Love Letter

The Colonel begs your permission to dispense, for the duration of this post, with his customary use of the third person (or, as the comely and kind-hearted Miss Brenda refers to it, the literary version of nails on a chalkboard).  

I have something personal to say to my wife.

I want to tell my wife of thirty-eight years, as of roughly 30 minutes ago, that you have always been the best thing in my life.  That's saying something, because God has blessed me with many, many, very good things.

You have almost always been the first thing I think of when I wake up in the morning, and almost always the last thing I think of when I go to sleep.

Why almost?

Well, I'd be telling a lie if didn't admit to, on the very rare occasion, thinking about the opening day of duck season or the game-winning field goal as I woke up or fell asleep.

Not gonna let a stupid duck or some lucky college kid make a liar out of me.

You have almost always been the first person with whom I've wanted to share a secret or a remarkable sight.

Almost, because there were a couple of secrets and sights to which I was privy over the years that I would just as soon forget.  

The one sight I will never forget was you, the most beautiful thing I have ever seen, walking down the aisle to marry me.

To marry me!

I cannot ever get over just how lucky I am that you are mine. 

Luckier than a bob-tailed cat in a room full of rocking chairs.

Luckier than the second mouse to the cheese.

Luckier than a bug in a traffic jam.

Just so you know, Miss Brenda; it may have been an incredibly lucky stroke that made you mine, but there ain't nuthin' or nobody lucky (or strong) enough to take you away from me. 

You are my anchor.

If I had a muse (or knew what a muse was), you would be it.

I love you more than anything -- duck hunting and Ole Miss football included.

I love your smile, your laugh, your pout, your frown; I love the way you can do all four in the space of one breath.

You are the one person in all the world I trust without condition.  

You hold my heart in your hands.

Thirty-eight years.  

I want to live to ninety-six -- just so I can have thirty-eight more.  

Foggy Feelin's

Fog enshrouds the kudzu-clad hills this morning, here at the shallow northern end of deep southern nowhere.  

It's cool outside.  The Colonel checked at dawn, sitting on the front porch and listening to the birds announce another day; a strong cup of coffee warming him and clearing the fog of sleep.

It won't stay cool.  The brief respite from the swelter of summer is over.  It'll be hot and humid before too long, this morning.

There's a pile of projects waiting completion.  Seems the Colonel's re-retirement is less restful than ever, what with the frantic folly of filling his time with all the things he didn't have time for when all he could do was dream about having time to do them.

But, it's foggy still; and cool outside; and the Colonel remembers the dream of being able to just do nothing.

Watch the hummingbirds gang up to fill up.

Listen to the mourning doves mourn.

See the sun rise red and filtered by the gray mists of morning.

Catch the scent of flowers advertising.

It'll be hot and humid soon; reminding of long marches in the sun, and times when the march was all there was.

No more marches.  

Just memories by the score, and no scorecard to keep 'em straight. 

  

Revive Manifest Destiny

The Colonel has always loved the flag of the United States.

While the sight of its broad stripes and bright stars never fails to cause him to catch his breath; the Colonel's love, and deep respect, for our national flag goes far beyond its bold colors and striking symmetry.

The Colonel loves "for which it stands."

A Republic of free people, and for free people.

The American Republic, for all its blemishes and faults, has advanced the cause of freedom -- best expressed as "personal liberty" -- farther, wider, and deeper than any nation in the history of nations.  

And, as much as the Colonel loves the flag of the United States of America, he fervently believes it is time to change it -- again.

It's time to add another 50 stars.

The Colonel isn't taking about the balkanization of the existing republic.  (You Californians are so self-absorbed!)

The Colonel believes the only way our republic -- of and for the people -- can survive another 200 years, is to do what made it great in its first two centuries.

Expand.

There is, the Colonel believes, a very good reason the founders of our republic did not call the new nation the United States of North America.

Today, our nation is gripped in paroxysms of popular expression -- even manifesting itself in acts of outrage -- not seen since the "Nativist" movement in response to the last great wave of immigration over a century ago.

Compassion and Security have become competing watchwords in the current kerfuffle over the tide of humanity sweeping across our southern border.

They need not be.

There are those who say that our southern border must be "secured."  And by that, they mean that we must build and occupy defensive positions to prevent any unauthorized passage northward.

While the Colonel could do just that; give him a respectable fraction of the manpower and resources of our military and he will reduce the illegal immigration, drug and people trafficking, and flood of cheap labor to a barely perceptible trickle; occupying defensive positions is destructive to personal, organizational, and national morale.  No nation, of any impact in world history (Switzerland being perhaps the lone exception to the rule), has ever maintained its sovereignty, let alone relevancy, by remaining on the defensive.  

There are those who say our southern border should be compassionately wide open to anyone seeking a better, more secure, life.

The Colonel actually agrees with that last sentiment.  Our nation should, and can, welcome anyone who wishes to become a loyal, productive, law-abiding citizen of our republic. 

It's the significantly large percentage of border-crossers harboring other than productive, law-abiding motives that the Colonel has a problem with.

Pay attention -- attempting to solve the humanitarian and national security crisis at our southern border via compassionate and defensive measures, at our southern border, is LUNACY!

Instead of building a Maginot Line on the Rio Grande, we should expand our republic to Tierra del Fuego.

The Colonel will pause to let the Bama Bandwagon Boors and LSU graduates a chance to catch up -- you see, after WWI, the French built the Maginot Line, an incredible series of seemingly impregnable fortifications along their border with Germany, to keep the German Army from invading..., again.  (See Spring of 1940, for a case study of the strategic effectiveness  of that idea). 

