who did not come forward for over twenty years. No other evidence exists. The bodies buried in their cellar and under their patio speaks to at least one person in the house knowing what happened, and Fred West confessed to all the murders. Both he and Rose said she had nothing to do with it.

In an American court of law, Rose either walks free or gets out on appeal. In a jury box, if given the lack of evidence against her, and also given that Fred defended her until the trial began, you’d find one, maybe more, jurors unable to pull the trigger on Rose.

I think she was 100% guilty. But I also think they didn’t prove it. The members of the jury simply refused to believe a woman lived in the same house with a killer who buried bodies in their basement yet never knew what was going on. I refuse to believe it, too.

Take Care,

Mike