Remember When Being a Liberal Was A Good Thing?

 

Remember when being a liberal was a good thing?  I sure do.  I remember growing up listening to the news - back when the news just reported the news without an agenda - talking about these new, unheard-of changes that needed to be made in American society.  And I remember hearing all of the uptight, straight-laced conservatives saying how bad the change was, and that it would lead to the downfall of the nation and all that other crap.  Even at 6 or 7 years of age I could see that the conservatives were so stuck in their ways and so unwilling to change that they'd never see the good that liberals were trying to do.  

But thankfully the liberals got their way, and some very important things in American life changed for the better.  Things like desegregation, the Civil Rights Act, the Voting Act, and more women entering the work force.  And surprise, surprise, the nation survived.  How about that.  The liberals were all about changes that would benefit everyone, not just liberals.  Of course the conservatives refused to see this, and I'm happy to say that they were proven wrong. 

Well, that was then and this is now, and things have most certainly changed.  I won't say that some of the ideas that the liberals of today have will cause the downfall of the nation, but it'll be close.  Some of the causes that the liberals of today support have been disastrous to the nation, such as open borders.  Flooding the nation with illegal immigrants who take jobs from Americans and sponge off of the system by getting benefits to which they're not entitled (such as social security and health care) have a detrimental effect on ALL American citizens because those services are paid for with OUR tax money.  I don't know about you, but I didn't give up a percentage of my pay to Social Security every payday to have an illegal alien criminal apply for and get benefits.  

Allowing non-citizens to vote in our elections is another one.  The open border policy is directly tied to this one, because the liberals (spelled Demoncrats) know that if they let the illegals in, then give them benefits that they'll vote for whatever candidate the Demoncrats put up.  This will in turn allow the Demoncrats to remain in power and give them the chance to force more of their idiotic policies on us and further fuck up the nation.

 

 

But the thing that concerns and dismays me the most is the unabated, open hatred that liberals have for conservatives to the point where they openly state on all kinds of social media how much they wish Trump would be assassinated, how they hoped that all conservatives get sick and die of covid, and other shit like that.  And this, coming from the same group of people who preach tolerance, acceptance, and understanding in one breath, then turn around and wish sickness and death on anyone who disagrees with them in the next breath.  This is the thing that concerns me the most about the liberals in our country, and is the main reason I refer to them as 'libtards.'  

 

The mere hypocrisy of the libtards in our nation today is nothing short of astounding.  One of the things I have NEVER seen on any form of social media is a posting by a conservative in which the poster says that they hope Chuck Schumer or Nancy Pelosi get cancer and die, or anything like that.  But a five minute trek through TikTok will show you all kinds of posts by blue and purple haired libtards wishing all of this and more on Trump, Vance, and literally anyone who doesn't agree with them.

 

This is disgusting, pure and simple, and contrary to what the libtards may think this is NOT the American way of life.  There is NO excuse for this, period.  But of course the libtards will disagree with you, then tell you that they hope you die.  

 

And that's why they're libtards. 

 

Deo Vindice

IHC

 

  

Sometimes It's The Little Things That Make Me Happy

  

Every now and then it's the little things in life that make me happy, and today's blog entry is about one of those.  It's called the "Watch Mug," and it's something that I'd been trying to find for a long time.  I just wasn't looking in the right place.

First, let me tell you about the watch mug.  This style of mug was first used by the USMC around 1913 at Guantanamo Bay, Cuba - or at least that's the earliest proven date by the stamp on the bottom of a mug shard found on Glass Beach at Gitmo.  The mug was designed to be heavy and sturdy to withstand the rigors of military use; it was also designed without a handle.  This was for two reasons - the handle was normally the first thing to break off, so they didn't put one on it.  The second reason is that Marines on guard or sentry duty - and later sailors on watch on board a ship at sea - would use the mug of hot coffee to warm their hands.  The size of the mug (it's HUGE) and the lack of a handle made it perfect for wrapping your fingers around it to warm them up in the cold weather.  This is how the mug got its name, the 'watch mug.'

 

 

The picture above shows a Marine on board a Navy ship after the invasion of Entiwok Island in WWII drinking coffee out of a watch mug.  You can see two other watch mugs on the table behind him. 

 

 As you can see from the picture above, the watch mug wasn't exclusive to the Marines and the Navy; the Air Force and the Army used it as well.

 

The mugs became standard issue on US Navy vessels, staying in use until around the time of the Vietnam War.  I haven't been able to find anything about when the mug went out of use by the other services, but I know that by the time I joined the Air Force it was long gone.

 

As soon as I saw one of these mugs I wanted one.  I thought it was cool as hell, and the fact that it was a part of Navy history is the part that intrigued me the most.  As you may recall from my previous posts, my father was in the US Navy from 1946-1951 stationed on board the USS MISSISSIPPI AG-128, which means that he drank from a mug just like this when he was either on watch or eating chow.

 

The first time I found one of these mugs was on e-bay (of course), and it was an original Corning mug from WWII - and the seller wanted $80 for it.  Nope, not happening.  I looked around some more, but couldn't find anyone who made a reproduction mug.  And all of the originals I found were all sky-high in price, so I was just about ready to give up.

 

Then, about two weeks ago, I found a company online called Glass Beach Mugs.  They make an exact replica of the 1917 USMC mug designed from shards of broken mugs found at Glass Beach, Guantanamo Bay, Cuba.  They also make three other versions of the mugs, one of which has the Masonic Square and Compasses on it.  (Too bad I didn't find this one last year, huh?)  Of course I immediately bought one, and since the Centennial USMC Mug was sold out, I went for the next one in line, the Filibuster Mug.  Including shipping the total cost was right at $30, and let me tell you it's worth every penny!