Now, bear with the Colonel.  He's not necessarily advocating a full-scale military invasion of the rest of the Western Hemisphere -- as fun as that would be.  The United States should, instead, encourage the people of countries to our south, whose governments cannot and will not provide security and prospect for prosperity, to rise up and petition for admission to the American Republic as States.  

The long-term security and prosperity of every inhabitant of the AMERICAN HEMISPHERE depends on unity under the greatest form of government ever devised by man -- the Constitution of the United States of America. 

"But, what about Canada, Colonel?" 

The more the merrier!      
      

Berry Good

The sign on the wall in the kitchen says, "The only reason I have this kitchen is it came with the house."

The Colonel's Lady, the comely and kind-hearted Miss Brenda, is no stranger to the kitchen.  It's just that they aren't normally on speaking terms.

Make no mistake.  Miss Brenda cooks.  And, well.

She just isn't addicted to it.

The Colonel probably has his still battle-ready physique to thank for that.  He's a food-a-holic.  If Miss Brenda really liked to cook, the Colonel would be as big as a house.

Most southern women have a signature dish.  One that is remembered generationally and spoken of in the reverence and awe normally reserved for SEC football coaches.

The comely and kind-hearted Miss Brenda doesn't sign autographs.
  
There is, however, an exception to every rule.  In the comely and kind-hearted Miss Brenda's case, the "These hands shall not touch pot nor skillet" commandment is broken every year around the end of June and the beginning of July.

Here at the shallow northern end of deep southern nowhere fiendish flora flower and fruit.  Eleven months out of the year, the thorn-bearing canes elicit howls of pain and misery from errant passersby.

But, yea, verily in the twelfth month the cane doth produce heavenly fruit.

Blackberries.

Just writing that word makes the Colonel's mouth water.

And, what the comely and kind-hearted Miss Brenda can do with a mess of blackberries should probably be illegal.

She makes blackberry jam.

The comely and kind-hearted Miss Brenda's blackberry jam would bring peace to the Middle East.

If Marse Robert had put a jar of the comely and kind-hearted Miss Brenda's blackberry jam on the table in front of him at Appomattox Courthouse, Grant would have surrendered to Lee.

Familial fistfights have broken out in the Colonel's household over the last jar of the comely and kind-hearted Miss Brenda's blackberry jam.

The Colonel kids thee not, when extended family visits from out of town, the first thing they do is present the comely and kind-hearted Miss Brenda with an empty jar.  The Colonel's Lady reciprocates with a new jar of jam and familial peace is assured for the remainder of the visit.

A spoonful of the comely and kind-hearted Miss Brenda's blackberry jam slathered on a piece of cardboard will make you run out and buy stock in Georgia Pacific.

For the 'Bama fans and LSU "colige graduits" who may be scratching hat racks:  Georgia Pacific is a company that makes cardboard.  Miss Brenda's jam is so good that...  

...oh, never mind.

        
   

Third Child

An interesting, yet timeless, phenomenom is playing itself out here at the shallow northern end of deep southern nowhere.  Whenever an instance of the phenomenom occurs, it is met with the same explanatory observation...

"Third child."

The first child born to a set of parents (and two sets of grandparents) is a wonderful and frightening thing.  Every squeak, hiccup, stumble, and cry draws an immediate and deeply concerned response from the parental (and grandparental) units.  

A soon-born second child elicits nearly the same wonder and fright with each similar action.

The third child?  Not so much...

Cases in point: the Colonel's three grandsons -- the Hope of 21st Century Civilization, Dashes 1, 2, and 3 (H21CC--1, 2, & 3).  The Colonel is enjoying the rare priviledge of participating in, and closely observing, the raising of three boys from infancy to..., well..., boyhood.  His not-so scientific mind has logged, analyzed, and categorized every aspect of this process, and he is as qualified as any to relate the following findings of fact. 

The first child is watched like a hawk.  If Dash 1 happens to stumble and bump his head on a piece of furniture, the reaction of his parents and grandparents is similar to that of a mass casualty event...

"Call 911!"

"Cordon off the area!  Remove all hard-edged furniture from the premises!"

"Is that a bruise?  Oh no, he'll be scarred for life!"

"You take him to the Emergency Room and I'll go buy a bike helmet to protect his precious soft head."

If Dash 2 stumbles and bumps his head, the reaction is somewhat less frantic, but no less concerned...

"Call 911!"

"Cordon off the area!  Why is that coffee table still in the room?!"

"Is that a bruise? Oh no, Child Protective Services are going to think we are beating him!"

"You take him to the Emergency Room and I'll go buy some bubble wrap for his head."

When Dash 3 stumbles and bumps his head, the reaction of the adults in attendance is entirely different...

"What's he crying about, now?"

"Did he scratch the coffee table?"

"Hey, look at that scratch on his face! Gonna call him 'Scarface!'"

...and then,

"Ha, ha, ha... Third child."

Another example, just in case a slow Bama fan (the Colonel knows -- redundant) is reading...

A parental unit notices that Dash 1's pacifyer has fallen from his mouth and landed on the floor.  Before said parental unit can react, Dash 1 has retrieved said pacifyer and put it back in his mouth.

"Call the Poision Control Center!"

"Induce vomiting!"

(The Colonel will pause at this juncture to point out that inducing a baby to vomit is a complete waste of effort -- give any baby 15 or 20 seconds and it will regurgitate the entire contents of the last three bottles it has consumed.  If you still feel the need to induce a baby to vomit, the easiest way is to put on a clean shirt and hold the baby on your shoulder...)

"Gather up all of his pacifyers and boil them for an hour and a half!"  

The reaction to Dash 2 placing a dropped pacifyer back in his face is a little different...

"Give me that, you're gonna get worms!"

"Did you just spit up again?  This is a clean shirt!"

"Here, take this pacifyer, the dog just licked it clean."

