Get out of the way already!

D called me this morning. D lives in Washington State. He and I are members of a globe-spanning association. Don't read a lot into that. I am a member of several associations/groups with global membership.

He called to talk about the association, how things are going with it and my role within that association. Mostly he called to talk about what I'm doing and how he wants to help. No complaints, no criticism, just D saying "Lemme help."

Thank you, D.

Anyway, one of the things we touched on is how this association needs to attract younger members. This seems to be an issue everywhere as young folks don't join organized groups as much as their elders did and do. (Egad, it strikes my soul to use the phrase "younger crowd" or "young people.")

One thing he and I agreed on is this association has some older members, around since the beginning, and they are keeping new folks away. Their attitudes are just ... self-righteous, condemning and dismissive.

Potential younger members show up and encounter these attitudes. Their reaction?

"I don't have to deal with this." So saying, if only to themselves, they walk away. Forever.

Reality check time. The old guard ain't gonna be here forever. New and younger people will take over, if this or any other association continues to exist.

THE PAIN

I know the pain of that kind of attitude and even attacks. I ain't young, but I am new and REALLY new to a position within the global group. I took over from a gent who'd been there for 20+ years.

Some of the old guard resent this. They are taking it out on me. They do not like what I am doing.

So be it.

D, whatta guy, offered to step in on my behalf. D was there at the beginning. He knows stuff so many others do not. He just wanted to know who has problems with me. He offered to set them straight.

Wow. Thanks again, D.

I said I'd rather not say who is mad at me as I do not want to cause more division and problems. As long as they are just mad at me, all is good. I realize they are seeing their control slip away and they cannot accept this. I'm just a convenient target.

Cool. Target R Me.

Here's an important item. No one else was willing to step up and do the work I do. No one. They even offered to pay a pretty significant salary.

GET OUTTA THE WAY

It is time for them to get outta the way, sort of. Them who? Pick a group anywhere that has been in control for decades. It is time for them to let go. Let the younger crowd step up. 

If the next set of leaders are not allowed to step up and start assuming leadership roles, the association will fail.

I have seen it happen.

I used to be a member of the Southeastern Outdoor Press Association. I was driven out. I was young (early 20s), new and with some ideas the old guard did not like. At the time, SEOPA was second in prestige only to the national outdoor writer's association. I also did not fit in with the clique running the place. 

I know some of you are shocked to read that (heavy sarcasm).

Some years ago SEOPA folded. A big part of that collapse was the old guard and that clique who wanted things done their way. Doing it differently was simply not going to happen. Rather than relinquish control and accept others, they chose to let SEOPA shut down.

That national association? It had a major split around the same time. Again, the entrenched members refused to move. A second national association was created. Even combined, neither is as strong as the single national association used to be.

So be it.

MOVING ON

Before you get excited and starting pointing fingers at me, know this. I am moving on.

I have backed off. I have stepped down. I have excused myself. I have let other, much younger people take over.

Sometimes I stepped back, knowing there was no one to take over. Things fell and failed. That hurt. It should hurt. Rather, I should feel that the failure was the best thing to happen. Whatever failed did not need to exist.

Sometimes, I did not leave completely. I hung around to help if asked. I am still on the sidelines in some places. I'm there to offer support, advice and input.

If these new folks have new ideas, I give them ideas on how to do it. 

They may come up with something the old guard tried and failed at. Cool. I tell 'em we tried and it flopped but y'all are new so let's see if it works now.

I do not tell them how to do it, unless specifically asked. Even then, I say "This is how we did it. How do you want to do it?"

Mentor. Sage. Old man on the mountain. Been there, done that, got the T-shirt, kinda thing. Also, very ready to hand the reins over because it is time someone else jumped on this wagon's driver's seat. I want to sit inside the coach and take a well-deserved nap.

This brings me to another idea.

DON'T TRUST

"Don't trust anyone over 30," is a statement often attributed to a bunch of people. Jack Wienberg said it first. As of this writing, Mr. Weinberg is in his mid-80s. Does he still endorse that statement or has he backed off it. I did not look because I do not care.

His statement is an attitude and opinion I shared in my teens and 20s.

Now nearly double that age, I see the foolishness in it. However, that foolishness is a reaction to an entrenched mindset of older folks who say "Change is bad."

Young folks have always rebelled. They have always challenged their elders. They have always tried to force change. We did when we were young!

“[Young people] are high-minded because they have not yet been humbled by life, nor have they experienced the force of circumstances.
...
They think they know everything, and are always quite sure about it.” 

Rhetoric Part 12 On Youthful Character, Aristotle, 4th Century BC

 And yet, the world has continued to move right along.

I am desperately trying to not be that person on either end of those quotes. I want to welcome the new and see where it takes all of us.

Some days I am better at that than others. I need to at my best every single time. Working on it.

And the truth shall set you free

Or, as I often say, if the truth hurts, yer living wrong.

Such is the case with PBS and NPR and public broadcasting all the way around. Congress is set to cut the "public broadcaster" free. A bill that passed the Senate and likely will pass the house is eliminating funding for these agencies.