 

This mug is HUGE!  It holds 13 ounces of liquid, so if you use creamer in your coffee you're gonna want to leave a little room in the mug for that.  It's also HEAVY, weighing in at 1.25 pounds!  It's VERY thick, and I'm quite sure that if I dropped it on the floor it wouldn't break.  Like I said, this mug is worth every penny!

 

While I'm very pleased with all of the attributes of this mug, the main reason I love it as much as I do is very simple.  Since my father drank out of a mug like this when he was in the Navy, every time I use it I feel like I'm having coffee with my father.

 

Like I said, sometimes it's the little things that make me happy. 

 

I love you, Pop, and I miss you.

 

Electrician's Mate 3rd Class (EM3) Raymond Craig, 1950

Deo Vindice
IHC

 

 Glass Beach Mugs

You Say 'Auditor,' I Say...

 

Would somebody please explain to me the purpose of this whole 'auditor' thing?  You know, the guys who go stand in a public place on public property, point their video camera or cell phone at a sensitive building (such as a clinic or a bank or a hospital) and record the front of the building to include the people coming in and out of it?  This seems to be all the rave these days, and for the life of me I can't figure out a sound, logical reason for it.

In the first place, exactly what are they 'auditing?'  And why?  If they were hired by a company to take video, then that's one thing - but to just stand out on the sidewalk and record the outside of a building for no good fuckin' reason other than you can makes no sense. 

The clowns who do this - and IMHO that's just what they are, clowns - will tell you that they're 'exercising their First Amendment rights,' but I don't buy that.  Whenever they're asked why they're recording, they'll just say "I'm exercising my Constitutional rights" or "I'm exercising my First Amendment rights" without actually answering the question.  Nine times out of ten the people who are confronting them don't know anything about the Constitution or the First Amendment, so they'll always say that "what you're doing is illegal and I'm calling the cops!"  

News flash - this is exactly what these clowns want you to do.  They know that when the cops get there they'll say the same thing as the so-called 'auditor' - that he's on public property and can record anything he wants.  If it's happening in front of a clinic, the person who confronts him will claim it's a violation of HIPPA laws, but the truth is that it's not.  HIPPA laws cover the release of medical information on a patient to someone other than a family member; it says nothing about recording the outside of a clinic.  So no, HIPPA laws don't apply.

So why are these clowns doing this?  Simple - they're trying to stir up shit to have something nice and juicy to post on TikTok or YouTube and get their fifteen minutes of fame.  That's it.  That's the whole reason for it.  Either that, or to bait an uninformed cop into taking some kind of action against them, which will make the video even juicier and also let the 'auditor' sue the police officer, the police department, and the city.  And the sad thing is that every now and then some dumbass cop will do just that, and the video will go viral.  That gives ALL cops a bad name, and that's something that the good cops can do without.

Until someone gives me a sound, logical reason for these clowns standing outside anyplace and recording the people walking past, I'm going to stand by my opinion that they're doing it just to stir up shit and get something to post on the internet - all for the sake of VIEWS.

These clowns are both sad and pathetic.  If you have to stoop to something like this in order to get attention, then you have a serious problem.  

And if you're doing it just to stir up shit and cause trouble, then you're an asshole.

Period.

Deo Vindice

IHC

 

  

What I Believe - Men In Women's Sports

 

One of the things I absolutely don't understand is why this topic is even being discussed, or why anyone with an ounce of common sense would support it.  My opinion on this topic is very simple - men don't belong in women's sports.  Period.  It is a proven biological fact that most - not all, but most - women are physically incapable of competing against men.  That's why they have women's sports in the first place, to allow women to compete in sports in a FAIR and EQUITABLE environment, where everyone has a fair chance at winning.  When you put a man who has a mental illness and thinks he's a woman into this environment, it ceases to become fair and equitable.

 

Need proof of this?  Okay, for all of you screaming libtards out there, here it is - every single time a man has been allowed to compete in women's sports, he's won.  Every.  Single.  Time.

 

And he won because biologically HE'S A MAN, NOT A WOMAN.

 

Yes, I said it - a man who thinks he's a woman has a mental illness.  I don't give a damn what anyone else says, in my opinion any man who thinks he's a woman and wants to cut off his own Johnson has a severe mental illness.  Likewise, any woman who thinks she's a man has the same mental illness - either that, or she has the most severe case of penis envy in the history of mankind.

 

And it's high time the majority stopped kow-towing to the 1%.  

 

I personally don't care how others live their lives because it's their lives and not mine, which means that it's none of my business.  I don't care what you do with your body, I don't care who you sleep with, I don't care who you marry, I don't care what 'pronouns' you use, and I don't care what color you dye your hair.  As I said, it's none of my business.

 

But when you start forcing your mental illness and/or your liberal lifestyle down other people's throats and start demanding that others give in to your lunatic demands, at that point it becomes my business because I'm one of the 'others.'  I refuse to use your 'preferred pronouns' because I refuse to participate and thereby legitimize your fantasy of what you are or what you think you are.  I'm not going to call a 'transgender' man 'she,' and I'm not going to call a 'transgender' woman 'he.'  As the meme says, if you were born with a penis, you're a man.  And if you were born with a vagina, you're a woman.  

 

Men don't belong in women's sports. And this includes Brittany Griner.  

 

End of story.

 

Deo Vindice

IHC

 

  

 

Change My Mind

 

If you're an adult with any common sense (which means you're a conservative Republican) then no further explanation is necessary.  But just in case there's any libtards out there looking at this and don't understand it or disagree with it, let me lay it out for you.