Dash 3 is allowed much greater freedom of movement than his older brothers.  Said freedom of movement includes the comely and kind-hearted Miss Brenda's flower beds...

"Hey, look!  He's got a whole wad of dirt in his mouth!  Looks like a major league pitcher." 

"Gonna be gross when he spits all that up!"  

"Hey, do they make dirt-flavored pacifyers?"

...and then,

"Ha, ha, ha!  Third child." 

Dash 1's diet is closely monitored.

"No, you can't give the baby ice cream!"

Dash 2?

"Okay, just a little taste of ice cream..."

Dash 3?

"Man, look at him chow down on that fudge bar!"

"Hey, do they make Rocky Road-flavored pacifyers?"    

"Ha, ha, ha! Third child."


Dash 3 completes his first air-breathing revolution around Ol' Sol this week.  

Happy Birthday, Joshua Bradley Gregory!

"Hey look, he just took a big swig of coffee from the Colonel's mug!"

"Ha, ha, ha! Third Child."     

Mensa Minion

The Colonel's newest grandson -- the Hope of 21st Century Civilization, Dash 3 (H21CC-3) -- is three weeks shy of the first anniversary of his air-breathing ride round ol' Sol, and yet is demonstrating intelligence and physical ability quickly surpassing that of the Colonel.

Two weeks ago, H21CC-3 let go of any physical support and began walking, without any regard for the next item of physical support. 

The Colonel rarely walks anywhere any more without first landmarking his next resting point. 

Over the last month or so, H21CC-3 has begun training the Colonel to make animal sounds.  He's actually quite gifted at this.

The kid, not the Colonel.

The youngun points at a figurine or picture of an animal and the Colonel makes the appropriate bird call, quack, roar, whinny, or trumpet.  If the Colonel is not sufficiently robust or accurate, H21CC-3 corrects him with a better rendition.

H21CC-3 has begun to increase the rapidity and frequency of these drills to the point that the Colonel rapidly and frequently loses track and often erroneously substitutes a hoot for a snort, or a quack for a tweet.

The kid immediately corrects the Colonel and restarts the drill.

When he grows up, H21CC-3 will probably either be an NFL lineman or a globetrotting non-discriminating chef.

The kid loves to eat; will eat anything; and loves to share.

He wants you to share what's on your plate with him.

When it's time to eat, H21CC-3 lets you know it.  If you are slow with the spoon to his mouth, he lets you know it.   

His brothers (H21CC-1 and 2) don't eat enough at one sitting to keep a cockroach alive.  Dash 3 would out-eat a ravenous pack of hyenas.

But first, he would correct their laughs.   

Little Men

The Colonel is a student of history.

The word, "student," is used here in the strictest definition: one who studies something.

The Colonel makes no claim on mastery of history, or any subject for that matter.  But, it takes no more than just a casual glance at the current world situation to see clearly that if history doesn't repeat itself, it certainly rhymes well.

The current United States Secretary of State, John Kerry, announced to the world the other day -- during his sneeze-in-a-whirlwind visit to Kiev -- that Vladimir Putin's thinly disguised occupation of the Crimean Peninsula was "not 21st-century, G-8, major-nation behavior."

The problem with Mr. Kerry's worldview is that it is hopeful at best, woefully naive at worst.

The Colonel is always hopeful.  But, he always plans for the worst case.

He can't help but.  The Colonel was trained by some of the world's foremost skeptics -- Marine NCOs.

Mr. Kerry, himself, was presumably exposed to similar instruction prior to and during his self-aborted tour in Vietnam. 

It didn't take.

The John Kerry's of the world -- including his boss -- view the world as they wished it was. 

A world in which no one acts in self-interest -- that is, self-interest as the John Kerry's determine it.

A world in which nations play by the rules -- that is, the rules the John Kerry's decide are appropriate.  

A world in which appeals to common sense and propriety (as the John Kerry's define those concepts) are met with immediate repentance and reparation by transgressors.

A world in which, in order to lead, the United States need only stand in the background and nod sagely at appropriate behavior and give stern looks at misbehavior.

A world in which bluster and drawing of "red lines" is sufficient.   

Surely the John Kerry's of the world know better.

Surely the John Kerry's of the world know that for millenia, statesmen and politicians have hailed new centuries in which men and nations were far more "civilized" or "progressive" or whatever than the men and nations of the preceding century.

Surely the John Kerry's of the world know that history shows each century's statesmen have been wrong in that assessment.

As long as a gracious God delays the end of man, little men will seek to make themselves and their nations bigger than they see themselves.

Vladamir Putin is such a "little" man.

The oligarchy in the People's Republic of China are such "little" men.      

Turning the calendar page to a new century does not change the nature of man any more than setting the clocks forward adds more daylight to the day. 

Our national leaders will serve and protect us best to see the world as it is -- and forever will be -- rather than risking our security and prosperity through inane naivete. 

By the way, John Kerry, the Colonel sees you for what you are -- a little man who abandonned his comrades in arms and threw them under the bus to further his political ambition.  
      

Revolt in 2016

It doesn't take a history professor to see the coming revolution. 

But, it ain't gonna be the revolt that the Colonel and his fellow (little r) republicans would prefer. 

It's not going to be a Tea Party party. 

Frankly, most of the Colonel's fellow (little r) republicans, despite disgust with the extra- and un- constitutional political machinations of the political ruling class, are far too comfortable and have far too much to lose to consider pledging their sacred honor in order to save America for their posterity.  

Talk is cheap.  Action costs more than most are willing to give.

Doubt this?

Then how do you explain not one percentage point of increase in military enlistment from the upper middle, and above, classes post 9-11?  

That's right. For all the flag-waving, and despite anecdotal evidence to the contrary, there was no appreciable increase in volunteers for military service.  The Colonel knows this from first-hand experience leading a sizable portion of the Marine Corps recruiting effort for two years following 9-11.