Liberals are screaming.

Good.

Unless you think I'm being partisan here, lemme say I rejoice when conservatives start screaming. Why is for another blog some other day. We're here right now to celebrate our tax dollars no longer going to support this outlet for left idiotology.

As a formerly devoted fan of NPR, I listened oviaGeorgia Public Radio. I loved the Saturday morning shows especially. I often just sat in my truck weekday mornings because I had to hear the whole news report. NPR calls 'em "driveway stories."

Now, not interested. I cannot stand the hard left agenda being pushed there. I also cannot stand a hard right agenda being pushed.

Don't take my word for it.

THEY WORK FOR NPR

So how about taking the word of some people who work for NPR?

"I didn’t use to count myself among them. But over the past year, under the leadership of a divisive new CEO, instead of taking criticisms of its coverage to heart, NPR instead doubled down on agenda-driven journalism. So, as someone who had spent most of his career at the network, I didn’t support defunding. I instead suggested that NPR could build back credibility by voluntarily giving up federal support. Obviously that didn’t happen."

Uri Berliner, longtime senior editor at NPR

https://instapundit.com/732620/

I used to listen to Uri. I found his stories to be great journalism. I'd listen again, if I could find a nonpartisan place to hear him or at least a place that gave equal coverage to both sides.

So you do not want to believe Uri. Cool.

"You know the stereotype of the NPR listener: an EV-driving, Wordle-playing, tote bag–carrying coastal elite. It doesn’t precisely describe me, but it’s not far off. I’m Sarah Lawrence–educated, was raised by a lesbian peace activist mother, I drive a Subaru, and Spotify says my listening habits are most similar to people in Berkeley. 

"I fit the NPR mold. I’ll cop to that.

"It’s true NPR has always had a liberal bent, but during most of my tenure here, an open-minded, curious culture prevailed. We were nerdy, but not knee-jerk, activist, or scolding. 

"In recent years, however, that has changed. Today, those who listen to NPR or read its coverage online find something different: the distilled worldview of a very small segment of the U.S. population. "

https://www.thefp.com/p/npr-editor-how-npr-lost-americas-trust

Listened to Sarah Lawrence too. Was not as impressed with her as I was Uri.

THE SEPARATION BEGINS

My departure from public broadcasting was not overnight. The separation began slowly. It sped up.

Turner County had an important story, one with national and perhaps global significance, an ethanol plant. The plant went belly up. Beside the point.

I called Atlanta to Georgia Public Radio to brief them. I even did a short segment for that day's news cast. It aired.

I offered to do more, free! No charge. Call in once a week with major news from Southwest Georgia.

The news director at GPR said "It's not important enough." That is the policy to this day. If it does not happen in Atlanta, Savannah, Columbus and sometimes Macon, it just ain't news to GPR.

The first crack formed.

Over in Irwin County, a major news story came out thanks to the Ocilla Star and editor Luke Roberts. A federal investigation looked into the illegal immigrant detainees at the privately run prison. The feds were looking at what they said was an unusually high number of hysterectomies in the women there, among other things.

That should be national news. GPR? Nope.

For that matter, it was not worth of the attention of our Congresscritter Austin Scott. Another blog for another day.

If this was native-born Americans, the place would have been shut down.

And the crack widened.

NO TIME 

Increasingly, I noticed GPR had no time for the rest of Georgia. If it happened below the Fall Line, it was not news.

I get that. GPR's money mostly comes from the big cities mentioned above. That's where the biggest audience is.

Except according to  the very business model of public broadcasting, that is just flat wrong. Public broadcasting is meant to bring information to everyone, equally. Money was not the issue, the semi-annual fundraising campaigns aside. They gotta get money from someone to keep the lights on.

And the crack widened.

THE MAUL HITS HOME

A maul is tool used to split logs. It is really heavy and it is more of a wedge than an axe. I've used them.

NPR slammed that maul home a while back reporting on another "mass shooting." Rather than give straight information, the reporting crew interviewed people who whined about how bad guns are.

That was it. On that day, I turned off NPR and walked away. Ain't been back and don't plan to go back.

CONSTITUTION

It comes down to a matter of rights and Constitution. That grand old document says nothing about taxpayer funding any media outlets. Well, I can't find it anyway. If you can, please point it out.

So, eliminate it.

If you demand taxpayer funding for such media, cool. Work to Amend the Constitution. I'll fight you over that. If it passes, I will fight to repeal it.

FREEDOM

This is freedom for public broadcasting across the nation. If this passes, public broadcasting outlets are no longer tied to the capricious whims of an elected body that does not truly represent constituents. Ahem. Is anyone at PBS reading this?

PBS is now free to find its own way and its own source of revenue.

Taxpayer funding, as those at PBS constantly point out, is a very small percentage of their income.1% to 10%. The rest comes from donations and, yes, advertising. PBS will tell you it is not advertising, but recognizing the support these companies provide. PBS does not accept advertising, they say.

