Neanderpundit

I have, in my posession, a couple hundred 30-06 cases. There are five boxes of R-P on my desk as we speak. I had a box sitting on the shelf in my closet that I hadn’t looked at for ages, and yesterday I took it down, and opened it up.

There were twenty rounds in it, plus one loose round. It was all mil stuff. Wierd primer crimp, and the cartridge mouth looked fucked up. I tried to remember where I’d gotten them and then I noticed the headstamp- “FAPS”. They were blanks.

Where the hell would I have come across blanks?

then it came back. I was visiting a friend’s gravesite a couple years ago, and as I stood there thinking about him, I heard rifle fire. Across the cemetary, an honor guard saluted a fallen soldier. Seven shots, three times. I walked over, and saw the honor guard walk to their cars- some with canes, some walkers, all had white painteed dress rifles, enfields and springfields. The undertaker lowered the casket into the ground alone, no mourners stood by. I stood and watched as the attendants packed up the casket lowering winch, rolled up the astroturf. Nobody around. The gravedigger started the backhoe.

I picked 21 blank cartridges off the ground.

It started to rain. I walked back to my car and got in, started it, waited for the fog to clear off the windows.

A lot of boys- too young yet to be called men- will come home from Iraq in the next couple years. Some, like this ww2 vet, will die alone, having outlived all their family and friends, only their comrades in arms there, at the end, to see them off.

Earn the work they’re doing for you.

I like to sleep in a cool room, with about a fourteen inch thick layer of blankets. Snuggled up to the Ogwife thus encumbered is the great joy of my life.

Hotels, on the other hand, have those thin-ass Velux blankets that wouldn’t insulate an ice cube at the north pole.

So you have to turn up the heat.

Resulting in an Og headach- the size, and shape, of the state of wisconsin. Great way to start your day, I tellya.

In other news, spent all day yesterday with that insipid “daniel” song by Elton John jammed in my head.

Could be worse, could be the Patridge Family Theme.

Shit, why do I do it to myself.

C’mon, get happy!!