Pyre, pyre, pants on lyre

I have been untruthful for a long time with you. Not on purpose, but untruthful all the same.

You know how little things escape you sometimes when you go to answer a question, then, while reflecting back on it, you realize there were indeed things you should have said and didn't. Like when you answer that you've never stolen from an employer and mean it. And later on you wonder if taking things home without paying for them is "stealing"? Or if taking the company car, the one that you are to use to get to the various neighborhoods to sell the amazing Kirby vaccuum, and instead using it to go for long, high speed joy rides through the Eastern Hillsborough County backroads is technically "stealing"? That sort of thing.

Well I keep saying that I have no regrets in the path my life has taken. Sometimes I qualify that by saying, "besides wishing I had taken better care of my teeth, I have no regrets in life." And big picture-wise it is a true statement. But...

I will forever regret losing my father's high school class ring. I thought it was cool. I thought it was manly. And I thought it fit on my finger better than it apparently did.

But one day, down at the Alafia River, while "moon bombing" some hapless canoeists, it slipped off of my finger and down, down, down into the murky brown water. It was gone. I hated it for me because I loved wearing it. Then I felt bad because, while he hadn't taken it away from me, Dad also hadn't given me expressed permission to be wearing it. Then I felt bad for him.

Then, a year or two later I learned that he was sad because it was gone, especially in such an uncerimonious fashion, and I felt terrible. I still have that little internal shudder everytime the memory pops into my head.

I have been gonna replace it several times in the past few years, but have never gotten as far as conacting a company to get the process started. I think I probably regret that, also. I have the info written down somewhere. Mt. Holly NC High School 1953, is what I think it is, but I do have it written down.

I regret that my ex-wife, when she got good and hooked on the drugs while I was stationed, against both my will and my better judgement, in Yokosuka the first time, hocked and/or sold everything of any value.

I lost my jon boat, my canoe, satellite system, any and everything electronic, my Sears lawn tractor, chain saws, an auto-pilot trolling motor and probably a bunch of crap I don't even remember I had.

But the biggest loss for me was a small, inexpensive Ithica .22 cal lever action rifle. I think she sold it for $20 and I tried for several months to get it back. But it went down, down, down into the murky depths of hard lives and personal demons. And it was gone. And it was something else I had gotten from Dad, although this time with permission. I regret deeply that it was lost in such an uncerimonious fashion.

It was a great rifle for 2 boys and their dad. Ammo was cheap and easy to find. It held 13 shots if filled with .22 rifle, less if using .22 long rifles. It was perfect for blasting turtles, squirrels (although if they died with their claws in the tree it couldn't knock them loose) and would blast heck out of the neighbors basketball, despite the fact that blasting heck out of their basketball caused them to send their mom over to fuss at dad and kinda get us into trouble.

And it was especially good for sitting on your Papaw's back porch steps with your dad and brother and shooting walnuts out of the tree branches on the edge of the woods until the Mt. Holly police would wander in to the back yard and tell you to quit because, despite the fact that you were shooting into the woods (which are now replaced by 720 or so single family homes as Charlotte moves closer and closer to the SC State Line, gobbling up every community in it's path), you were still sitting inside the city limits and discharging a firearm within the city limits is frowned upon. In fact, it's illegal. But the officer would still smile, tell daddy he knew so-and so from back when and encourage us to still have a nice day, just with less shooting.

I guess I also regret the loss of civility of that sort.

Regretting what I'm still forgetting, out
Ramblin' Ed