Free Speech Stupid

In this neverending world of inane, endless discussion of postmodernist drivel, the troubling thing for Uncle Bubba is that those that are questioning the legitimacy of free-speech isn’t just young people; it’s also people of more mature age. People that have life experience, people that should’ve been taught about our rights in school. For the record, it was taught in school when Bubbie was there; he remembers and he wasn't even really paying attention most of the time. It troubles him because it’s a far greater indicator of an underlying problem in our society if people are still, 243 years beyond the formation of our country still not understanding these foundational precepts. There is no progress. As Uncle Bubba puts it, "It's stupid. It's like running uphill on an ice-covered road wearing plastic soled shoes! It's exhausting and in the end, you're no further along than when y'all started."

Who are these people; the intellectuals that think that it might be a good idea to limit speech? Are they the cantankerous ol' fogies we see in the grocery store lines that are fit to be tied with the bagger-person for not putting their vittles in the sack as they see fit? Are they the folks we've seen on the highway who have no regard for the law? They drive with no inclination for using turn signals, stopping completely stop signs, racing through yellow lights, driving slowly in the left lane, everybody's tailgating, the list goes on. Is it ignorance or complacency? Maybe both but it’s striking to see the mature age of the people that fail to understand the depths of chaos they cause when our societal standards are ignored.

"Maybe it's a lot of them crusty ol' farts," says Bubbie, "but stupidity knows no bounds. I don't think that you can put a face on it."

Well, you can if it's the face of California Democrat Congressman Ted Lieu. He says he would love to regulate speech. That's chilling coming from a person in authority.

Here’s some common science for you; for every action, there’s an equal and opposite reaction. It’s Newton’s third law of physics; lil Bubbie learned that in high school. Here’s some common sense; for every statement you say, you may offend someone. There is no law or change of our constitutional rights that can change any of that. In Bubbie’s view, he can’t believe that he’s actually trying to say all this to people his age, but he's sure enough glad that he has the right to.

Love & Friendship - It's A Mess

Uncle Bubba cut on his TV Sunday morning and the pastor Keith Butler was in the middle of a sermon. He was telling an anecdote about when he was a youth and wanted to hang out with his friends. His father said, "those people are not your friends, they are just people you know. You won't know who your friends are until your down in hard times and someone sees you through it and stands by your side; that's your friend. And you might only meet one or two in your entire life." Wow, Uncle Bubba wished that he had a daddy that would have told him these types of foundational insights. 

Love has never been a difficult thing for Bubbie. He loves people. But he's often confused love and friendship. Even after living half a century he has struggled with this idea, that just because you love someone, that does not make them your friend. In fact, Jesus commanded us to love our neighbor. That's it. He didn't say we had to like our neighbor or skip over your mean neighbor to love your nice neighbor. He simply said to love your neighbor. Hoo-doggy, that's a tough one!

But in regard to friends, Jesus said the following, "You are My friends if you do what I command you." (John 15:14) There is a lot wrapped up in that statement but here's Uncle Bubba's take on it; first, even with Jesus, there are conditions for friendship, boundaries if you will. Secondly, friends make an effort to be friendly. Some dictionary terms of being friendly are kind, helpful, favorably disposed; inclined to approve, help, or support. So to be a friend we should be amicable and supportive. If people aren't treating Uncle Bubba that way, then they aren't his friend. It seems obvious but in real life practice, it's much more difficult to discern when emotions and such are involved.

These friendly qualities are generally easy for Uncle Bubba. Perhaps it's his personality and somewhat attributable to his early influences. He was a Boy Scout and their Law is to be trustworthy, loyal, helpful, friendly, courteous, kind, obedient, cheerful, thrifty, brave, clean, and reverent. Forty years later he can rattle them off by heart and readily admits that they cross his mind frequently; especially when he runs up against someone that is cross or just plain mean.

"So there ya go," says Bubbie, "we're right back to the crux of my struggle. I've had to learn, at an older age and you know what they say about old dogs, that just because I love someone doesn't mean that they are my friend. But in my view, I'm gettin' to be OK with just people I know."

Grandparents Are Wolves

Sweet Pea was thumbing through a magazine when a strange sight caught her eye. It was an ad by GSKSource, which is a company that sells vaccines. To Sweet Pea and Uncle Bubba, it was a disturbing image that the company chose to use: two wolf people, obviously supposed to be grandma and grandpa, holding a human baby. As grandparents, it made them feel sad, disappointed and misrepresented.

This image was intended to scare family members of helpless babies. Young parents are supposed to be fearful of their parents holding their precious child and infecting them. Grandparents are supposed to be fearful of spreading their germs that cause "severe illness". So the answer is to vaccinate everyone? It would be laughable if it wasn't so scary. By the grace of God, we've been relying on our own, natural immune systems since the dawn of time, and thriving; instinctually knowing the communal exposure to your own family and surrounding environment strengthens our immunities; it makes us stronger. Want proof? Look at how much the human race has grown. 

No, this rush to inject manmade remedies to questionable threats doesn't pass the sniff test. In Bubbie's view, this suspiciously wreaks of propaganda. If one looks at what propaganda is, "...information that is not objective and is used primarily to influence an audience and further an agenda, often by presenting facts selectively to encourage a particular synthesis or perception, or using loaded language to produce an emotional rather than a rational response to the information that is presented (Wikipedia)." then a rational person should be able to reason that companies are using propaganda to make money. Why is it, in Bubbie's opinion so egregious? Because companies like GSK aren't just selling shoes, they are selling harmful toxins that people inject into their bodies. Wow! That's scary stuff. Not only that but they are employing their business practices with the approval of that federal agency that was set up to watch out for our health and medical safety, the CDC. What a racket. It brings to mind an interview heard recently of Eric Weinstein who coined the term "intellectual dark web". He said that scientists should be irreverent and that the biggest discoveries, the ones that really move the needle are made by irreverent scientists that are very disagreeable. This is quite a different approach from the scientists that work the company agenda and drink the kool-aid so to speak. Uncle Bubba coined a term for them: complientists.

In Bubbie's view, if it's all so good for us, then why the need for propaganda? Why not give us the objective facts and median statistics and we can decide for ourselves what is best for us and our families.

Old No. 7 - Adultery Is Child Abuse

I took a Sunday drive through the country on a gorgeous Spring day. The winding roads spun a tale of fresh growth with light green sprouts and baby blue skies; like time stood still or never started with Springtime now or eons ago laid out along the roadside. It was like seeing history as it was happening and knowing that it was still ancient history. I passed a little white church that still had a few lingering patrons dressed nicely chatting by their vehicles parked in a shady grass lot and I thought of Uncle Bubba and Sweet Pea; were they home from church yet? It has been a while since I visited them so I drove to their place. I found them just returning home from church and they welcomed me in as always.

"Y'all missed a good service today boy," Uncle Bubba crowed.

I felt flush as embarrassment rose from my chest and into my cheeks. I know how seriously Uncle Bubba and Sweet Pea take going to church. I deflected by offering up an invitation to tell me all about it.

"Yessir, I'm sure of it. Did you learn anything new?" I replied.

"The preacher was on fire today, his talk was about how adultery was not only a sin but if there are children involved, it is also child abuse."

Uncle Bubba stepped out of the room as he spoke, only to return shortly in his casual clothes. I sat quietly at the kitchen table. Sweet Pea hummed a pretty tune while starting to gather food from the fridge to prepare lunch but my mind was twisting Bubbie's words around in my head, adultery is child abuse. Really? That thought had never really occurred to me. Sure, broken homes and broken marriages are hard on the kids but I suppose that I never really thought about to what extent; I reckon that I never really wanted to because it might be disturbing. After all, I knew a lot of people that either came from broken marriages or had affairs and in trying not to judge them and still see the best in them I didn't want to see the bad... was it really my business? Uncle Bubba came back in without missing a beat and continued his story.