But, make no mistake, a revolution is coming. 

The revolution will be led by those who, in a few years, will find the governmental largesse upon which they have become dependent, has dried up. 

The coming revolution will be against the Colonel and his fellow (little r) republicans. 

The next American Revolution will be a socialist movement. 

It pains the Colonel to tell you this. Recognizing the truth is always painful. 

Projections

Something has to give.

The Colonel's LOP (List of Projects: compilation of great landscaping, terra forming, and woodworking ideas) far exceeds his grasp.  The Colonel's PL (Project List: landscaping, terra forming, and woodworking projects begun but not completed) far exceeds the prioritization capability of his ADD addled mind. 

Further, adding insult to injury, the Colonel's once robust, if diminutive, physique has begun to atrophy at an alarming rate matched only by the rate at which his cognitive abilities are becoming less cognitive and far less able.

And then there's the weather. 

Climate change is a fact folks.

One needs only spend a modicum of time outdoors, or examining the monthly electric bill, to see the proof of significant change. 

One season it is unbearably hot and humid; the next it is unbearably cold and wet.  

Oh, how the Colonel longs for the good old days before corporate greed and rampant consumerism raised CO2 levels and turned our atmosphere into an ice sheet-melting greenhouse, spawning mega hurricanes, massive desertification, earthquakes, volcanic eruptions, sunspots, tsunamis, killer bee invasions, mega fauna extinction, Walmarts, (deep breath), pet-eating pythons, libertarians, shovel-ready projects, S & L failures, falling test scores, alien abductions, and... 

Undocumented immigration.

It was a simpler time in the halcyon days of the Colonel's misspent youth/young adulthood.  

BCCE (Before Climate Change Era), life had meaning. 

BCCE, our enemies were bigger, badder, and tangible. Darn you, Gorbachev, you gave up too easily.

Must have been the weather.

BCCE, there was no such thing as Seasonal Affect Disorder.

BCCE, our children were less self-absorbed and much more polite.  

BCCE, birds weren't as angry, cows weren't as flatulant, and John Wayne was... well... John Wayne.

BCCE, the Colonel's writing made infinitely more sense.

The Colonel is tempted to follow Gorbachev's lead (there sure ain't any American leaders behind which to queue up any more) and throw in the towel. 

Anything he builds is just gonna get washed away in a couple hundred years when sea levels rise back to where they were a couple million years ago...

Wait. What?

Heart-Felt

A friend of the Colonel's refers to this day -- Valentine's Day -- as "Single Awareness Day."

For the gap-toothed Bama football fans whose only connection to the University of Alabama is the Walmart-bought "Roll Tide" T-shirt their momma gave them when they "graduated" from middle school (the rest of us refer to this as "dropping out"), the first letter in each of the words "Single Awareness Day" spells out the word: SAD.  Get it? No?  Well, might as well give your lips a rest and quit reading this post right here.  Oh, before you go, you might want to run over to Walmart this afternoon -- they got a "three-for" sale today for Valentine's roses, 99 National Championships T-shirts, and herbicide.

Seems to the Colonel's finely tuned sensibilities that Valentine's Day is more commercially hyped than Christmas these days.

Do you wonder, as does the Colonel, how long it will be before the thought police will decide that the word "Valentine" is politically incorrect?  After all, it's really Saint Valentine's Day.  The thought police have already discouraged and discarded any religious reference to the day; it can't be long until the day becomes "Heart Day."

Or, "Love Day."

Or, "Friendship Day."

Or, "I bought you these flowers at Walmart on the way home, what's for dinner, can we have sex Day"

The Colonel thinks his friend may have it right. It has become a SAD day.

It's a sad day when only one day of the year is dedicated to demonstrating your care for another.

It's a sad day when you demonstrate such low regard for the worth of that special someone that you think flowers and chocolate are the way to their heart.

It's a sad day when holidays are hijacked and ecumenicized into nothing more than bland commercial opportunities.

The Colonel isn't going to stand for it.

He's marching right now over to the comely and kind-hearted Miss Brenda's side and whispering into her ear his most heart-felt sweet nothing:

"Sweetthing, let's get outside and get the chores done."
   

Dog's Vomit

Okay, he'll admit it.  The Colonel is a huge hypocrite.

Look in the margin of the dictionary beside the word and you will see the Colonel's mug shot.

In fact, pick any one of the Ten Commandments, or any other of your favorite character flaws and the Colonel can quickly demonstrate or otherwise explain why he is the poster child for it's breakage or bearage, respectively.

It's not a particular point of pride, mind you.  But the Colonel is keenly aware that he is not God, and as such, not just a little imperfect, but completely imperfect.

The Colonel's only perfection is his complete imperfection.

He's broken every Commandment -- in thought, if not deed (but, most in deed) -- and is saved from God's great wrath only by God's great grace through His Son, Jesus.

But enough about the Colonel's good points.

The point of this post, toward which you no doubt have been leaning forward in eager anticipation, is the announcement of the Colonel's return to an accommodation with social media -- specifically, Facebook.

Not quite the return to sin warned about in scripture and referenced in the title of this post, but close enough to smell the stink.

In fact, upon his return to Facebook after a 13 month absence, the Colonel was nearly instantaneously repulsed by the jassackery which attended his digital break with his "friends" a year ago.

So, why return?

Well, the Colonel has family who live and communicate via Facebook and while they may not have missed him, he felt like he was missing out not seeing the candid photos, selfies, and meals about to be eaten which pass for artistic expressions of culture nowadays.

And, the Colonel has true "friends" he still cares about, whose candid photos, selfies, and meals about to be eaten must be accepted as a price of friendship.