Here's a small list of the things that the Demoncratic Party supports and that almost all of their candidates push:

1.  Men participating in women's sports

2.  Men using women's bathrooms

3.  Open Borders

4.  More inflation

5.  Soft stance on crime

6.  Taxes on tips and overtime

7.  Taxes on retired senior's social security checks

8.  Censorship

9.  Trans surgery for children

10.  Gun control to include repealing the 2nd Amendment

11.   Defunding the police

12.  Allowing illegal immigrants to vote in national elections 

13.  Giving state/federal benefits to illegal immigrants who did nothing to deserve it except show up

If you agree with any of these stances, I'm not going to waste my time trying to change your mind because my past experience has taught me that it's useless.  Trying to change a libtard's mind is like trying to teach a pig to fly - it's impossible and only irritates the pig.  (The only difference is that the pig will just run away instead of calling you a racist, a fascist, or a Nazi.)

On the off chance that there is someone who supports these idiotic ideas and is reading this, here's a serious question for you that I'd really like an answer to.  Ready?  Here it is.

WHY?  What's the logic behind supporting ANY of these?

Anyone want to take bets on whether or not I get a reply?

Deo Vindice

IHC

 

  

Friends, Buddies, and Acquaintances

 

I heard something a very long time ago - as in 50+ years ago when I was in high school - that everyone in your life, male or female, fits into one of three basic categories.  Those categories were Friends, Buddies, and Acquaintances, and when I asked what the differences between the categories were, what I was told made a hell of a lot of sense.  Now that I'm 50+ years older, it makes more sense than ever, and life has proven it to be 100% true.

So now let me share with you these nuggets of wisdom that were shared with me so many years ago.  I'll start at the bottom and work my way up.

Acquaintances are people that you merely know in passing.  In high school it was someone that you knew from school and maybe was in one of your classes, and was someone that you'd say 'hi' to when you passed them in the hall between classes.  Maybe you'd stop and talk for a minute, but most of the time the quick 'hi' was it.  Other than that, they weren't a part of your life and you never spent any more time with them than the situation required.

Buddies are people that you know from either school or, if you're old enough, from work and are people that you get along with.  These are the people that you socialize with, go to parties with, go drinking with, and generally have a good time with.  These are people that you get along with and who get along with you, and you get to know each other on a personal level - but you're not really sure if you'd want them to marry into your family.  Still, you get along well and have no problems other than the occasional drunken argument over which baseball team is better or who's going to the Super Bowl this year.

Friends are something completely different.  Friends are on a whole different and a much higher level than buddies.   Friends are someone in whom you have total and complete trust, someone that you would share your deepest, darkest secrets with and whom you trust to keep yours.  Friends are the people that you can call at any hour of the day or night and tell them that you need them right fuckin' now, and the only thing they would say is "where are you and can you hang on until I get there?"  There is no limit as to what a friend will do for you, and a true friend will even die for you.   And if you're a true friend to them, you should be prepared to do the same.

Throughout my entire life, I don't think I've ever had more than four or five friends at the same time.  I've had a few that I thought were my friends, but they later proved to be no more than buddies, with a lot of them falling all the way down to acquaintances.  And some of them are even lower than that, as I wouldn't even look at them if I pass them on the street.  And there's one or two of those that I wouldn't piss on if they were on fire.

So ask yourself a couple of questions when you get the chance.  Ask yourself where among these three categories do the people you know fit, and this includes family.  You can be related to someone and still only be acquaintances or buddies, believe it or not.  When you've decided who your friends are, ask yourself a second question.

Ask yourself if you are as good a friend to them as they are to you.

I hope the answer is yes.  If not, you need to fix that right away.

Deo Vindice

IHC

 

  

 

Are Liberals Really That Stupid?

 

Yes.  Yes they are.  And they're getting stupider by the day.

First, they complained when the President federalized the National Guard and sent them into the District of Columbia to clean up the city and free it from the staggering crime rate that it's been enduring for the past 4 years.  And this is no thanks to the DEI hire chief of police who, when asked about it during a live press conference, didn't even know what a chain of command was.  

Yeah, I'm not kidding.  This is what happens when you hire someone based on sex and/or skin color instead of merit and abilities. 

D.C. has a murder rate that is one of the highest in the nation, which is really saying something considering that A) it's the nation's capital which you'd think would be one of the safest cities in the nation, and B) the small size of the city itself.  Needless to say, D.C. has some pretty stringent gun control laws which only helps the bad guys.   Most cities with staggeringly high crime/murder rates do.  (See Chicago.)

So of course when Trump sent in the Guard to clean things up, the libtards had a conniption fit.  Instead of being grateful that someone was finally doing something to get rid of the thugs, muggers, thieves, and murderers roaming the city streets, they chose to demonstrate and protest instead.  So aside from being stupid as a box of hammers, the liberals are also ungrateful as hell.

And just when you think that the level of libtard stupidity has reached its limit, the libtards step it up a notch and take it down even lower.

There is now a group of libtards walking around handing out whistles to criminals so that they can blow them to get help when the police and/or the Guard tries to arrest them.

No, I'm not making this shit up.  You can't make up anything this fuckin' stupid, and only the libtards would do this.

I'm just waiting for the inevitable news story telling of one or more of these stupid libtards getting assaulted/robbed/raped/murdered by one of the criminals they're trying to help stay out of jail.  And this one is coming, trust me.  Just as sure as God made little green apples, it's only a matter of time before this happens.

And when it does, of course the libtards will blame Trump.  But then, what else is new?

As Forrest Gump once said, "Stupid is as stupid does."

Deo Vindice

IHC

 

  

What I Believe - Transgenders In The Military

 In a word - NO.  Now let me explain why not.