"Jesus says keep the commandments and we all know that but he also said that if anyone causes a child to stumble it would be better for them to have a big ol' millstone hung around their neck and to be drowned in the depths of the sea! (Uncle Bubba did not cite verses but they can be found at Matthew 19:18-19 "'You shall not murder, you shall not commit adultery, you shall not steal, you shall not give false testimony, honor your father and mother, and love your neighbor as yourself.'" Matthew 18:6-7 “If anyone causes one of these little ones—those who believe in me—to stumble, it would be better for them to have a large millstone hung around their neck and to be drowned in the depths of the sea. Woe to the world because of the things that cause people to stumble! Such things must come, but woe to the person through whom they come!)

This was some heady stuff to take in on such a beautiful Spring day and I can see why Uncle Bubba was fired up, it is one of the contradictions of life. Do we stand on our principles or conform to constantly shifting societal ideals? I told Uncle Bubba that for the most part, I have tried to maintain a secular view of this “unintentional” child abuse by a parent, as that is how most view the world -- they cannot see beyond the end of their nose. We're addicted to the game; when we’ve found our latest “soul mate” the long-term ramifications are normally of little concern. We want what we want when we want it.

Bubbie replied, "But for those of us who claim His name, we must consider how God sees this issue. Read your bible. If ya do y'all're gonna find that there's some things in there that will bend your nose outta joint. But that doesn't mean that they aren't right."

"OK," I said, "to be fair, there are people who are divorced who did not want to be but their partner left, and there are people who have a spouse that died. There are single parents that were never married. So we could say that adultery doesn't really apply as long as they date others with equal circumstances. Would that be abusive?"

"It is," Bubbie replied, "if the parent is bringing people into and out of a child's life; you know, mommy or daddy's "special" friends. It's instability! And if we're brutally honest, there's neglect and abandonment because an adult infatuated with a suitor is not focused on being a good, consistently stable parent. It's just a fact. A biological fact. And what becomes of a kid who becomes attached to their parent's boyfriend or girlfriend and then they break up? That person is just ripped out of a child's life. Then what?"

Well, that's Bubbie's view and in this case, it is hard for me to argue against it. It's also why I love Uncle Bubba so much, he lives by common sense. Sweet Pea served up a delicious Sunday dinner topped off with a slice of homemade peach pie and big ol' glass of iced tea as the brilliant rays of the late afternoon sun strain to pierce Sweet Pea's window curtains. Uncle Bubba talked about getting his garden ready to plant and an early fishing adventure with Cousin Earl. It was fun. Later, we all bid one another adieu and I drove home under that afternoon sun. White cotton clouds floated peacefully above but dang if Bubbie's church service was still nagging at me. After returning home I did a quick search online and found, "The Journal of Child Abuse and Neglect". It says that child abuse is "any recent act or failure to act on the part of a parent or caretaker which results in death, serious physical or emotional harm, sexual abuse or exploitation, an act or failure to act which presents an imminent risk of serious harm.” Emotional harm, hmmm... that's a big one. I thought about this definition, and what Uncle Bubba said, and about the words of Jesus and I'd have to say that, yes, adultery is child abuse. There is an obvious reason that number 7 in the Ten Commandments is do not commit adultery, it ruins the family which is the rock-solid foundation for a civilized and Godly humanity.

To be honest, there was one other bit of information that I found online while searching for a definition of child abuse that really cast a light on the topic; it's the statistics pertaining to the children from broken homes. The children are:
* two times more likely to drop out of school.
* three times more likely to have behavioral disorders.
* ten times more likely to be abused physically and/or sexually.
* four times more likely to become alcoholic.
* six times more likely to abuse drugs.
* twelve times more likely to end up in prison.
* three times more likely to become an unwed parent.
* five times more likely to live in poverty.
* three times more likely to commit suicide.

If this is the result then any reasonable person would have to draw the conclusion that the actions that caused the result are abuse. Go figure... there are a thousand reasons not to cheat, but none more important than what you’re about to do to your innocent child who believes in you -- who loves you -- who trusts you.

All of this bothered me through the night so I called Uncle Bubba the next day to discuss things a little bit more. We talked about how the little ones are so easily brushed aside as being resilient but these are the formative years of their lives. As Uncle Bubba mentioned, "What they perceive now will stick with them forever; we know, we were kids once too. How easily I can recall hurts of my childhood like it just happened yesterday and it was 50 years ago!"

But there was something more nagging at me, the idea that I had to consider how often I have been culpable in any of this. I surely was complicit in lies, choosing to believe them over the obvious truth; meaning, I have friends and family that have cheated and I never spoke up about how I thought that their behavior was wrong; I'd smile and go along with it so as not to rock the boat. As I said before, I didn't think it was my business, but truly I didn't want them to get mad at me. However, in the case of children, they are defenseless. If I am a citizen of a society, aren't I responsible for the betterment of that society? I recently heard someone say that you don’t have authority over anything until you take responsibility for it. That's why you can't go across the street and yell at someone else's misbehaving kids and expect them to listen. But by taking responsibility for doing the right thing, being a good citizen, and standing on Godly principles, I now have the authority to act and do my best to protect the defenseless. We should always speak up when we witness an injustice. I offered this up to Bubbie and he agreed.

He replied, "Listen Bubba, we all fall short, we're not perfect. So now you know where you stand. Make good choices going forward. Don't expect to get any pats on the back, that's not what it's about--it's about the children. In my view, we have to just keep on living by The Word and show love."

Tote Your Wagon Like A Man

Uncle Bubba related this story to me that he accredited to the late boxing promoter Butch Lewis: Every successful man has got rope work to do. Here is the analogy, you have a huge, thick, raw rope over your shoulder, you have on no shirt, you have on some tattered clothes, you have on no shoes. You got dirt on you and you’re sweating. There's burn marks on your shoulders. Connected to that rope is a wagon. That wagon has all your weight on it, all your responsibilities; all the people you’re responsible for, all your children, your wife, your family members, your co-workers, friends. They’re all on that wagon, they’re just sitting there. And what you have to do is pull the wagon up that hill. Now the only thing with it is, can’t nobody help you pull your wagon, you’re the only one on the rope. You pull your wagon alone.

What you can do along the way while you're pulling your wagon is you can find yourself a good wife, a good woman. What that woman does is get down off of the wagon and she fans you while your pulling, she puts water on you while you’re pulling, she puts food in your mouth while you’re pulling, she kicks rocks out of the way while you’re pulling. She is pulling for you. She is equally as important as you are on the pull of the rope.

Now get this here, those people on your wagon that you’re responsible for, you want those people to help you to get your wagon to the top. So you hope that they got their foot hanging over the side and they’re pushing. Or they might be sitting in the back with both legs pushing the wagon; they might be sitting on the wagon but they’re pushing. Their back facing your back but they’re pushing. Maybe some are on the side with one leg over the edge trying to push. You hope that all those people on the wagon that you’re pulling are back there at least trying to help the wagon get to the top of the hill.

Here come’s your problem though, everybody ain’t pushing, everybody ain’t pulling, everybody's not kicking rocks out of the way. Some people are just laying back on the wagon, drinking lemonade, looking at you, talking about how long it’s taking you to get up to the top. Looking at you talking about why this wagon so slow. Then when you start picking up speed they want you to pull harder, you to pull faster, you to pull more. Then they want you to throw what you’ve earned on your way up the hill back on the wagon so that they can have more. But guess what, they ain’t helping you get more. They have a sense of entitlement that says you got more, they should have more. Everyone that come with you cannot go with you. Sometimes you got to kick the people off of the wagon that aren’t pushing and pulling. You say,” I’m sorry man, I thought that I could do this with y’all and I thought you was going with me, but its clear to me that you ain’t nothing but dead weight and it ain’t my responsibility to carry dead weight anymore. I have carried you as long as I have to carry you. You are no longer my responsibility. I’m responsible for my family, my wife and my children; I am not responsible for you. You’ve got to get off of my wagon because I’m the man on the rope. I have the say so.”

A Headscratcher

Uncle Bubba read one of those headscratcher stories in the news. Well, y'all can read it for yourself...

"FLORAL CITY, Fla. - An unidentified man died in a Citrus County sheriff's deputy involved shooting in Floral City late Friday night, officials said.

The incident began shortly before midnight in the 5600 block of Sandalwood Way in Floral City, the Citrus County Sheriff's Office said.