And, finally, the Colonel has disciplined himself over the past 13 months to the point where he might just be mature enough to once again be trusted with the weapon of mass destruction that is social media.

And, really finally, how else are you gonna know when the Colonel has posted something on his blog?        

February Engagement

The Colonel begs the forgiveness of the throngs of you, who demonstrate a complete lack of nothing better to do with your time than to peruse sporadic posts hereon, for his prolonged failure to provide an update from the far foggy reaches of the rapidly decomposing grey matter lying in limpid pools in the crannied recesses of his cranium.

He's been busy. 

There's been the attention-demanding crescendo of seasons -- football, holiday, hunting -- to which to attend.  All of which have now ended satisfactorily for the Colonel.  He's seen better -- but, he's seen a heckuva lot worse.

At any rate, the best time of the year -- in the Colonel's not-so-humble opinion -- has passed, and the dreary, desultory, depressing despicable month of February has begun.

The Colonel hates February.

Historically, February has shown little love for the Colonel.

Rarely is there anything in the month of February that moves the needle on the Colonel's fun meter.

If there was any month through which the Colonel would gladly be placed in suspended animation in a sensory deprivation tank, it is this one.

Were there ever a referendum on the question whether to have the month expunged from the calendar and replaced by four weeks of mandatory 24/7 sleep, the Colonel would campaign door to door -- even in Alabama -- in favor of it's adoption.

The Colonel so detests February, that leap years make him considerably more cantankerous than normal.

The Colonel despises February with a seething hatred rivaling only the utter lack of esteem with which he holds Bama, LSU, the Taliban, and practitioners of infanticide. 

However, there is the occasional exception and this year the Colonel has exceptional news.

Son #2, heretofore confirmed bachelor, has, at the advanced age of thirty-four, decided to marry -- popping the question to his bride-to-be last weekend.

The Colonel and his bride-to-was, the comely and kind-hearted Miss Brenda, are very pleased.  

A June the 28th wedding is planned.

Good date.  No conflict with any sort of season between which the Colonel would have had to choose.       

Cowbell Fever

The final regular season weekend of college football has ended in a paroxysm of rivalry games tearing the nation's collegiate fanbase weave down the middle and leaving two halves separated in joy and despair.

So it is, in Mississippi.

Thursday night's battle for the golden egg between the University of Mississippi and the former Mississippi A & M was typical of the family-splitting, friendship-straining, billboard-prompting, grudge-match that is the annual end of the playing season, beginning of the trash-talking season in Mississippi.

And while the Colonel, as the half-dozen or so of you who regularly waste precious rod and cone time perusing the irregular posts hereon will no doubt remember, does not harbor hate for State -- too much hate invested in LSU and Alabama to have any left for the Bulldogs -- he does hate losing to TSBU (the school beneath us).

For the Colonel, however, losing to State is more like losing a game to his little brother.

In fact, it is exactly like losing a game to his little brother.

To his eternal shame, the Colonel's little brother is a State grad.

But, when one loses a game to a little brother, there is always a solace of self-delusion on which to fall back:

"... I felt bad for him, so I let him win one..."

Yeah, that's what happened.  Little Brother got a mercy win.

The Colonel often wonders at his lack of pure unadulterated hatred for Mississippi State -- like that displayed by so many of his fellow Ole Miss Rebels.

Maybe it's the fact that although his parents' Mississippi blood flows through his veins like a warm, muddy, time-bending backwater, his claim to Mississippianism is only as deep as a plant's roots that have been uprooted and rerooted in so many disparate fields and only recently finally planted for good in the kudzu clad hills here at the shallow northern end of deep southern nowhere.

With the exception of one year -- the fifth grade -- while his father went to war in Vietnam, the Colonel didn't grow up in the nurture of Mississippi.  Oh, he went to Ole Miss for four years -- instead of college -- but, he never lived long enough in the state during his formative years to be infected with the virulence of the rivalry.  Wandering the world for two military careers (the Colonel's and his father's before him) provided inoculation that protects him to this day. 

Of course, the bulldog boasting and trash-talk that the Colonel will have to endure for the next twelve months may serve to weaken his immunity.

He might just become a real Mississippian and start hatin' State.   

Biblical Bunches

One of the Colonel's favorite Marine Corps memories is from time spent at the training area nestled on the slopes of Mauna Kea on the "Big Island."  

Field training there always involved lots of overnighters and, at roughly seven thousand feet, necessitated sleeping bags and "snivel gear" not needed overnight back in the tropical, sea-level  training areas on Oahu.  

Sleeping out "under the stars" takes on a whole new meaning when it's done at altitude and away from the lights and air pollution of civilization.  Starlight, up there in the clear air, rivals that of a full moon.

The view of the Milky Way is breathtaking!    

Astronomers tell us that our galaxy contains a couple hundred billion (with a "B") stars.

That, in the Colonel's Mississippi math, is a bunch.

More than a "take off your shoes to count" bunch.

Even more than the number of Bama Bandwagon Boors who have never been in a classroom in Tuscaloosa.

It wasn't until early in the last century that astronomers' telescopes revealed that what we previously thought was the universe was actually just one of a bunch of galaxies.  What we call the Milky Way is actually just our view of one of the outer spiral arms (in which our insignificant solar system resides) of our galaxy.

The more powerful telescopes got, the more galaxies astronomers were able to see, and now they say that there are at least a hundred billion galaxies in the known universe.

That's a bunch of stars.

More than the number of all the mardi gras beads on all the strings around all the necks of all the LSU fans packed into their corndog-smellin' stadium over there in that third world nation masquerading as a State.

The "Big Bang" theory, popular for the moment in the equation-filled noggins of astronomers and astro-physicists, postulates that all of those stars -- billions trillions quadrillions bunches of them, clustered in hundreds of billions of galaxies -- originated from a singularity of infinite mass that exploded a bunch of years ago and spewed out the still-expanding and still-star-birthing universe.