First and foremost, transgenderism is a mental illness.  Anyone who thinks that they were 'born the wrong sex' and 'are really a man/woman' instead of their birth sex has a mental illness.  And if you need any further proof of this, let me throw this at you - what man in his right mind wants to cut off his own penis?

Sure sounds bat-shit crazy to me. 

Up until Barry NObama and his band of merry idiots came into power, that was the medically and socially accepted standard.   The biggest hallmark of his presidency (aside from the blatant racism and the fact that he's married to a man) is that just about all of the standards and morals the nation had been founded on and had been following since 1776 were disregarded.  The liberal left had a field day, shoving their agenda down our throats with the full backing and support of the POTUS.  Suddenly every form of sexual deviancy and mental illness were all acceptable, and the vast majority of the population of this country were forced to sit back and watch as the inmates took over the asylum.  In my mind, one picture sums up NObama's legacy, and this is it:

While this was publicly intended by NObama to be a message to the homosexual community that they had his support, privately it was his way of telling the conservatives that he was going to overturn everything they ever believed in and make this country a living hell for straight white heterosexual conservatives.  IMHO lighting up the White House - which is the PEOPLE'S house, not NObama's - with the rainbow colors used by the homosexual community is the most disgusting, disgraceful thing any sitting President has ever done.  The White House represents ALL of the people of the United States regardless of their sexual orientation, and this disgusting display told the world that NObama wasn't interested in ALL of the people, just the ones he could con into voting for him.

And it worked, as we all know.

But back to the main topic.

So yes, IMHO (and that's what this blog is, my opinion) transgenderism is a mental illness.  And any form of mental illness, be it transgenderism or kleptomania, will disqualify you from military service.  

Now let's look at the practical side of it, shall we?  And this will be short, I assure you.

The drugs that a postoperative transgender person has to take are expensive as shit, but the main thing is that they disqualify that person from worldwide military service.  You can't send a person into a combat zone that absolutely have to have a certain medicine in order to survive, much less function in a combat role.  Hell, if you have a wisdom tooth extracted and they put you on pain meds, you're temporarily disqualified for worldwide deployment until you're off of the meds.  Depending on what the meds are, you're also disqualified from even carrying a weapon, much less deploying.  And I know this for a fact because it happened to me twice while I was in the Air Force. So if you can't carry a weapon and can't be deployed worldwide, then you cannot perform the duties required of you and are of NO USE to the military.

So NO, transgenders have no place in the US Armed Forces, and anyone who is a transgender who is currently serving needs to be discharged immediately.  

And don't blame Trump or Hegseth for this - blame NObama, because he's the one who started it all.  Trump and Hegseth are the ones who are ending it, and they're doing it with my full support and the support of the majority of the American people.

The time has come where the majority is no longer going to kow-tow to the 1% minority.

Get used to it, libtards, because this is the way it's gonna be for the next 11 1/2 years.

Deo Vindice

IHC

 

  

"And Then That Damned Movie Came Out..."

 I think one of the happiest times of my teenage years were the years my family was involved in Citizen's Band Radio, or CB for short.  I got involved in it in 1974 when a good friend of mine, Bobby Sanderford, installed one in his car and I heard him talking on it.  His CB name - or 'handle' as it's called ' was "Ace High."  I thought that was just the coolest thing ever, and as soon as I could make it happen I got one for myself. 

My first CB radio was a Royce 23 channel 5 watt mobile radio, and I mounted it under the dashboard on the left side of the steering wheel of my mother's 1973 Ford Pinto.  At that time in my life I was planning on joining the Navy when I graduated from high school, so of course my CB handle became "Navy Man."  My father was quickly bitten by the CB bug, as was just about everyone else in my family except for my sister Cindy.  CB was never her thing, and I don't think she's ever talked on it.  But that didn't stop the rest of us from getting involved in it, and my father went at it just like everything else he did - whole hog.  It didn't take long before my father had one in his car and we had a base station sitting on the counter in the kitchen, complete with a tunable radio, a D104 microphone, a 500 watt ABC tunable linear amplifier, and an external speaker hooked up to a 4 element "Moon Raker" directional antennae 200 feet up in the air in top of a pine tree in our back yard.  And just for good measure, Pop hooked up a police scanner as well.  Here's what the setup looked like:

As you can see from the placard, our call letters were KHW-2767.  My father's handle was "Raleigh Golfer," my mother was "Little Orphan Annie," and I was "Navy Man."  My sister Dorothy was in college at this time so she wasn't around except for during the summer, so Pop didn't put her handle on the placard when he made it.  Her handle was "Dewdrop," and my father hung the handle of "Nuisance" on my sister Cindy.

I very vividly remember sitting up until all hours of the morning with my father on the weekends "talking skip;" that is, using the cloud cover to bounce the radio signal around and talk to operators in other countries.  Talking skip was illegal as hell, but we did it anyway.  The laws governing CB radio at that time mandated a 5 watt output limit on radios, but we had that 500 watt tunable amplifier anyway.  And let me tell you, when that thing was cranked up at 2AM so as not to interfere with anyone's TV (that went off the air at midnight anyway), we we talked, EVERYBODY listened!  Our signal was so strong that it would bleed over three channels in both directions, meaning that if we were talking on channel 15 you hears us all the way down to 12 and all the way up to 18!  We had the "walkin'est, talkin'est" base station in the city of Raleigh, no doubt about it! 