Deputies answered a call in reference to a suicidal man. When they arrived, the deputies announced themselves, but no one answered the door, and it appeared no one was inside.

The deputies launched a yard search. They spotted a man across the street in a wooded area, a Citrus County Sheriff's Office release said.

Deputies saw the man holding a firearm. After several verbal commands to drop the weapon, the deputies open fire, shooting the man, the release said.

The man was pronounced dead on the scene.

None of the deputies were injured during the incident. The release did not reveal the number of deputies involved.

Agents from the Florida Department of Law Enforcement were called to the scene to investigate.

Per agency policy, the Citrus County sheriff's deputies involved in the shooting have been placed on administrative leave with pay, pending the outcome of the preliminary FDLE investigation."

Soooo... they prevented him from committing suicide by murdering him? In Bubbie's view, this is a different approach to mental health care. One he won't subscribe to if he's feeling overwhelmed and struggling to cope in Citrus County, Florida.

Are You Ready For Some Football?

Are You Ready For Some Football? Uncle Bubba ain't--not no more. In Bubbie's view, we could stop the NFL players from protesting during the national anthem fast; completely boycott the first weekend, no fans in the stadiums, no one watching on TV.

Health Insurance... Are You Kidding Me?

Uncle Bubba saw an article in the paper that validated what he'd been wondering about for quite a while; is this federalized health insurance really a good thing? The article stated that the cost of health insurance for the city's 38 employees and six elected officials is increasing by 6%. It does not say why there is an increase, that's just one of those mysteries that we all live with and never get a straight answer; but that's not of Bubbie's concern here, that's a discussion for another day. The bottom line is that the city currently pays $430,000 annually for its employee's health insurance or about $9,774 per person. With the increase, they will be paying $10,355 per person. Lord have mercy! Get your head around those numbers. $439,774.00 for 44 people. Also, the city does not pay for any part of an employee's family coverage. So in Uncle Bubba's estimation, Obamacare is very costly and that begs the question; what are we getting for our money? Maybe this is the best answered by people who have experienced using health insurance. Uncle Bubba has heard several common experiences from friends and family.

They don't reach their extremely high deductible. With most of their healthcare needs being minor, or preventative as recommended, users have to pay out of pocket even though they are still paying the required large monthly premiums.

They are receiving major treatment or being operated on and then almost immediately sent home to convalesce. Sure, it's saving the hospitals tons of money, Uncle Bubba calls it factory healthcare; like an assembly line--wheel 'em in and ship 'em out. But God forbid that anyone gets a complication while recovering at home with no professional care. This risky practice is subpar care. It lowers the bar. Is that what we want?

The federal system is an insurance program for catastrophic care, plain and simple. It doesn't improve or assist in the lives of the majority of its users, if anything it brings hardship and unhealthy duress. If you don't believe Uncle Bubba, then talk to the people that work within the system. Ask a Registered Nurse about the quality of care; if no one is listening in they'll tell you the truth.

Lastly, it only functions if all of the healthy people pay in and never use it so that the others can benefit from it; how is that different than when it was private? It isn't except it's poorly run and more expensive thanks to government intervention. We've also lost our freedom of choice, which is what mandates do. In Bubbie's view, it's hard to see why we all just keep paying and paying and never say enough is enough. We should demand better until we get it. Let's get the government out of healthcare.

Honey, I Love You

Uncle Bubba went to the local flea market early in the morning and spied a table with jars of honey poised upon it and a few busybodies buzzing around it. He sidled over to it and listened in on the conversation, the feller selling the honey was also the beekeeper. It was local raw honey and Bubbie tasted a few samples before buying a small jar of gallberry honey. He took his little amber jar home and since it was still early he brewed a cup of hot black coffee and popped a slice of bread into the toaster. He buttered his hot toast and then poured some of the gallberry honey on it and sat at the kitchen table savoring the aromas. Tiny bubbles surrounded the ebony sheen in his bone-white coffee cup. The toast lightly crunches as he bites into the sweet and buttery concoction. Then a floral bouquet blows up in his mouth as the fresh honey's full body of flavor releases itself and Bubbie's senses that he's tasting sweet flowers, actual sweet flowers.

When one experiences something similar, using honey as an example, in it's purest form it is remarkable. As Bubbie's mind was swirling with delight he couldn't help but think of the plants and bees that had to all come together to make something so complex and so simple. How can anyone experience that and doubt that there is a God, one that truly loves us? What other purposes can there be to have such a creation that just so happens to be edible and so good for us? Think, from bee to beekeeper, to Bubbie. It's so simple and that transaction is lost in the aisles of a supermarket. With distracting rows and shelves of fancy labels and choices, we fail to see God in it; the bee, the plant. In Bubbie's view, when we recognize how the universe works together for our benefit we can hear God say, "Honey, I love you."

For The Record

Uncle Bubba wants to go on the record in this political climate. "Remember that my life is but breath, and though my voice may go out and press against the wind my love of God's creation, humanity, compels me to speak." Admittedly, we have a president that has lived his life in the public eye because he's a rich dude and during the 70s and 80s, fame was misogynistic, coke snortin' revelry. No excuses, no defense, just sayin' that Presidents Trump's skeletons are not hiding in any closets. Then why are we wasting so much time and money trying to find in the dark what stands in the light? Now think about this... why can't the swamp be drained? Because Congress can't sacrifice a single one of their own to appease us, their constituents, because the rats will start squealing and they know where all the bodies are buried. So they keep rattling the bones of Trump to keep the spotlight off of their own frightening skeletons.

Secondly, do y'all really think that any congressmen or senator is anything more than a paid actor? They don't care about what they grandstand on, they are paid to be a mouthpiece. Do you think that at the end of the day when they lay their head on their pillow that they are stressed about immigration, tax reform, your healthcare and exorbitant associated costs, and etc? Uncle Bubba reckons that they only think about how to say what they're paid to say versus the content of their own heart.

One more thing, speaking of paid actors, all of these "news" anchors and political pundits are nothing more than paid spokesmen and spokeswomen, performers who have sold out for their own fame and fortune. Sure, they speak passionately for their side of the argument but come on... think about it. Without the TV camera and money, what would they really care about?

Cynical? Damn straight. That's because Bubbie has common sense--a brain. He uses his mind in the understanding that there is more than one side to any story. In Bubbie's view, whether it be Congress and the Federal government as a whole or the media, they cannot talk of being truthful, unbiased, or non-partisan because as observed by C. S. Lewis from the essay, “The Poison of Subjectivism", ”Unless the measuring rod is independent of the things measured, we can do no measuring."  We'd better see things for what they truly are and get actively rooting out the muck and find that drain for the swamp.

Intelligent Stupidity

Uncle Bubba was leafing through the Sunday sports page and skimmed through an article about Jameis Winston, the quarterback for the Tampa Bay Buccaneers. In Bubbie's opinion, the Buccaneers are a mediocre team due to mediocre ownership, mediocre management with mediocre ethics. For the uninitiated, Jameis Winston has proven to be, at best, of questionable character. It's only questionable if he will ever become a mentally mature man within his lifetime; other than that he has proven himself to be someone who has mediocre morals which fit in well with the Bucs and current crazy climate of the NFL. To his defense, he's a boy trapped in a man's body trying to navigate a rudderless pirate ship in a rudderless and completely unguided flotilla of the NFL.

All of that said, it brings us to the article in a paper. There were several quotes by former Bucs defensive tackle Booger McFarland, who joined ESPN's new Monday Night Football crew. According to McFarland, "Ultimately, the success of this franchise is going to depend on one thing: that's Jameis Winston. What he's got to learn is really simple: less is more. Less of the manufactured rah-rah stuff... Be the quarterback. It's a natural leadership position." McFarland went on pointing out examples of Winston's big ego and over-the-top antics. To quote the article, "McFarland's message to Winston: Be yourself, but temper it."