The Colonel ain't got no equation-filled noggin.  He ain't smart, and you can't make him.

But, he can accept the "Big Bang" as plausible.  Even possible.  Heck, even probable.

You see, the Colonel's God is big enough to have made all of that happen.

If there was a "Big Bang," there was the Colonel's God speaking its ignition.    

The Colonel doesn't believe in coincidence or happenstance.

Everything that occurs -- that was, is, and will be -- was, is and will be by and for a reason.  

The reason is God's Will.

Allow the Colonel to tell you just how great his God is.

That same God that spoke the universe into being -- by whatever means is the popular theory of man at the moment -- is still active in the swirling masses of stars in the the swirling masses of galaxies that make up the universe he spoke speaks into being. 

And yet, that same God's omnipotence and omnipresence allows Him to maintain watch over every cell and free radical in the Colonel's rapidly decomposing carcass.

The Colonel's God is not some non-resident landlord.  He is present and personal. 

But there's more.  

The Colonel's God is not only omniscient, omnipotent, and omnipresent.

He is omnitemporal.  

The Colonel will digress for a teachable moment to benefit the stray Bama and LSU fans whom may have stumbled upon this post while searching for tree-killing herbicides or corndog recipes, respectively. 

The prefix omni comes from the Latin word meaning all or everything.

The word prefix has nothing to do with the mixing of herbicidal chemicals or corndog ingredients.

To be omnitemporal, in the Colonel's admittedly limited understanding, is to exist at once at all points in time.

Say what?

Okay, here's how the Colonel wraps his meager collection of cognitive cells around the concept:

God -- as the Colonel types this missive --  is present at His creation of the universe (via Big Bang or whatever device); is present, in the present with the Colonel; and is present with the Colonel's grandson as he quarterbacks the Ole Miss Rebels to victory over Bama some time in the early 2030's. 

God's omnitemporal omnipresence is what allows Him to be present at the crucifixion of His son, Jesus, for the eternal remission of our sins; and then be present to tell Moses a bunch of years previous to lay out the Tabernacle's elements in the shape of a cross. 

And because Jesus is God, that same omnitemporal omnipresence allows Him to be present as the Commander of the Armies of Heaven at His return (See Revelations 19:11) and to be present with Joshua a bunch of years previous, as Joshua "fit the battle of Jericho" (See Joshua 5:13).

Ain't God Great!?!

Magnolia Bowl Miracle

With just a few minutes left in the game last night, the comely and kind-hearted Miss Brenda, at home babysitting the Hope of 21st Century Civilization, Dashes 1, 2, & 3, called the Colonel as he stood in the hallowed halls of Vaught-Hemingway Stadium frantically anticipating another heartbreaking football finale, to remind him that, "It's just a game."

The Colonel's SEC brethren and sistren will have to excuse the comely and kind-hearted Miss Brenda for holding that blasphemous opinion.  She can't possibly be expected to understand.

She went to Memphis State.

The Colonel will admit that he allows the gridiron fortunes (more often, misfortunes) of his beloved Rebels to govern his attitude far too much. 

But he feels safe in the knowledge that he is in very large, if not necessarily good, company.

Ole Miss Rebel fans are a long-suffering bunch.  But what keeps us coming back to fill the stands and fill the air with rebel yells, is the occasional instance when our young men play way above their heads, defy all the odds, snatch the roaring lion by its mane and roar back in teammate-loving ferocity, and win. 

Last night was one of those amazing and all-too-rare instances.

Made even more amazing by the fact that a very capable Rebel defense that began the season full of promise, limped into the stadium to face one of the finest offenses in the country with more than half of its starters not available, and the other half playing hurt.

It was going to be a rout.

Should have been a rout.

The Colonel was resigned to a rout.

As the pre-kick-off cheers faded into the kudzu-clad distance, the Colonel remarked to those sitting near him,

"Whelp, that's probably the last cheering we'll do tonight."

Oh, he of little faith.

When his Rebels took an impossible 10 - 0 lead to the locker room at half-time, the Colonel still lacked even the smallest shred of faith, and remarked to those sitting near him,

"Seen this movie before."

Incredibly, a Rebel D composed of many still digesting high school cafeteria chow, held the mardi gras escapees long enough in the third quarter to allow the Rebel O to extend the lead to 17 - 0.

The Colonel's faith was still missing-in-action, but a small voice began to whisper, in his tinnitus-ravaged ear, the rumor that his faith might still be alive somewhere in a remote POW camp in Manchuria.  

And, just as the Colonel began to believe in miracles, the LSU Tigers came roaring back to life. 

With three minutes left in the game and the comely and kind-hearted Miss Brenda's misunderstanding reminder echoing in his tinnitus-ravaged ear, the score was 24 all and the Colonel's Rebels had the ball 75 yards away from the most implausible of victories.

He couldn't watch.

He couldn't not watch.

The Colonel was in intestinal agony.

It could have been the barbecue and jalapeno nachos he wolfed down at half-time...

And then a game-winning field-goal sailed serenely through the uprights.

Pan. De. Mo. Nium.

Mind you, the Colonel ain't much of a hugger.

But, for the next five minutes he hugged everybody in sight.

He even hugged a bewildered LSU fan to whom some traitorous Rebel season ticket holder had sold his ticket.

The Colonel and his sons (and a couple of their friends considered sons) stood in celebratory amazement as delirious Rebel fans rushed the field.

Finally, Son #2 turned to the Colonel and asked, "Hey Dad, wanna go down onto the field?"

"Well..., yeah!"

The Colonel and his son squad made their way down the steps from their seats in the nosebleeds and arrived breathlessly at row 1.

