When I was about 14 maybe 15 I was what, my Mom called "trouble looking for trouble". Now you have to understand, it wasn't that I was a "bad" kid who was going out picking fights, tearing up things or being in-considerate to others, back then, you just didn't do that if you expected to see the light of the next day. No, I was just real good at being able to get myself in a "predicament" all on my own. Which, 95 percent of the time I was, by myself.
What she was talking about was that if there was something out there that could go wrong, I was the one who could find it and it seemed that was just the way it was supposed to be. I was the one who had no problem getting up early in the morning, many times even before the sun wasn't even a glow on the eastern horizon yet. I would quietly slip out the backdoor with a rod and reel in hand and "take off". What this meant was that for the next few hours I could wander across the fields that lead me to the stock tanks and creek that were a couple of miles into the woods behind our house.
Now, that didn't mean that I went directly there or took the shortest route. I, was the one who was filled with curiosity and a questionable need to stick my nose where it shouldn't be stuck. I tried very hard to make certain that I explored every inch, foot and mile from point A to point B. A hay barn which had just be filled with new hay or a new set of tire tracks on the dirt road that was rarely used or maybe a sound that I heard off to my left that I had never heard before. Well, it was simple, I had to go find out who, what, when, where, why and if possible, how?
Which were the questions that popped into my head the day I looked up in the top of a Very Large Pecan Tree and noticed a Very Large Nest made of surely every twig, leaf, or usable item of nature that was available, to craftily built a nest in the fork of this tree's upper branches. Now, who put that up there? Where did it come from, it wasn't there the last time I walked down this path. What was in it, and of course why don't I just shinny up that tree and answer my own questions.
So, of course up I went. Now forget the facts that this nest was probably a good 40 feet off the ground, in a tree that looked "un-climbable or that I was all alone if anything were to happen to me if I were to fall. Those things didn't matter or I just wasn't "thinkin".
So up I go. Now at about the 20 foot level my confidence had grown regarding my climbing abilities. Duh... of course, these first few feet were easy, great big branches with plenty of support. But now the climbing was getting a little rougher and you would have thought I would say, "Johnny, slow down, pick wisely." Did I? of course not and it was at about the 26 foot level that the branch under my feet snapped sending me plummeting down, slowed down a little by the branches and limbs I had just mastered and bounce off of until I manage to find Mother Earth with a thud.
I lay there for a couple of minutes, trying to replace the air that had just been knock out of me. While lying, there I made my 2nd big mistake of the day. I looked back up at the nest and said, to myself, "Your not going to let that stop you are you? The answer. "Well, of course not." Dumb answer, I mean a REALLY dumb answer, as I was soon to realize.
So, up I go again, making point at level the 20 foot level, to remind myself, OK STUPID, slow down, which I did. Then, at about the 35 foot level that it hit me.. Johnny, what if there is something alive in that nest? Hmmmm... Ahhh... and I carefully pulled out the pocket knife which I always carried in my bluejeans pocket. Opening it, and clamping it between my teeth so I could have both hands still free to climb I looked up and at the same time grabbed the fork of the tree in which the nest had been built in.
That was at that precise moment when the raccoon (who) which had built the nest, stood up and looked down at me and in a split second, answered the rest of my questions which had got me up there in the first place. We both kind of froze in time for probably about 5 seconds but what seemed to me was an eternity. Then the raccoon stepped out of her nest and onto my shoulder, grabbing which I keenly remember, grabbing a raccoon's handful of my hair to better balance herself.
I very quickly proceeded to try to shred all of the skin off the inner sides of my arms since all I was wearing above the blue jeans was a T-Shirt. That was when I came to the only smart idea I had that day I think. Jump!
As I hurled myself off the branch, while she simply stepped off my shoulder onto the branch where I had just been. I can remember her looking down at me as I fell with the look and I swear a grin of someone saying "Dummy". I bounced my way down through the limbs and branches(again) to about the 15 foot level and was fortunate to grab a larger limb stopping my fall.
I lay there clinging to the branch and I whispered a prayer of thanks to the one other, who witnessed all of this and who was probably shaking his head at me from high above. it was at that moment that the raccoon proceeded to try and show me how a living animal can jump from 30 feet off the ground and live through it. She hit the ground with a heavy thud, kind of like the one that had been done by me just a few minutes earlier. She lay there for some time, then rose, looked over her shoulder at me, and scampered off into the underbrush to be seen no more... Thank God.... for the second time..
I climbed down the rest of the way and sat against the trunk of the tree easily answering the 3rd to last question of the day. "Well, bet you won't do that again will you? It was also then that I noticed the pocket knife lying on the ground a few feet away. Answering the 2nd to last question of the day. "Why didn't you use the knife up there?" Answer. Because a knife will not stay between you teeth,
while you are screaming at the top of you lungs because a full grown female raccoon (I'm not sure, it was a female, I didn't have time to check, just seem so, your know, how woman have that look in it's eyes when you do something stupid) steps onto your shoulder and grabs your hair, for balance.
After about 2 hours of stopping every 100 yards to pray that I not bleed to death, I made it home. It is there where I had to answer the last question of the day and that was from my Mother asking me as I walked through the back door. "Did you have fun today Johnny?"
My answer, "Yes", as kissed her on the check and stumbled my way down the hallway to my room.
Johnny
11/1/2016
It's that time meant to do all those things you've dreamed of doing .
Over the last 2 days I have been honored to work on a project regarding a story about 8 Fine Men who have been friends for over 45 years.
These Men were all members in the same division that manned the Gun Mounts and Fire Control Weapon Systems on the Destroyer Escort which earned the title of the Grey Ghost of the Vietnam Coast where they became steadfast friends while doing their Patriotic Active Service to their Country and continue to be friends today.
Spending 2 days brainstorming with the volunteers that now manage the upkeep and daily running of their ship which has now become a Naval Museum they helped in more than one way to help give hope for the life of this fine ship.
Post Note: The situation regarding the future of the USS Orleck is still one of concern. The months ahead will depend on what we are able to do to gain an upper hand on the financial difficulties of keeping her with us in Lake Charles Louisiana.
I've got a pocket full of quarters that should take me to 
I, as all of us have just stepped onto a train that I hope will take us far.....
Because if you listen to the news.. (which I stopped doing 5 days ago) you would think the world is about to come to an end... No matter who wins.... I'm afraid we're all going to lose, at least our pride as a Nation...
For the last couple of weeks I've been looking at "Google Earth". I find it very relaxing, seeing things around our world from above.