Bubbie's eyes fell on the next paragraph and he held in a hardy, sarcastic gut laugh while he read it through. "You look at other quarterbacks in the league. ...It's how they carry themselves. They step up to the podium and they look a certain way. You see them in public, they look a certain way. You hear them talk, they talk a certain way. The way they lead. The way they dress. The situations they do or do not get themselves into off the field. A certain way you've got to carry yourself. Just look at the ones that have been successful."

Bang! Uncle Bubba slammed the paper on the kitchen table and yelled, "That tears it! I can't believe it!"

"What?" asked a shocked Sweet Pea.

"Ever since we was kids we've been told to look at this person and that! We've been told to mind our parents and grandparents, to follow Jesus, to go apprentice or find a mentor. In school, we were taught history and learned about our forefathers and all the great leaders of the world and all their best qualities. We were encouraged to read biographies of successful people and use their lives as inspiration. In church, we study the bible and are supposed to follow Jesus, Paul, Moses, and Abraham and every other wise man in it. We had school teachers, coaches, scout leaders, and pastors. We had our heroes, comic book heroes, heroes in print stories and movies. Our entire society from the dawn of time has been all about finding successful people and be like 'em!" Bubbie ranted on, "And now this Booger feller nails it! He says to do just what we've all been told to do, all the time, forever!"

"Ok, Ok, calm down," Sweet Pea chuckled. "And why would that upset you?"

"Yes darlin', you're right," Uncle Bubba said toning it down. "It's just so dang infuriating when we have been force-fed a steady diet of just the opposite in the past how many years. Well, it's probably been a steady deterioration over many, many more years; who knows? We say what we should do and then do the opposite. We quit what works, we think that we're so dang smart that we outsmarting ourselves. It's just... intelligent stupidity."

"A deterioration of what exactly?" Sweet Pea asked.

"Well, I reckon," Bubbie spoke thoughtfully, "it's the deterioration of age-old ideals, and the idea that we are all in this ol' world together. We've sliced it up into individual pieces, it's all about me and mine. Oh, everyone says that in derogatory terms, like it's someone else's deal but it's all of us. Then everyone needs their space so we push the pieces farther apart. Talking face to face turned into computer chats and texts. I hate texts! They're so impersonal. So with all the what-about-mes isolated we become easily offended by anything we don't like or understand and demand censorship of everything. We're vilified if we don't 'do our own thing' and publicly shamed if we do, heaven forbid if we emulate our heroes. Every great thinker through history has been cut down into pieces, dissected and shown for the fallible person that they were. Yeah...hello...they were just people; like you and me. So we're supposed to just dismiss their genius? We think that because we live in a later age, that we're smarter than everyone who's come before us. Don't you think every generation has thought that?"

"Oh, I completely get it honey," Sweet Pea replied sweetly, "This world has turned upside down and it confusing to try to keep up with it."

Uncle Bubba sat back in his chair and gazed out the window for a minute and then turned to Sweet Pea. "It makes me sad Sweet Pea. It makes me sad because united we stand and divided we fall. I don't want to fall. I don't want anyone to fall. But I have an answer for that: come together. Maybe with more people talking like Mr. Booger we'll come full circle and start coming back together. We all need to grow up just a little bit more. Football is a team sport and the team needs to support its quarterback. Our country is a nation of people, one people... Americans; we should act like we like one another. As far as Jameis Winston becoming a winning leader is concerned, he'd be wise to heed the advice of Mr. Booger. In my view, we all would."

The Duke Remains The Same

The Duke happened to stop by Uncle Bubba's the other day for a short how-do-you-do. They were both pleasant and exchanged genuine niceties though it had been quite some time since they had seen one another or even spoke; it's been a long 2+ years for Bubbie since their friendship went off the rails. The heat of adversity has the ability to forge the character of a person much like a farrier shapes the red iron of a horseshoe. This has been the case for Uncle Bubba, a period of anagnorisis, the transition from ignorance to knowledge. Knowledge of what? A knowledge that there are many things in life that he got wrong. Knowing that instinct trumps intellectual reasoning, that common sense cures the wasting away of time. Not to say that he now knows everything, on the contrary, he is a babe in the eyes of God. Knowledge at this level can proceed peripeteia: a sudden or unexpected reversal of circumstances or situation; that moment when the facade falls away and one finally sees oneself. It causes a crisis of spirit and crushes the ego but if survived brings freedom within one's soul.

On the surface, The Duke is the same ol' cowboy he always was and one never really knows a person under that level. But on this day, there is still a fondness there and so many good remembrances of fun, eventful times. Uncle Bubba's eyes welled up as he watched The Duke ride off into the amber light of the setting sun.

After The Duke left and things settled down, a story came to Bubbie's mind and he smiled; it's a tale by Jerry Clower near as Uncle Bubba can remember it. Jerry and Marcel Ledbetter joined the Navy. They boarded a train in Macomb, Mississippi and it took them all the way to Williamsburg, Virginia. When they arrived the bus hadn't shown up yet to pick them up and take them to Camp Perry so the boatswain's mate said, "Hey, y'all start sweeping out this depot while you're waitin' on the bus."

Jerry said, "Well, that's the first push broom I every pushed that wasn't made out-a shucks. And we was pushin' on them brooms and there was two fellas sittin' on a bench right there and they talked real funny to me and Marcel. Didn't have no idea where they was from. And we was pushin' that push broom and that fella looked up and said, 'Jeese, you's guys...' I'm 17-years-old there, I ain't never been outta the South. He said, 'Jeese, you's guys, who won the Civil War?' Well Marcel Ledbetter brought that broom right over his head and busted it and said, 'The Civil War ain't over!'"

Mother's Day 2018 - Epilogue: The Wife of Noble Character

A wife of noble character who can find? She is worth far more than rubies. Her husband has full confidence in her and lacks nothing of value. She brings him good, not harm, all the days of her life. She selects wool and flax and works with eager hands. She is like the merchant ships, bringing her food from afar. She gets up while it is still night; she provides food for her family and portions for her female servants. She considers a field and buys it; out of her earnings she plants a vineyard. She sets about her work vigorously; her arms are strong for her tasks. She sees that her trading is profitable, and her lamp does not go out at night. In her hand she holds the distaff and grasps the spindle with her fingers. She opens her arms to the poor and extends her hands to the needy. When it snows, she has no fear for her household; for all of them are clothed in scarlet. She makes coverings for her bed; she is clothed in fine linen and purple. Her husband is respected at the city gate, where he takes his seat among the elders of the land. She makes linen garments and sells them, and supplies the merchants with sashes. She is clothed with strength and dignity; she can laugh at the days to come. She speaks with wisdom, and faithful instruction is on her tongue. She watches over the affairs of her household and does not eat the bread of idleness. Her children arise and call her blessed; her husband also, and he praises her: “Many women do noble things, but you surpass them all.” Charm is deceptive, and beauty is fleeting; but a woman who fears the LORD is to be praised. Honor her for all that her hands have done, and let her works bring her praise at the city gate.

Sweet Pea is like the proverbial* wife of noble character. She is strong in her quiet, steadfast support of Uncle Bubba. On this Mother's day, we should consider such things of each mother in the mindset of love and forgiveness. Mother's day began in the United States, at the initiative of a peace activist, Ann Reeves Jarvis who came to regret the commercialism and expressed views on how that was never her intention; she believed a mother is "the person who has done more for you than anyone in the world". Well, we all know that not all mothers are cut from the same mold, but we all came here through labor and birth. In Bubbie's view, we are commanded by God to love and forgive so it the responsibility of each of us to find honor in each of us and on this day, our mother.


*(Proverbs 31: 10-31)

Gub'ment Budget

Gub'ment Budget, HA! What a joke. A $1.3 trillion spending package. What they can't spend money on. (Money they ain't got!) Uncle Bubba believes he has a voice in the United States government. He is an active citizen and is not beyond writing his congressmen, congresswomen, and Senators in regard to issues that cause him concern. Emailing an elected official opts y'all in to receive their pandering newsletters. Uncle Bubba just received one from Senator Bill Nelson. He was proud to tell his constituency that he secured federal funding; something to be proud of?

