Guns are useful for defending yourself from a home invasion

[hunter]

113. This is my most civilized great grandma and my great granddad.

My great grandmas were all wild west matriarchs.

Their men were artists and dreamers.

You can tell who the hunter is in this photo, no? The one you wouldn't want to mess with?

One of my great grandmas, not this one, lived in a two room cabin without plumbing. Bathe in the kitchen in a galvanized tub in water you carried from the creek about fifty yards uphill to the house. This great grandma never accepted indoor plumbing, and she was pissed off with her husband forever, even after he was dead, for signing onto Rural Electrification. He'd passed away leaving her two forty watt light bulbs and a god damned radio. She didn't need any of that shit. I remember watching her cook. She could pick up a knife and turn freshly killed fish, chickens, or small game into dinner faster than I could see her hands move. I used to stare, awed. I also remember her threatening my dad with a knife over some bone-headed artist thing he'd done. He wisely begged her forgiveness. In great grandma's universe minor screw ups killed people. No 911 to call, no antibiotics, the nearest doctor a day's ride away, and that doctor was probably a fraud.

That was on the homestead my mom's cousin still owns, which is just about as far away as you can get from a Wal-Mart or MacDonalds here in these continental United States.

I don't have regrets about my youth, none at all, because I'm not too terribly PTSD or physically maimed. I always walked away, even woke up a few times not knowing where the hell I was, sometimes not even which nation I was in, but with some new stories.

More importantly, I can tell my stories to my children and they'll be thinking, "Okay, got it. Don't be like dad."

Hell, I used to pick up hitchhikers whenever I had a car, and hitchhiked whenever I didn't. I lived in my car at times too.

Two of my brothers liked very big motorcycles. I was more into explosives, or walkabouts in the wilderness. Here is a picture of me on one of my brother's very big motorcycles:



Obnoxious geek.

One night I borrowed that bike to ride headlight mostly off under a full moon to Badwater, Death Valley, average speed greater than 100mph. Death Valley used to be one of my "goto" places whenever I was feeling a little down. Walking across the lumpy salt was my kind of meditation.

Top speed of a six cylinder CBX was just past my own "terrifying" mark so I only ever went full throttle uphill. My brothers were never so cautious, and one of them once ended up in a body cast, which was complicated because he'd left a lot of skin on the road.

My gun stories are not so fun.

Fuck guns.