The rules in CB radio at that time were simple.  First, you had to have a license.  This was a one-time purchase of $20, so that was no big deal.  As I mentioned before, power output was limited to 5 watts, which gave you about a two or three mile range (unless you had a linear amplifier installed in your car under the seat).  Channels 1-8 were reserved for businesses, channel 9 was the emergency channel, and channels 10-23 were the "hobby" channels.  Channel 19 was the trucker's channel, so you didn't talk on it unless you were traveling.  And you absolutely didn't talk on channel 9 unless you had an emergency.  There was even an organization called R.E.A.C.T. (which stood for Radio Emergency Action Communication Team) made up of volunteers that did nothing but listen to channel 9 for emergencies and then notify the authorities as needed.  When you were talking on the radio you were allowed to talk for 5 minutes ("getting your nickel's worth") and then you had to shut up for 5 minutes to let others talk if need be.  There was hardly ever any need for this, however, because CB wasn't so popular as to be THAT crowded.  Usually you could talk for as long as you wanted, especially early in the mornings.

Every city had its own 'monitor channel,' the channel that was set aside for people to contact other CBers on, and the monitor channel for Raleigh was Channel 11.  The way it worked was simple - if I wanted to see if "Ace High" was on the air, I'd go to the monitor channel and call for him.  If he answered, we would immediately go to another channel to talk, leaving the monitor channel free.   If you got to that channel and found someone talking on it already, when one of the people stopped talking you'd key up your microphone and say "BREAK," then wait for a reply.  When the other guy said, "Go ahead, break," you'd tell the person you wanted to talk with to go to another channel.  It was courtesy to do it this way, and courtesy traveled in both directions - you didn't talk after you asked for a break until you were given permission, and if someone asked for a break you gave it to them immediately.

 And then there were the 10 codes to learn.  There weren't that many so they were fairly easy.  10-4 was 'ok,' 10-9 was 'repeat,' 10-20 was 'location,' and 10-36 was 'time check.'  I'm sure there were more, but these were the only ones used on a regular basis.

I met some really nice people through the CB radio, and everyone involved had a ball.  I enjoyed it so much that when I got my own car after I joined the Air Force I put a CB radio in it, changing my handle to "Blue Knight."  CB radio was a lot of fun, something that we all looked forward to doing, especially on the weekends when you'd have 4 or 5 people talking on the same channel, having a blast and just enjoying the experience.

And then that damned movie came out.

Don't get me wrong, I love "Smokey and The Bandit," and it's one of my favorite movies, but the truth is that the movie absolutely ruined CB radio.  Once that damned movie came out, for Christmas of 1977 every kid in the nation wanted either a CB radio or a Pontiac Trans Am for Christmas.  And since most parents couldn't afford the car, they got their kid a CB radio instead.

The result was that the radio was flooded with kids who had no idea how to talk on the radio.  You name it, they did it wrong.  They talked on the monitor channel.  They talked on the trucker's channel.  They talked on the business channels.  They even talked on Channel 9.  And it became impossible to have a conversation for longer than 2 minutes without this happening:

Me:  "So I'll meet you at the KK at nine o'clock, then?"  (The KK was the Krispy Kreme donut shop at the corner of Person and Peace Streets in Raleigh, a CB hangout.)

Kid:  "BREAK!"

Me:  "Stand by, Ace High; go ahead, break."

Kid:  "What's your 20?"  

OR

Kid:  "How about a 10-36?"

After a while, my reply to those questions became either "IF I WAS UP YOUR ASS YOU'D KNOW WHERE I WAS!" or "TIME FOR YOU TO BUY A FUCKIN' WATCH!"

There were so many requests for licenses that the FCC couldn't keep up with them.  What used to take 30 days to process was now taking 90 days or longer, so you were told to use the letter "K" and your initials followed by your zip code as a temporary license until yours arrived.  And even then they had to add a letter to the license because they were issuing so many.  (My license was KBLK-9720.) Then they dropped the fee down to $5, then eliminated the need for a license entirely.  Soon after that they increased the number of channels from 23 all the way up to 40, and that still wasn't enough.  All of the channels were flooded with kids breaking into your conversation and asking for time or location checks.

I put up with this nonsense for about six months, then said the hell with it.  When I sold my car in '78 I took the CB radio out of it and didn't install it in the next car.  I didn't have a CB radio in my car again until the early '90s; by that time things had calmed down, but the CB radio experience was never the same again.  The fellowship and camaraderie was gone, never to return; not even the truckers were talking as much as they used to.  I had a CB in my car until 2000, and when I sold that car I took the radio out and never installed it again.  CB radio had just stopped being fun.

All because of that damned movie.

Deo Vindice

IHC

 

 

A Sad Day for South Carolina Masonry

It's a sad day for South Carolina Masonry.  After serving only 4 months in office, the sitting Grand Master of Masons, Most Worshipful Brother Thomas "Tommy" Watson, has died.  The details are not known at this time, but it has been confirmed that MWB Watson has laid down his working tools of life and entered the Celestial Lodge above.

MWB Watson was a good man, one of the best I'd ever met in Masonry, and he will most assuredly be missed.  The Deputy Grand Master, Right Worshipful Brother Acey Flora, has a very big pair of shoes to fill.  My deepest condolences to the Watson family and my best wishes to RWB Flora.

 "Well done, thou good and faithful servant; enter thou into the joys of thy Lord."

Deo Vindice

IHC

 

  

 

You Can't Go Home Again

Every now and then I like to get on Google Earth and take a look at some of the places where I used to live, see how things have changed, and whether it's for the better or for the worse.  Most of the time the changes are for the better - for example, my old neighborhood in Central Gardens outside of Richmond, Virginia looks pretty good.  We lived there from 1960 (I think) when I was 3 until 1964 when we moved to Highland Springs.  There was a time after we moved out in '64 that it went downhill a bit, but it's recovered nicely.  And considering that Central Gardens has been a black neighborhood since '64, that's saying something.  (And before anyone starts shouting 'racist,' let me say two things:  if it's the truth it ain't racist, and name me ONE neighborhood that went black and didn't go downhill.  I'll wait.)