Uncle Bubba read the newsletter out loud to Sweet Pea and then they paused and looked at one another. After a minute Bubbie said to Sweet Pea, "Darlin', I don't reckon that one thing on that list concerns us." He read through the list again, pausing after each title and say,"Nope, don't concern us..." In Bubbie's view, Senator Nelson is sure 'nough proud of spending taxpayers money, just wished he'd asked us all first.

Hiding In Plain Sight

Cousin Earl had to ride to the county seat to pay his tax bill and what-not and he asked Uncle Bubba to ride along just to keep him company. Uncle Bubba hadn't seen much of Cousin Earl lately so he took him up on the invite. It was a beautiful sunny Spring day though a little chilly for the wind; after all, it was March. Cousin Earl parked in the lot across the street from the courthouse and as he stepped out of the car he left the keys with Uncle Bubba so he could listen to the radio while he waited. Uncle Bubba cracked open the window and heard voices as he noticed several small groups of people standing between cars and talking. There were young and old, little children and grandmas. It didn't take long for Uncle Bubba to realize that there was a lot of drama happening in that parking lot. Well, it made sense since folks were coming out of the courthouse and walking back to their vehicles. They were probably there fighting over split-ups, divorces, child custody and what have you; maybe some small claims stuff, sad stuff. Come on man, if you lie with dogs, you're bound to get fleas.


Beyond the angry gestures and foul language, across the street and right under the American flag was a black granite statue of the Ten Commandments. Uncle Bubba stared at them intently, with a twinkle in his eye as he thought about the political statement that the county made by placing them there; it felt good, it felt right. But then the irony of the tragedies that were happening around him struck his heart. If these hurt and harmed folks would only live by the words etched in that stone monument they wouldn't be standing there up to their eyeballs on such a beautiful Spring day. In Bubbie's view, the answer to most of the drama in their wretched lives was hiding right there in plain sight.

Just Throw Money At It

Uncle Bubba doesn’t like to get too current with his current events since the world is filled with hate and bad news and he definitely doesn’t want to contribute to it. So this is a post that may help in shedding some light on a dark subject; one that seems to have our political "leaders” stumped though there are smart people with viable answers. Our topic is the once unheard of occurrence of school shootings. Uncle Bubba felt compelled to get this information out there due to a recent headline in the local newspaper: “Making An Impact”. It was a typical, political fluff piece about how wonderful our local Sheriff (and Sheriff’s office) is. Among other things, in the wake of the recent shootings, he proposes to hire 10 new officers to protect the county middle and high schools. The school board had proposed to hire 5 but the sheriff, as a political monster’s nature is, wants 10. The board offered to pay just more than $82,000 to cover half the cost of those five additional officers for the rest of this school year. And where do they get that money from? The sheriff's office would pay the other half. Uncle Bubba wonders what criteria the Sheriff and school board used to come up with their solutions?

"There are associated upfront costs that no matter what we do, we must have the upfront cost covered," the Sheriff said. "That's purchasing the vehicles, the uniforms, the equipment, the weapons, doing the mandatory training as mandated by Florida statute to deploy these assets out into the communities."

To help cover those costs, the sheriff says he has asked county commissioners for a budget amendment of $978,000 for the rest of his current fiscal year… uh, Sheriff? That’s taxpayers' money. With that in mind, Uncle Bubba asks you to read the following excerpt from a podcast called Brain Stuff.

“On Valentine’s Day this year, 17 people including students and teachers were killed by a 19-year-old former student at Marjorie Stoneman Douglas that was high school in Parkland Florida. This was the tenth mass school shooting in the United States in the past five years. A mass shooting is generally defined as one when at least four people are killed in a single incident. And, once again, Americans are left asking ourselves why? Lost in the noisy debate over gun control and mental health screening is another compounding question; why schools? Why do so many troubled young man see schools as a place to act out there violent and vengeful fantasies? And what if anything can a school do to avoid becoming the next Columbine, Sandy Hook, or Stoneman Douglas? We spoke with Bryan Warnick, a Professor of Educational Ethics and Policy at the Ohio State University who co-authored a paper on the meaning and motivations behind targeted school shootings. Even though many associate gun violence in America with poor inner-city communities, many school shootings almost always occur at upper-middle-class suburban schools. That’s where the status tournament takes place explains Warnick. He said suburban schools do a lot of things to select winners and losers in ways that go beyond academics; think the adulation of athletics and the crownings of homecoming kings and queens. He continued, the way we see it, when schools set themselves up as judges in the social status tournament the resentment will sometimes be directed against the school itself.

In the book, 'Hollywood Goes To The Movies' sociologist and author Robert Bulman says that while Hollywood films that in urban schools focus on heroic teachers and academic achievement, films set in suburban settings focus on student journeys of self-discovery. In the same vein, many suburban school shooters see what they are doing is acts of self-expression. 

Warnick said there’s a different value system at play in suburban schools, it’s called expressive individualism. What we see in movies and TV is students engaged in the process of self-discovery, breaking through norms of the school, breaking through social cliques. Discovery and individual expression aren’t necessarily bad things says Warnick, but for certain troubled young man who harbor deep resentment of the system that rejected them, there’s no better way to express their true tortured selves than through a dramatic act of violence and the higher the body count to be more powerful the message will be. 

We also spoke with Cheryl Johnson, a Professor of Criminal Justice at Cincinnati’s Xavier University where she studied whether increased security measures, namely armed guards on campus, locked down buildings, and metal detectors are an effective means of preventing school shootings. She found that although beefed up security may deter overall crime and violent crime in schools there’s little evidence to show that those measures alone thwart a mass shooting. First, school shootings are just too statistically rare to gauge the efficacy of different security methods. And second, there’s antidotal evidence that even the best security can fail.

There were armed school guards at Columbine. The Sandy Hook shooter shot through glass pans to bypass locked doors. And in 2005, a student in Red Lake Minnesota passed through his schools metal detector before killing an unarmed guard who tried to stop him, along with other people including himself. There’s also concerned militarizing schools with armed guards and security checkpoints contribute to the idea that the school is an unsafe place where violence is almost expected. Johnson 2017 paper, obviously written before the February 2018 Parkland instant, pointed out that the raw number of homicides at schools each year since Columbine in 1999 had actually decreased or remain stable over the years. 

One of the best ways to prevent school shootings, both Johnson and Warnick agree, is to encourage people to speak up when they suspect a classmate friend or family member is contemplating something terrible. The day before the Parkland shooting a grandmother in Washington state called 911 when she found her 18-year-old grandson’s handwritten plans for a gruesome school attack involving homemade explosives. 

Johnson said, 'That’s a school shooting we’re not talking about today.' Citing a report from the Secret Service and the Department of Education, that in 81% of school shootings at least one other person knew about the plans. In 59%, two or more people had information about the attacks before they occurred. Warnick said, 'Usually when school shootings are prevented its when students trust the teachers enough to share that information with them. If we could really build up schools as a place of the trust, where children feel like they had adults you care about them, that would facilitate the communication that’s been proven to prevent school shootings.'

Of course, speaking of hasn’t always been foolproof. We now know that the FBI received a tip about the Parkland shooter dating back to September 2017 for making disturbing comments on YouTube, but he was never detained or even questioned. A second person contacted the FBI on January 5, 2018, to report their concerns and to warn them about the shooter’s guns and desire to kill. But the FBI has admitted that the proper protocols to follow up were left unfollowed. 

Instead of school Districts spending money on expensive and unproven security solutions Bryan Warnick suggests they hire more teachers and counselors to shrink class-sizes and encourage more meaningful interactions between staff and struggling students. He’d also like to see more creative outlets like art, literature, and music classes which often get cut from tight budget for safe individual expression."

In Bubbie's view, if the county is going to spend $1,060,000.00 it should be on Warnick and Johnson's suggestions above. In other words, spend it on the children and not to inflate the size of peripheral local government agencies.

Highway Robbery

The previous post was Uncle Bubba's story of how it took him nearly one week to purchase a piece of glass for his old camper. Since he got it installed, I asked him how he felt about it now that it's done. He said that, because it looks good, he feels good about it; but it's tainted by the hassle it took to buy it. I can completely understand that. He was astute at pointing out that we run into this phenomenon all the time, people that are either self-centered or incompetent, either way, they are robbing us. Of what? Beyond the obvious of time and money, how about peace? When we're at peace, aren't we content? Don't we have a good feeling when we're at peace? Isn't that where we'd all like to be?