What they saw next caught their breath.

What used to be a four foot high chain-link fence around the playing field had been replaced recently by a very impressive, and much higher, brick wall. 

Son #1, true to his "throw caution to the winds" motto, hesitated not one second and vaulted over the wall to the playing surface.

Son #2, true to his "keep caution under lock and key" motto, turned to the Colonel and asked, "Want me to lower you down to the field, Dad?"

The Colonel looked down at #1, way down on the field, beckoning his progenitor to join in the frolic.  The Colonel looked up at #2 standing attentively at his elbow and considered his offer.

Then a picture formed in the empty recesses of his brain-housing group -- a video of the Colonel, being lowered to the field, running every 14 minutes on ESPN, ESPN2, ESPN3, ESPNU, ESPNU2, ESPNUFO...

You get the picture...

The Colonel gave a hoarse rebel yell and vaulted over the wall.

Somewhere in the 37.3 seconds it took him to fall to the turf, the Colonel simultaneously reached both terminal velocity and the conclusion that he was still going to go into ESPN video history as the old man flailing and screaming to his death at the end of the Ole Miss -- LSU game.

In the latter half of his plunge, the Colonel cobbled together enough widely separated brain-cells to remember something called a PLF -- parachute landing fall.  With feet together, knees together and bent, the Colonel executed a flawless ground contact roll and sprang to his feet with arms raised in what, on ESPN4 & 1/2, probably looked like a celebration of victory, but what was in honest fact, thanks to God for His miraculous protection.

The Colonel turned to encourage #2 to follow and came nearly eye to eye with him -- still standing behind the wall.

"Dad, what are you doing!?!  The wall ain't that high!"

The Colonel glared back and growled,

"It'll look a lot higher on ESPN37HD!" 

Purple Hate

Were you able to view his visage this morning, you would most certainly quickly ascertain by the temporary negative enhancement to the permanent scowl planted on his puss that it is LSU week for the Colonel's Rebels.

There is probably no more anticipated game on the schedule each year -- outside the tilt with our in-state brethren at TSBU (The School Beneath Us, aka, Mississippi State) -- than the century-long grudge match with the purple people from the third world nation masquerading as a state to the south and west of us. 

As any of you who have wasted precious rod and cone time perusing posts hereon will no doubt remember, the Colonel has no hatred for the misguided second-citizens of the great state of Mississippi who matriculated at TSBU.

Slight disdain, perhaps.  But certainly no hatred.

It's just not possible for the Colonel to hate TSBU.

All of his hate is invested in LSU and Bama.

And, for quite different reasons.

The Colonel hates Bama because most Bama fans are in fact Bama Bandwagon Boors -- folks who have never set foot on the campus in Tuscaloosa.

A Bama Bandwagon Boor wears his Walmart-bought "Ninety-Nine National Championships" T-shirt everywhere.

Church.

Funerals.

Weddings.

Family Reunions

High School Reunions (even though most tri-B's never even graduated from a bonafide high school).

Probably the greatest reason for the Colonel's hatred of Bama is the insistence by tri-B's that everyone else should love them.  The SEC officials certainly do.

Look, we Ole Miss Rebels don't expect you to love us, or even respect us.  Frankly, we couldn't care less what you think about us. 

The temp-help currently serving as the University's administration and faculty care, but real Ole Miss Rebels don't.

As for why the Colonel hates LSU...

See the word "obnoxious" in the dictionary.           

Silent Lesson

Forty years ago this week the Colonel learned several lessons that forever changed the way he looked at the world.  It was a fall that destroyed his naivete and ignited a flame that drives the Colonel's boilers to this day.

In October of 1973, the Colonel was scarcely a month into his senior year in high school.  His pedestrian progress through school had finally hit somewhat of a stride, thanks to two most memorable teachers -- Mrs. Sydney Corbett and Ms. Marcia Semans.

Both were primarily English teachers at the now-closed Balboa High School in the then-U.S. controlled Panama Canal Zone. 

The Colonel had Ms. Semans for 11th grade English and she, despite his lackluster performance in her class, saw something hidden in the Colonel and recommended him for Advanced Senior English (a primarily writing course).  Ms. Semans' praise and encouragement was strong fertilizer on the tender shoots of prose poking up from the grimy results of the Colonel's otherwise slovenly educational effort.

Mrs. Corbett was the Colonel's Speech teacher.  And while it has dawned on him since that the Colonel wasn't the only speaker receiving her appreciative chuckles and encouraging smiles, for those moments when the Colonel stood before his ruthless peers, stood down his rampant fears, and bared his soul in spoken tears, her approval was all his. 

The Colonel was never once afraid to address any audience large or small since.  It served him very well in his career and afterwards.

Credit to Mrs. C.

What fires those synapses of memory this week is the fortieth anniversary of the Yom Kippor War.

When the Colonel arrived in Ms. Semans' class on Monday afternoon, the 8th of October 1973, he was struck by two strange anomalies -- a somber look on Ms. Semans' usually smiling face and a short-wave radio on her desk, tuned to a continuous world news broadcast.

Over the previous weekend, the armies of Egypt and Syria had attacked Israel. 

And things were not going well for the Jewish state.

Dang the Arabs!  The Colonel was enjoying school for the first time in his life and one of his favorite teachers, whose seemingly irrepressible light-heartedness was one of the primary reasons, was at the point of tears.  

As any of you who are at all acquainted with him know painfully well, the Colonel ain't smart and you can't make him.  He was infinitely not smarter forty years ago. 

Here's how the Colonel attempted to lighten the mood:

"Hey, Ms. Semans!  What's the big deal?  A bunch of third world nations beating up on each other.  Who cares?" 

Yeah, cultural awareness and empathy weren't (still aren't) the Colonel's strong suits.