Likewise with my old neighborhood in Quail Hollow outside of Raleigh, NC.  The neighborhood looks really good, and the two pine trees that I planted in the front yard in 1972 that were just seedlings then have grown into great, big, healthy, mature trees.  The rest of the trees in the neighborhood are bigger, too, and the houses look really good.

And my house on Fernwood Road in Wantage, NJ looks just the same as when we moved out in 2006, only the new owners finally managed to get some grass to grow in the back yard.  They did this by cutting down the 3 oak trees that were back there which kept the yard in shade all the time and sucked up all of the water out of the ground.  We didn't cut them down because the original owners of the house planted an oak tree whenever they had a child, and they had 3 of them - so we left the trees out of respect for that.  Seeing what the back yard looks like now, I should have cut the damned things down, but oh well.

All in all, the neighborhoods where I've lived previously look pretty good - except for my old neighborhood in Highland Springs, Virginia.  

When we moved into the brand new house at 207 North New Avenue, that part of the street was being developed.  On my side of the street we had the only new house, but the 4 houses across the street from us were also brand new construction.  Standing on the front porch of my house and looking left to right, from the corner there was Rusty Murray's house, Mark Wright's house, Ruby Wheeler's house, and Tim Anderson's house.  The two houses to our left on our side of the street were already there, with the one on the corner being built in the '40s.  The house to our right was also older, occupied by the Crews family.  There was nothing on our side of the road all the way down to Washington Street, and across the street there was a small patch of woods next to Tim's house with an older house after that which was occupied by an old lady who bred German Shepard dogs.  Then a large horse pasture, then a house at the intersection of Washington and New, but that's it.

Now the entire street has been developed.  The old house two houses up from us is gone, replaced by a newer house (which is now in ruins), the old lady's house is gone, the horse pasture is gone, the Crews house is gone, with newer houses being built in their place.  All of the open space on the street is gone, filled with houses now.  

And most of them look like shit.  They're run down and ill kept, and the neighborhood looks like exactly what it is - a ghetto.  Mark Wright's old house looks like it's falling apart, and the yard is overgrown and filled with junk cars, busted up trailers, and other junk like that.  On the positive side our old house looks pretty good - actually it's the best looking house on the block.

One street over and two block up at the intersection of Mapleleaf and Willow was Ken and Jenny Schellenberg's house, a two story house that was always well-kept and neat as a pin.  Ken's dad was the local doctor, and they had a bomb shelter from the 1950's in their side yard that we'd always play in when it was hot in the summer.  That house is now gone, burned to the ground about 20 years ago, and the lot was divided before being sold.  Two houses were built on the lots, and they both look like hell.  (I have no idea what happened to the bomb shelter.)

When we moved to Highland Springs in 1964 there were around 5,000 people living there, most of them white.  When I went to Highland Springs High School in 1971-72 I think we had less than 150 black kids in the school.  The Census of 2010 showed that in Highland Springs there were 4,580 whites and 10,303 blacks; by 2020 those numbers had changed to 3,712 whites and 11,475 blacks.  The student body of the high school is now 90% black.   They've changed the logo of the high school as well so it reflects this.  Here are the two logos, the one they were using when me and my sisters went there on the left and the one they're using now on the right:

    

The team name is "Springers," and I've seen it spelled "Springerz" in some unofficial publications.

To say that I am thoroughly disgusted by this would be the understatement of the century. 

This is why once I leave a place or an organization, I never go back.  Anytime you go back you will automatically expect it to be the same as it was when you left, and that's just not how it goes.  The changes will be there, and whether they're good changes or not, in your mind they won't be good because they're different from what you remember.  And if it's one thing life has taught me it's that people abhor change.  They always ask for it, but when it happens they don't like it.  

But I can't say that the changes in Highland Springs are good by anyone's standards.  The neat, clean, upper middle class white neighborhood that I grew up in is now a low-class black ghetto, and seeing it like this just breaks my heart.    

And that ain't racist because it's the truth.

So no, you can't go home again.  And you wouldn't want to, trust me. 

Deo Vindice

IHC

 

 

What's In A Name

 One of the most heavily debated topics when people discuss the War Between the States is the "correct" name for the conflict.  The most commonly used name (by most, not by me) is "The American Civil War," or just "The Civil War."  What I think is the second most commonly used name is the one I use, "The War Between the States."  Some of the other names I've heard used are "The War for Southern Independence," "The War of the Rebellion," and "The Second American Revolution." I'm sure there are more, but these are the ones I've heard.

I refuse to use "American Civil War" or "Civil War" for one reason - the conflict was not a 'civil war.'  For those of you who may not know what the definition of 'civil war' is, here it is right out of the Merriam-Webster Dictionary:

"Civil war (noun) - a war between opposing groups of citizens of the same country." 

Since the Southern states had seceded from the Union and formed their own country, what took place was a war between two separate countries (or nations); therefore, the conflict was NOT a 'civil war,' and I don't give a damn that Lincoln used that term in the Gettysburg Address, either.

And this brings us smack dab into the debate of whether or not secession was legal, a topic I'll save for a later date.  But I do have a question concerning that which I'll ask at the end of this post.

But back to the name - I use the WBTS because I think that's the most accurate description of what took place.  Sure, you could call it the "War for Southern Independence" and you wouldn't be wrong; you could also call it the "Second American Revolution" and you still wouldn't be wrong because after all, the Southerners were Americans, were they not?  Even "War of the Rebellion" wouldn't be wrong, but only if you looked at it from the Yankee's point of view.  