Uncle Bubba says, say y'all drive to the feed store, the Piggly Wiggly, or twist off to the Vallero station for gas and a cup of coffee. On the way, someone cuts you off or nearly runs into you with their car. Maybe they even give you a dirty look and pop off madder than a wet hen in a tote sack. And here you were just fixin' to make your way, in peace. Now you're fighting the urge in your mind to tell that Jasper, "I'm fixin' ta jerk a knot in your tail!" Well, brothers and sisters, I'm here to tell y'all, don't do it. Whether y'all are Christians or not you should not be easily angered; be patient, be kind and willing to forgive. Don't let people rob you of your peace. Give up your childish ways and choose not to be easily offended; it's not worth it. Don't let them highway robbers steal your peace!

And for those who attempt to rob the world of its peace by your thoughtless acts, bless your heart, you can't go far but what your tail will follow you.

A Pain In The Glass

Uncle Bubba needed a pane of glass to replace a broken window in his old camper. Being unfamiliar with how the window was assembled, he carefully removed the plastic trim from the aluminum frame and took the measurements of the glass area. Then he was off to the local hardware store to get the glass cut to size. One of the oldtimers that work there asked what he needed.
"A piece of glass for a camping trailer window" he replied.
"Do you know the size?"
"Yessir, 18 inches by 10 inches." But he was thinking, "Do you think I would come here and not know the size?" And in the immortal words of comedian Bill Engvall, "Here's your sign." Uncle Bubba let the thought pass as it does no good to harbinger a foul thought.

The oldtimer scribbled down the dimensions on a small white scrap of paper and turned to the supply of glass and consulted a chart on the wall. He pulled a pane from a stack and placed it against a large vertical cutting table against the wall. He used a tape measure and adjusted the glass and then slid a long aluminum arm down across the glass and snapped off a piece. He tossed the smaller piece into a scrap bin on the floor with a crash. Then rotated the glass on the table and repeated the procedure. Crash! The leftover hit the bin. He wrapped the finished piece a heavy paper wrapper, wrote out a ticket and handed them both to Uncle Bubba. Bubbie thanked him and walked to the front counter to pay.

Back home he had to pry the old, broken glass from the frame before scraping a gummy gasket strip off of the aluminum. He reapplied a new, very sticky black gasket to the frame and then laid the glass into place... oh no, it didn't fit! It was a little out of square for sure and cut slightly bigger than the specs that Uncle Bubba had supplied. So, reluctantly, he drove back to the hardware with the piece of glass to rectify the situation. He walked back to the glass cutting area and the oldtimer was standing there.
Uncle Bubba piped up, "Sir, this glass that y'all cut fer me doesn't fit, it's too big."
"Well I cut it to the dimensions that you gave me," came the oldtimers reply. (And once again, "Here's your sign.")
"Sir, it's not cut to the size that I gave y'all or it would have fit. It don't fit. Therefore, it was not cut to the size I gave you." Bubbie retorted.
The oldtimer pulled out a tape measure and stretched it across the glass. "It reads 18 inches by 10 inches." he mused.
"No, it reads 18 1/8 inches by 10 1/16 inches."
The oldtimer slid the tape over the glass once again. "Well, on this end it's even a little bigger. Were they tight measurements that you gave me?" asked the oldtimer, "Because glass should be cut an 1/8 inch less so that it fits."
"They weren't real tight measurements, and if you'd have asked me that before you cut it I would have told you so. Sir, y'all are the glass cutter, not me. If I had cut it, I'd have given it a little room to play. And the fact that it's out of square means that your cutting table needs to be adjusted."
"Well, I don't know what you want me to do about it," said the oldtimer, "I can't trim this to fit."
Uncle Bubba said, "Look, I got the window out in my camper so I need a piece of glass cut to the right size so that I can get the window put back in. I reckon that you should cut me a new piece of glass."
"OK, but I'll have to charge you fer it." said the oldtimer.
"Oh no you won't." said Bubbie, "I'm not paying for your mistake. Y'all gave me a piece of glass that didn't fit."
"I cut it to the dimensions that you gave me." the oldtimer said. (Here's your sign again!)
"Look here, I'm not going to keep arguing this with you. If your policy is that the customer is wrong and y'all don't make mistakes, then cut the glass an 1/8 inch smaller per side and I'll take it up with the store manager."

I'll spare y'all the details of the rest of the story, like the next piece didn't fit either because it was still out of square; it's too painful to rehash. What a pain in the glass! In Bubbie's view, these things happen way too often in life. The good old days of courtesy are gone like rotary telephones. He wasted 2 hours of his time in two trips. He didn't need an argument and to pay for someone else's mistakes, he just needed a simple piece of glass. My question is, what do we do when this happens to us?

Edit: The next day, Uncle Bubba decided to go to a local glass shop to get his piece of glass. He waited at the counter as the employee assisted a gentleman with his window order, then it was his turn. He ordered an 1/8 inch thick pane of glass, 17 3/4" X 9 3/4" and told the nice lady that he had already taken into account the adjustment by reducing the dimension by an 1/8 inch per side. While ordering he even showed the lady the dimensions he had written down to reinforce her writing down the correct measurements. To his astonished disappointment, she then informed him that they could not currently cut the piece because "the boys" were unloading a truck.
"It could take hours or even tomorrow but I'll call you when it's done."
Uncle Bubba turned from the counter, dazed, and walked out to his truck, and drove away with an irked laughter and shaking his head.

The day passed without a phone call but they did finally call the next afternoon so Uncle Bubba went to pick up his glass. He could not make up what happened next; the lady handed him a pane of glass. See for yourself:

Near tears, Uncle Bubba explained that the measurement was wrong, it was supposed to be 9 3/4", not 9 3/8". Then she told him that the feller that cuts the glass just left for the day so he couldn't recut the glass until tomorrow. Stay tuned...

Finally, though it took two trips back to pick up the last piece of glass, it wasn't cut yet when he stopped in the morning because "We are fixing our cutting table"; Uncle Bubba was able to install it and put the entire ordeal to rest. It was an expensive fix costing more time than money, and all because of ineptitude, to be polite. Still, what would you do if it were you?

The Miner

There was an old miner that made a small fortune in gold but that was not all of his riches. When he was a boy he grew up around miners, yet, since his daddy didn't mine he was estranged to them. He heard his daddy denigrate them and call them drunks and lazy bums. It seemed harsh to the boy but he did witness their dirty clothes and some laughing and drinking in barrooms as he walked the sidewalks of town by the ginmill doorways. He was too young to realize that their course behavior was a snapshot of some folks, of any folks for that matter but not the actions of all miners. Still, his opinion was sullied long before he grew to be a young man. He never intended to be a miner, it never crossed his mind since his interest lied in woodworking and furniture making. He worked laborers jobs on farms and ranches, he dug ditches and cut firewood, he even moved fill dirt off of mine areas while he apprenticed in woodworking. He eventually became a journeyman woodworker and after he made some money he ventured to buy some land and start a homestead. He bought a tract in the hills and began clearing a serene spot in the woods at the edge of a small brook to build a house. One day he was dragging some rocks up out of the brook and a shining glint caught his eye. He reached into the water where he thought he saw something and pulled up a gold nugget. He couldn't believe his eyes! Just like that, he had found what is equivalent to money laying on the ground, just laying there, he didn't have to earn it. He sat back on the stream bank and laughed. After a moment of laughter, he jumped to his feet and danced a little jig. He was amazed at how rejuvenated he felt after working so hard in the dirt and rock and mud. That's when it struck him that he was no different than the hard-working miners of his youth that his daddy looked down his nose at. He worked with his hands to build beautiful things and he worked on his land to make his home. He got dirty and often suffered minor injury but he was contented. He was also a kind and generous man. He wasn't a drunkard and he certainly wasn't lazy; but now he felt something different, he felt transformed and he couldn't say why. He continued to work at making furniture, built and worked his homestead, and mined for gold in the evenings, yet something was different within him.