To Ms. Semans' credit, she didn't deliver the tongue lashing the Colonel so richly deserved at that point. 

The look on her face was punishment enough, however.

The Colonel feels his face redden in shame at the memory all these years since.

Suffice it to say, the Colonel's world view broadened significantly over the next couple of weeks.  He hadn't paid particular attention to world events, previously -- it became one of his passions, following.

Over the next several decades the Colonel studied, in detail, the strategic geo-political background, the events leading to, and the operational conduct of that war.  It's lessons shaped his personal concepts regarding war at every level.  And every time he read a recounting or studied an assessment of it, the Colonel remembered the look on a teacher's face.

Some of life's most important lessons are taught in silence.             

Hate Running

The Colonel's alma mater, Ole Miss, is in the national spotlight again this week.  And, as usual, it ain't a good thing.

Seems a crowd of students -- which allegedly included approximately twenty freshmen members of the football team -- attended a campus theatrical production, the "Laramie Project," and allegedly heckled the performers with anti-homosexual epithets.

The hyperventilating reaction in the media and from the jack-booted gender-hustlers leading the political correctness parade has ranged from outrageous to idiotic, with no sane, sensible reactions in between.  

Disappointing, boorish behavior on the part of the hecklers?  Absolutely!

Hate speech?  Absolutely not!

There is no such thing as "hate" speech.

There is ignorant, uncouth, insensitive, impolite, biased, prejudiced, spiteful speech -- all protected under the very first, and most important amendment to the Constitution of these re-United States.

To those who would begin drawing lines beyond which constitutionally protected free speech is no longer protected and, further, illegal, the Colonel would pose the following question:

What makes you think that your currently-considered "politically correct" speech might not one day soon be considered not only politically incorrect but, further, illegal?

Once the precedent has been set by outlawing certain speech deemed "hateful," there is no stopping the slippery slide to absolute Orwellian thought-control.

(For the 'Bama and LSU grads reading this missive and confused by the reference in the paragraph above -- see the book "1984" by George Orwell.  You might have to come to Mississippi to find a library book not already colored in...) 

And while he is on the subject, the Colonel maintains in all sincerity that there is no such thing as a "hate crime." 

All crime is based on hate -- hatred for either God's Law or man's.

The hyperventilating political correctness crowd is calling on Coach Freeze to suspend the errant members of his football team, to "send a message."

Suspension may very well be the appropriate punishment for the boorish, anti-social behavior exhibited by his players, but Coach Freeze must carefully weigh his disciplinary action.

If he suspends the players, the race-hustlers will have a field day.

The Colonel would recommend a far more effective punishment used to great effect by the legendary Coach Vaught and his assistant coaches.

In his book, "Walk Carefully Around the Dead; Ole Miss Football...When the Coaches Held the Players by the...Throats," Page Cothren -- himself a player at Ole Miss and later an NFL standout -- relates in detail the high standards of personal conduct to which the players in the late 40's and 50's were held and the iron-fisted discipline by which they were held to those standards.

Cothren's accounts of players' antics and coaches' responses nearly always end with the same punishment -- running numerous laps up and down the stadium steps.  

If you don't think that's much of a punishment, then you've never had to do it.

Don't Join

By the time the Colonel was barely into his teens, he knew his calling was to serve his nation is uniform.

For much of his young adult life (the term "adult" used in the age-defined sense, not necessarily denoting any particular maturity in the Colonel's case), he self-identified with terms such as "patriot," "warrior," even "jingoist."

For the Bama bandwagon boors who have stumbled upon this post in search of a life beyond ponderous pachyderms, hound's tooth print toilet paper, and tree-killing herbicides, the term "jingoist" does not refer to one who sings jingles.

Nope, the Colonel's favorite song -- Mr. Key's poem, "The Defence of Fort McHenry," set to the tune of a popular, if difficult to sing, British social club anthem -- ain't a very catchy tune. 

In fact, the Colonel has rarely sung the National Anthem.

Hard to sing with tears in your eyes and a large lump in your throat.

Suffice it to say that you'd be hard pressed to find anyone in the land of the free who loves the ideals for which our nation stands more than the Colonel.

As many of the two dozen of you who subject yourselves to the drivel posted hereon will recall, the Colonel spent a goodly portion of his career commanding a goodly portion of the Marine Corps' recruiting apparatus.

No one believed in the high calling of the cause of filling our ranks, nor took to heart the slogans and ideals with which we challenged the youth of our nation, more than the Colonel.

The Colonel considers membership in the American veterans' community in general, and in the fellowship of the Marine Corps in particular, to be the second greatest collection of men and women to which anyone can aspire -- a Christian Church being the first, of course.   

So it was with a particular sense of bewilderment and personal loss that the Colonel recently answered a young man's question about joining the military with: "Don't."

The Colonel can no longer in clear conscience recommend uniformed military service to our nation. 

The leaders of our military -- civilian and uniformed -- have lost any semblance of moral authority, let alone direction, having succumbed shamefully to the siren song of political correctness.

"Atheist" chaplains?

Women in the infantry?

Persecution of professing Christians?

Open acceptance of "anything goes" sexuality?

Mistreatment -- downright neglect -- of veterans' suffering?

Failure to address -- with strong caring leadership -- the plague of suicide symptomatic of a huge moral leadership vacuum?  

The Colonel could go on and on...

The Colonel used to respond positively to those who -- often flippantly -- expressed gratitude for his service.

This is how the Colonel now answers those perfunctory platitudes -- particularly from politicians:

"Don't insult my intelligence.  If you appreciated my service even the least little bit, you would not so willfully trample the rights and freedoms enshrined in the Constitution for which I pledged my life and for which so many of my brothers and sisters have given theirs."