No, what took place was a war between two different nations, and since these nations were both composed of individual states, I use the term "War Between the States."  There are those who will claim that the Confederacy was not a 'sovereign' nation because it was never formally recognized by another nation such as Great Britain, and they wouldn't be wrong.  And that's one of the reasons I use the term that I do - you cannot deny that both the US and the CS were composed of individual states, and those states were at war with each other.

Now, about that question I mentioned earlier...

In his Gettysburg Address Lincoln referred to the conflict as "a great civil war," publicly affirming his opinion and the opinion of the Federal government that secession was illegal and that the Southern states were still a part of the United States.  After all, that was the reason for issuing the call for 75,000 troops in 1861 'to preserve the Union,' right?  

So if that was the case, then why did the Southern states have to be readmitted to the Union when the war was over? 

Good question, huh? 

Think about it.

Deo Vindice

IHC 

 

 

 

 

 

In case you haven't figured it out by now, I am fiercely proud of my Southern heritage.  I was born and raised in Richmond, Virginia, the Capitol of the Confederacy, and I spent my formulative years (between the ages of 7 and 15) in Highland Springs, a small town that was at that time around 9 miles southeast of Richmond.  This small town - small back then, anyway - was smack dab in the middle of the area of the Seven Day's Battles and was surrounded by battlefields.  Sandston, Mechanicsville, Cold Harbor, Beaver Dam Creek, Drewery's Bluffs, all of these were in the surrounding area, with Cold Harbor and Sandston being close enough to ride to on my bicycle.

 

Even the town itself was rich in Confederate history.  Highland Springs was founded in the 1890s as a streetcar suburb of Richmond on the Seven Pines Railway Company's electric street railway line between Richmond and the Seven Pines National Cemetery.  There were several major battles in that area, with a large number of both Union and Confederate dead being buried there.  The streetcar was the best way to provide transportation to the citizens of Richmond to the cemetery and back, and the town itself sprung up from there.  

 

When I lived in Highland Springs the town was unofficially divided up into the 'old' part of town and the 'new' part of town.  The town itself was laid out with the roads running in straight lines to the north and south of Nine Mile Road, and is as near-perfect a grid as you'll ever see.  All of the streets in the 'old' part of town, the part that was built in the 1890s and early 1900s, are all named after Confederate heroes.  Lee, Jackson, Johnson, AP Hill, Armistead, all of them have streets named after them in the old part of town.  Even the country club and the only apartment complex in town were named with Confederate heritage in mind - the country club was Confederate Hills, and the apartment complex was Confederate Heights.  (Both have had their names changed as of this date.)  

 

And just in case you were wondering, all of the streets in the 'new' part of town were named after bushes and trees.  Ivy, Juniper, Kalmia, Oak, Pine, and so on.  Except for my street, that is.  I lived on New Avenue, and I have no idea where THAT name came from!  And all of the streets, both old and new, were alphabetically arranged, which made them incredibly easy to find and navigate.

 

My fascination with the War Between the States (I refuse to call it the 'civil war' because it was a war between two governments, not between citizens and one government) began in 1964 when I was in the 4th grade.  I was assigned the Battle of Antietam as a history project, and up until then had never heard of the war.  But once I started researching the battle, that was it - I was bitten by the bug, and have spent the rest of my life studying the years between 1861 and 1865 and the events leading up to that tragic era.  I was more than pleased to discover that my town was located in a battlefield, and was elated when one of my friends told me that he actually had an old WBTS trench running through his back yard!

 

When my mother told me that her brother in law John had researched her family's history and discovered that we had not one but THREE ancestors who fought for the Confederacy, I immediately joined the SCV and the MOS&B.  Since I was in the Air Force at the time I had to be careful about what Confederate-related regalia I wore or Confederate-related insignia/flags/pins/patches I wore.  Every base at which I was stationed had a regulation specifically prohibiting the flying of the Confederate flag from any building on base, including base housing.  While I didn't agree with it I can understand it, and abided by the rule.  So for the years that I was in the service I didn't display anything with the Confederate flag on it, even though I was still on active duty when I joined the SCV in 1992.

 

All that changed when I retired.  When I moved up to New Jersey to be with Gina I flew the Stars and Stripes on the front of the house, but from the elevated back deck I flew a variety of Confederate flags, flying a different one as they wore out and needed to be replaced.  I flew the First National "Stars and Bars," the Third National, and Lee's Headquarters flag, but I never flew the Army of Northern Virginia Battle Flag (the one at the top of the page).  On the back of my denim motorcycle jacket I had two big flag patches - the US flag on top and the Battle Flag on the bottom.  I wore that jacket for 7 years through Pennsylvania, New York, New Jersey, Delaware, and Maryland, and never heard a peep about it from anyone.

 

When I moved to SC I transferred my SCV membership to a camp down here, and had SCV license tags on my Saturn and my Chevy truck.  The truck was adorned with many Confederate symbols and stickers, and once again I never heard anything from anyone about it that was negative.  But after a while I took all of the stickers off of the truck (but kept the license tag), and didn't replace them.  I had entered a stage of my life where I was a little more cognizant of the feelings of others around me, so I refrained from displaying anything Confederate to avoid causing problems for others.  This period of my life began on November 12, 2013 when I joined the Masonic fraternity.

 

But now all that's in the past.  I've reached a point in my life where I truly don't care what others think about what I say or do.  As I've said before, I won't go out of my way or intentionally do or say anything to insult or hurt anyone else, but at the same time I'm not watching my words or my actions as closely as I did before.  I fly two 6x9 inch flags from the luggage rack on my motorcycle, and one of them is the Battle Flag.   (The other is the American flag.)  If that offends you, then that's a YOU problem.  And I'm seriously considering bringing my old denim jacket with the two flags on it out of retirement now that I'm not in an MC anymore and don't have any colors to wear.