That first big nugget, though it opened up amazing opportunities, it was not the fortune; he had to search for more to amass his tidy sum. He learned techniques and applied new ways to mining and gained experience with each new nugget. As he aged and his hands struggled to make his beautiful furniture he still kept mining because he enjoyed it; he was a miner. He liked to work in the earth and learn new methods. He discovered much more than gold and things that it could buy for himself, he could share his wealth with others which brought him more happiness.

Theo Wilson

Theo Wilson is a poet and a YouTube activist who wondered about the people posting racist comments on his videos, and where they were getting their facts. So he adopted a pseudonym and joined their conversation. If y'all google his name there's plenty of information available and he gave an excellent Ted Talk that everyone should listen to, and then relisten to it with an open heart. When Uncle Bubba heard it he was struck by many things but one thing in particular, however, he'll share that in a moment. First here are some poignant excerpts from an interview Mr. Wilson did with Ted Talks. These excerpts will give you a glimpse into the caliber of person and the deep thinker that Mr. Wilson is.

"WILSON: When I went undercover, I found a lovely plethora of characters, luminaries like Milo Yiannopoulos, Richard Spencer, and David Duke. All of these guys were thought leaders in their own right, but over time, the alt-right movement ended up using their information to fuel their momentum. And I'm going to tell you what else led to the momentum of the alt-right - the left-wing's wholesale demonization of everything white and male.

One thing kept screaming at me through the subtext of those arguments, and that was, why should I be hated for who I cannot help but be? Now, was a black man in America, that resonated with me. I've spent so much time defending myself against attempts to demonize me and make me apologize for who I am, trying to portray me as something that I'm not, some kind of thug or gangster or menace to society. Unexpected compassion - wow. Never in a billion years did I think that I could have some kind of compassion for people who hated my guts.

WILSON: And let me be clear about the difference between compassion and sympathy. Compassion is my spiritual duty as a human being, but that's different than - well, a lot of people interpret that compassion as a sympathy. I don't have sympathy for them. You see, compassion figures out how you got to where you are. Sympathy is having compassion for where they ended up.

And that's a very, very key distinction that has to be made. I get how somebody could be born on that side of the divide and end up where they are. But I also get that we all have brains, and we can do our own bit of education, and we can figure out exactly what data points that we're missing. And why don't you care to do it? That was a question that I had.

WILSON: The most important thing that I think that we could get from this is that there is unhealed trauma on every side of the racial divide. There's trauma, man. And a lot of people talk about the trauma that black folks have, the post-traumatic slavery syndrome. But then there's also a trauma that white folks experienced, and that experience comes from the fact - and I made a video about this, about how slavery wounded white people.

You don't get to be a part of a force that did that much damage to other peoples without somehow having damage done to yourself at some level. Every time somebody saw somebody lynched, even if they were white, that was damage. If you witness a murder, that's therapy for life, right? One murder - right?

So what does it say when the whole culture gets a lynch mob out and goes hanging folks? You think little Billy, the first time he sees a black man burning from a tree, ain't going experience some kind of trauma? That's going to show up some kind of place, right? That - all of that has a cost. The great tragedy of racism is that we are all human, is that we all lose a piece of our humanity." (http://kuow.org/post/theo-ej-wilson-what-happens-when-black-man-goes-undercover-alt-right)

His statement about trauma on both sides is the thing that hit Bubbie like a hammer between the eyes. It was an epiphany! Thank you, Theo. Though the topic was racism, Bubbie suddenly realized that we all have PTSD in every area of our lives. To back up for a moment, to Uncle Bubba PTSD was something that happened to war veterans and victims of horrific accidents and such. But suddenly he realized that it is, in fact, a condition stemming from any event that an individual is unable to reconcile in their mind; its torturous, toxic thoughts. We all have these that layer upon layer all ingrown like the rings of a tree.

What's at the heart of your tree?

They can begin in childhood and depend on one's personality, environment, resilience and coping skills in avoiding more damage that life dishes out.  And life doesn't slow down to let us recuperate and fix things to make them right, at least within our own minds. Sometimes we are weighed down by one event when we're clobbered by another; bad things happen in 3s as Granny used to say. Bubbie supposes that this is why psychologists were invented, to help us work through these trauma, PTSD things before they became too full of themselves but that's a thought for another day; for now he wants to say that though we've all been damaged in some way, everything can heal and if y'all don't pick at the scab too much, that scar may not be deep. In Bubbie's view, look inside yourself and see if y'all can find those scabbed over wounds, the ones that haven't healed, have some compassion for your heart and find a way to get them healed; Jesus is a good place to start.

Old Hogs

Uncle Bubba really likes his hog. It doesn't matter if he's just sitting on the porch admiring her resting in the sunshine or sitting on her back as she takes him on a ride. Recently he watched a YouTube video about Harley Davidson's biggest challenge in the future and that's the fact that their core demographic of customers are aging and will eventually fade away, and the young bucks just aren't into motorcycles as much as playing video games. The video also postulated that the younger generations are more inclined to buy crotch rockets because they're faster and cheaper. It's a hard argument to contradict. Harley's are expensive. Sportbikes are fun. But for a while now Uncle Bubba has been tired of the Harley Davidson paradigm. Short of their sportier bikes targeted at younger riders, most of their cruisers are just getting too many comfort features that in Bubbie's view take away from the ride and add to the cost. It wasn't until he thought about the info that the video presented that he realized that all these comforts do go hand in hand with older riders. Aside from Bubbie, there's not a lot of old dudes that want to ride stripped down bikes of their youth. They want low vibration motors, 6-speed transmissions, soft comfy seats, farings loaded with radios and stereo speakers, GPS, LED lights, heated grips, and on and on. These new bikes are practically 2 wheeled cars! That just ain't Bubbie taste. He likes to feel the bike as it rumbles under him and he likes to listen to the motor and the wind and the sounds of nature and the environment. He doesn't want to be distracted from the ride with a radio or GPS, clock or cell phone. He wants to be connected in spirit to the band of Wild Ones that came before him. Easy Rider and Born To Be Wild. All the brothers and sisters that rode not to show off their style and make a fashion statement but because a bike was their primary choice of transportation due to their rebel hearts. It wasn't about comfort it was about freedom. Uncle Bubba likes the idea of being in that pedigree. He reckons that every rider likes that idea and feels similarly but in Bubbie's view, it's a lot easier to connect the dots without the radio distracting him.

Ain't That The Way?

Uncle Bubba had a cow that was about to calve, he just knew it because he had a busy couple days lined up. Yet he remained vigilant though it added to his busy schedule; he didn't mind. He rode by her daily on windshield inspection and noticed some telltale signs: a switching tail, kicking at her belly, turning in circles, and other signs of discomfort fall into this category too. Separation from the herd is another sign. No one likes to have a kid with all their friends watching, and cows are no exception.

On Sunday, Bubbie and Sweet Pea went to church and as they arrived home that afternoon they drove up to their homestead to see the cow lying in the field and without a doubt she was definitely in labor. Uncle Bubba dropped Sweet Pea off at the house and then punched the accelerator and darted across the field. As he approached the momma, the calf’s front legs and dark nose were out but it was obvious that momma was having some difficulty. Bubbie didn't hesitate and dove right in. As luck would have it, Sweet Pea had quickly changed her clothes and scampered across the field to witness the birth. Uncle Bubba called to her to hurry because he was going to need her help. He had been pulling at the calf's legs and asked Sweet Pea to take over while he worked on getting the shoulders and then hips out with the contractions. Within a few moments, the calf was born. Momma was exhausted.

She eventually got up with their encouragement and quickly found the calf and started licking it and making momma moo grunts to her. She licked the calf and licked and licked some more. She then found its umbilical cord and snipped it off just at the right length. It was very cool that she knew exactly what to do. Uncle Bubba and Sweet Pea stood and watched in awe and amazement at the miracle of birth and new life. It took a long time for the little girl to get up on those wobbly long stilts of hers, but when they left the barn to come in for supper, she was up and nursing.