 

And if it ends up that I join the SCV Mechanized Cavalry, then I'll wear their colors with pride everywhere I go whenever I'm on the bike.  Their colors look like this:

 

So yeah, my pride in my Confederate heritage has undergone a resurgence, and I'm okay with that.  So is my wife, Gina.

 

And to me, that's all that matters.

 

Deo Vindice

IHC 

 

 

 

 

A Blinding Flash of the Obvious

So have you ever had one of these?  Something that is right there out in the open but that you never realized, never connected the dots, when all of a sudden - BAM!  It hits you right between the eyes, and you end up thinking, "Well, DUH!"

I just had one of those.  I was looking at the organizational logos depicted on my blog when I found myself wondering (not for the first time, I might add) why the Military Order of Stars and Bars used the Army of Northern Virginia Battle Flag for their logo instead of the First National Confederate Flag.  After all, the First National flag was also called "the Stars and Bars" for obvious reasons, right?  For those of you who don't know which flag I'm talking about, it's this one:

So you can see why it's called "the Stars and Bars," right?  So why not use this flag for the logo?

Then it hit me like a bolt out of the blue.  The rank insignia worn on the collars of Confederate officers consisted of horizontal bars for Lieutenant through Captain, and stars for Major and up. 

 

Stars and bars. 

Well, DUH! 

And while I'm sitting here proof-reading this post, I had another one.

The MOS&B changed its name several years ago, as in 20 or so.  The original name was "Military Order of The Stars and Bars," and the name change involved dropping the word "The" from the name.  I always wondered why they did this, and it just now hit me.

They dropped that word from the name because "THE Stars and Bars" refers to the First National Flag, and the organization is about Confederate officers and not the flag.  Dropping that word from the title clarifies that point.

Well, DUH! 

I'm gonna go sit in the corner for a while now.

Deo Vindice

IHC 

 

 

My New Focus

Most people may not know it, but I'm the kind of person that needs something to be involved in, something to focus my attentions and drive on.  I'm not the kind of person to sit around on my ass all day doing nothing - I have to be focused on something, be it an organization or something that involved riding my Harley. 

 And anyone who knows me - truly knows me - knows that when I get involved in something, I give it my complete attention and devotion.  I go at it whole hog, not holding anything back, and devote myself to it entirely.  If whatever organization I'm involved in is having an activity, then I'll be there no matter what.  I'll also be the first one there and the last one to leave when it's over.  Anyone who knows me from either the Lodge or the Shrine knows this having seen it first-hand.

Unfortunately, for the past 4 months I haven't had a focus and I've kind of felt like a ship without a rudder, just drifting with the tide with no real purpose.  I've tried to make my Harley my main focus, riding it as much as I can - and I've ridden it a LOT since I got it in October.  So far I've put 6K miles on it, which is more than I put on my Road King in the entire previous year.  But I still needed something else to focus my attention and my drive on, something that would take up more than just a few hours a week.

And two weeks ago I found it.  Or found it again, actually.  I rejoined the Sons of Confederate Veterans and the Military Order of Stars and Bars, two organizations that I was a part of previously but dropped out of when my work schedule wouldn't allow me the time I needed to participate.

So let me explain what those two organizations are, since I'm betting that most of you have never heard of them before.

The Sons of Confederate Veterans is just that - an organization made up of male descendants of men who fought for the Confederacy during the War for Southern Independence.   The organization was founded in 1896, and is the 'successor organization' of the United Confederate Veterans.  (That title is self-explanatory so I won't go further.)  The main purpose of the SCV is to preserve and retell the true history of the South and the Confederate soldier.  It's a never-ending task considering the enormous amount of Yankee history/half-truths/lies that are so prevalent these days, so the SCV has its work cut out for it.

The Military Order of Stars and Bars is made up of male descendants of Confederate officers, so it's a little more exclusive than the SCV.  (Once upon a time you had to be a member of the SCV before you could join the MOSB, but that requirement was dropped quite a while back.) 

I have three ancestors who fought for the Confederacy, and since one of them was Colonel William H. Burkett (a relative on my mothers' side) I qualify for membership in both organizations.  Right now I've renewed my membership in both organizations at the national level and am not assigned to a local camp.  I'm a little gun shy about joining a local camp for either organization thanks to the way my former Masonic Lodge treated me.  I may join a local chapter of the two organizations later on, but for now I'll just sit where I am at the "member at large" level.

Now all I have to do is find a group to ride with.  The SCV has a Mechanized Cavalry unit, which is made up of SCV members who ride bikes, so I'm going to check them out eventually.  The only thing there is that in order to join a Mechanized Cavalry unit you have to be assigned to a local chapter, and I'm not ready for that yet.  Time will tell.

So in the mean time I'm gonna check out the local H.O.G. (Harley Owner's Group) Chapter, but again, I'm not so sure I'm ready to trust people enough to do that yet.  We'll see, though.  Nothing ventured, nothing gained.

One thing's for sure, though - the next time I get involved in an organization with a local chapter of anything, hell will freeze over before I'll be in a position of authority or leadership again.  My days of telling other people what they can and can't do are over, thanks to my dealings with the Masonic lodge.

That's a wound I don't think will ever heal, but I'm damned sure not gonna let it stop me from living the best life I can.

Deo Vindice

IHC 

 

(P.S. - Deo Vindice means "With God As Our Defender" and happens to be the motto of the MOS&B.)