It had been a long few days of waiting and wondering so now as they sat at the table reflecting upon the event they smiled contentedly at one another. Just that morning Bubbie had been out checking on the momma cow before the sun had shown its face and a pack of coyotes ran across the back fence line, no doubt awaiting the birth as well. In the dim dawn light, Uncle Bubba reached into the cab of his pickup truck and grabbed his .270. He braced it across the hood and touched off a round with his squinted eye peering through the crosshairs of the scope. The coyotes turned tail and scrambled and disappeared into the woods. In Bubbie's view, ain't that the way that it is? When a good thing is showing up in your life, if we don't guard against it something will come in and snatch it away. How many blessings do we miss because we failed to prepare?

Say What?

Uncle Bubba cranked on the steering wheel and pulled his pickup truck into the parking lot of the gin mill. He and his buddies just came off of a successful hog hunt and they were gathering at the watering hole for a refreshing beverage and recount the morning's events; this is how legends are born. Uncle Bubba walked into the darkness of the bar and squinted as his eyes adjusted to the change in light and he could feel cigarette smoke sting his sun weary eyes. He dimly recognized The Captain at the far end of the barroom and then the afternoon sunlight broke in and the rest of the crew bounded through the door. They bellied up to the bar and the tall tales started immediately. For the uninitiated, wild hogs have exploded in population across the US and they are wreaking havoc on America's farmlands. Wild boars are classified as pests because their diet of roots leads to them tearing up the ground, killing plants in the process and hastening erosion. Uncle Bubba's crew doesn't go out to just shoot them, rather they catch them using dogs and then pen them up and fatten them on grain before harvesting them. Back at the bar, they are laughing at the day's events and as usual most of the jokes are about Cousin Earl. It just seems to be that way and in Bubbie's opinion, it's because he brings it on himself.

Earl was bellyaching about how he strained his back when he tried to pick up one of the hogs to carry it out of the woods. The boys howled at that because it was one of the smallest caught. Then his wrist hurt from this and his neck ached from that: it's always something with Earl, he's a bit of a hypochondriac. Generally, the crew rolls their eyes when they see him coming and they aren't displeased to see him go, he can wear y'all out with his complaints. Uncle Bubba tries his best to hang in there with him because they've known one another since they was babies and he kinda pities him because he knows that hypochondria is a symptom of other things, mental and emotional what-have-yous. Wistfully, Bubbie hopes that Earl gets over whatever ails him before it's too late, after all, it wears on Bubbie as well; he, like us all, has his own issues and challenges of life to deal with. Bubbie would love to be standing at the bar laughing with his buddies with Earl on equal footing and not the brunt of every joke but that's just not the way life works.

Thankfully, Uncle Bubba and Sweet Pea have a different philosophy of life that not only helps them cope but makes for a pleasant and blessed existence. Wanna know their secret? Take good care to guard your heart and listen to what comes out your mouth. They believe that what goes into their eyes and ears winds up in their hearts. Is it sugar or vinegar? That's why they don't watch any news and only watch select TV shows. They aren't on Facebook and avoid social media in general. A clean heart leads to a clean mind and what is in one's heart is what come out of their mouth. Of course, they're only human so they have their hard times like anyone else, but by listening to what comes out of their mouth they can cut the negativity off before it festers and becomes a lifestyle. Uncle Bubba clarifies that it's more like thinking about what you're about to say just before you say it and is it a good thing or bad. Is it a complaint or does it enrich the conversation? It's a choice to say only favorable, just, and virtuous things. It's like this, you think and then you do. If your thinking is off then your communication through what you say and do is off, and vice versa. As scripture says, "As he thinks in his heart, so is he" (Proverbs 23:7). Bubbie admits that it's a learned skill and a practiced choice. He wasn't always this way, he came up from being just as rough a character as anyone but in Bubbie's view, having the choice of the way he was versus the way he is, is a no-brainer. Life today is way better, healthier, and happier.

What's Your Problem?

What's Your Problem? People. Uncle Bubba proposes a mind experiment that's easy to try. Picture your life without people. You are the only one that exists. Imagine that you wake up in the morning a fix yourself a nice breakfast, maybe a nice hot coffee to slowly wind up into your day. Then, without people, what does your day look like? What are your responsibilities? Remember, there is no one to interfere with your day, no one to throw a wrench in your plan. You're free to do, think, and say anything you want without judgment or concern for hurting some's feelings. Of course, this means that there is no one to gossip about, speak ill of, or worry about. You'll have to find new things to fill up the time spent on that and burn that energy in a people-less way. Bubbie reckons that it only leaves the basic necessities of acquiring food and having a decent shelter. Perhaps once they're secured your desire would be to add some luxuries to your life to enrich your life and make it more comfortable. You would do it only as you wish because there isn't anyone else's ideas, tastes, or needs to concern yourself with. There's no one to second guess you or question you: "Why'd you do that?" or "I don't care for that." What would your house look like? Where would you live? What would you do with your time? What would you surround yourself with? Would you venture out to explore?

Without people, there would be a lot less drama in your world. There would be less added responsibilities. There would be less conflict and your problems would drop by probably 90%. It's quite a realization when you think about it. But there are people and we have to live side by side with them. They will rub up against you and create some challenging situations that will not often be pleasant. People create problems. In Bubbie's view, living with people can be painful unless we choose to make good decisions and use learned skills that produce a good attitude and maturity. And in case you haven't thought about it, you're a real pain in someone else's butt too. Don't be a problem.

Happy New Year!

Happy New Year everybody! Uncle Bubba has a couple resolutions that he wants to put out on the table so that he's more likely to stick to them. The first is probably the more difficult of the two: to stop cursing. He came up in a time when cursing was thought to be a sign of being dim-witted, or as Bubbie's granny used to say, "Cussin' is a neon sign to a shallow mind." Folks reckoned that the use of four letter foul words was due to lack of sufficient vocabulary to express oneself. Well, Uncle Bubba has been disappointed in himself for how easily cuss words slip from his lips; his mouth gets ahead of his brain. It really struck him this Christmas season while shopping, you know, being around the general public in crowded stores, which is hard on a country boy. He was aghast at how often he heard the biggie, the mother of all curse words, the F-bomb being dropped by fellow shoppers. It's become such a casual thing! And it wasn't just lowlife types but middle-class and upper-class teenage girls as they huddled over one another's phones; even within families! It was disturbing and made Uncle Bubba sad when it should have been a joyful time anticipating the celebration of Jesus' birth. Jesus, the one who sacrificed his life to save Bubbie's life from sin, if not us all.

Uncle Bubba knows that it's as much a habit to cuss as anything so it will be a process of listening to what's rolling out of his mouth and the wherewithal to correct it until the habit is changed. It will take an effort but he's up for the challenge. Besides, it's also about his family; he'd want his granny to be proud and he aims to be a good example for his grandbabies.

The second resolution is challenging as well but he presumes will take much longer to engrain it into his lifestyle. As Bubbie put it, he's opting out of so much technology. We all talk about what a time waster it can be, especially folks in his age group when chirping about "lazy" gamers. But how is he any better? It just recently occurred to him that his friends that do nothing with or know very little about technology are busy. Either they don't care to know and are too busy to learn or too busy to learn and too busy to bother: it's the chicken and the egg scenario. Anyway, he realized that back in the day, he'd sit down and look through a magazine. At the end, he'd put the dang magazine down because he'd finished with it and he'd find something else to do. With browsing, there is no end! We spend hours lost in rabbit holes as daylight turns to dark. Well, Bubbie for one has had enough. He's ready for a change. He wants to get up and move, to take action on something, anything; he wants to be busy creating things. He mentioned that he knew that he was swimming against the current because society is moving towards more technology, but he really doesn't care. In Bubbie's view, ya gotta get the blood pumping. Ya gotta act on a resolution, participate in the process. Sure, things will have to be unraveled before being knitted back together but that's the fun of the challenge. I thanked him for his heartfelt New Years wishes and waved goodbye as I walked to my truck, and he yelled to me with a smile and a big wave, "No battle is won by marching backward so advance! And Happy New Year Y'all!"