Looks like a duck, talks like and duck and walks like a duck, pretty sure it ain't a rhino.

Cut those "support" announcements and see how long those companies would continue to give money.

YOU GIVE

Like PBS, NPR, GPB or whatever it is in your state? Give 'em money direct from your wallet.

YAY! Good'un onya mate. You go! Go shawty, go shawty!

Just do not steal from me to fund them. Let me decide where my money goes.

If PBS believes its liberal base is enough to support its mission, then let 'em prove it. Let them live it exactly the same way private media companies around the nation do every single day.

In case you don't wonder, cantservatives are more giving than liarberals. https://pubmed.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/34429211/

I don't get it

Make this clear from the start-

For too many years I was an angry man, angry at myself, the people around me and the world in general. This anger was something I chose. It was created by me, instilled in me and nurtured by me. No one else.

No one can make mad except me. No one can make you mad except yourself.

It is easy, too easy, to point fingers and say "THIS! This is why I am angry." This being an external source. It's also a lie. I chose to be angry and I chose to let that spill out into other areas of my life. I let other people push my buttons.

I've come to know these buttons too well. A few people can still push them. That old rage bubbles and I have to back off and remind myself -

I ain't that person any more.
What happens now is a good thing.
This will make me better and stronger.

2 AM

And yet despite that seething resentment, because that is all anger is, I have 2 a.m. friends. I have people in my life who are loyal to me as I am to them. I have people I can call at any time, day or night, and we pick up a conversation as if it was interrupted by one of us going to the bathroom. 

Yes. I have people in my life who are not blood kin but are closer than that. These people will ... nuf said. I have done for them and they will do for me. 

Why?

I don't get it.

TRUTH AND PAIN

My daughter Susan asked Robin how she can work for me. 

Damn. That hurts. If the truth hurts, yer living wrong. I have to change. Reality will not adapt to me, I must change to flow with it.

I asked Robin the same thing.

"Well, you do your thing and I do mine. It works," she said.

wow.

I have run other people away from working for me, literally. One lady, a preacher's wife, came to interview for a job. I talked to her. Then, I said as I always do to people who think they can work here, "I'm gonna leave. You talk to (whoever is in the office). Ask what I am like to work for. You decide if you can work for and with me. I do not want to know what you talk about or what is said."

I went for a walk. I came back and the lady was rushing out the door, nearly at a run. She said something about not being able to work with and for me. A few others tried to work here and could not.

That's on me.

Other people worked for me. They left for better jobs and better pay. They told me that except for the pay, they would stay. They told me, "You need me, call. I'll come help."

REGRET

I sit here thinking back on the days when I was a walking bucket of toxicity, a ball of rage, a flamethrower hosing everything.

And yet, there are people who saw this and stood by me. They still do.

I don't get it.

And that is my regret - that I hurt too many people without just cause. That I drove away too many people because I refused to control myself. That I chose to be someone I now look on with sadness and regret.

I cannot undo that damage. If I could, I would. No sacrifice is too big to erase, not just heal for that leaves a scar, but to erase as if it had never been. I would do it.

Maybe.

Then again, erasing will leave a hole, an empty place, a lacunae. What will fill it? Damfino. Would that hole even be noticed? Damfino.

I also wonder about that these people I hurt without cause, will they look at it as a beneficial experience? Will they say, "That too was a good thing."? Will they look on what happened and believe they came out better and stronger for it?

I hope so. I do not know. Still, I wish it had not happened.

BIZARRE

Even more bizarre, sometimes I meet people. We spend a few hours together and they are a 2 a.m. friend.

Why? I don't get it.

Other people I meet, we spend a while together and they walk away never wanting to see me again. That, whether I get it or not, is something I'm used to. 

But those people who hang around, want to come back and so on, I don't get it.

She Who Must Not Be Named is one of those who met me and took an instant liking. Over the decades she has defended me to those who attacked me in her presence. Did not ask her to do this. She did.

"Ben Baker has integrity," she said. "You can tell him something [in private] and it stays there."

Well, yeah. That's the way it is supposed to be. Nothing unusual there, to me anyway. <shrugs>

But why? 

What do other people see in me that I cannot see?

Some of these people say I am a good man.

I am not. I am trying and frequently failing to be better. Don't they see all the pain, hurt and misery I caused in others and suffered my own self?

I don't get it.

Dreams I'll see

My dreams can head off the deep end and start swimming down. I'm too old to believe I'm unique in this, but some times I do wake up and wonder if anyone else is quite as weird.

People who know me are now saying, "Yeah. Gonna have to find people in an mental ward to find weirder dreams than yours."

I also have dreams about people, places and events. I have situations that recur, regularly, with people and places that made a real impact on me. These dreams reflect what happened and how it shaped me into the person I am today.

Not all of these dreams are welcome.

OUT WEST

Spent a year out west living in Henderson, NV., the second biggest city in the state. It shares a City Limits sign with Vegas. It was my first professional job as a journalist. I'd freelanced for the papers in Troy, AL., and worked on the college newspaper. The Henderson Home News and its sister papers the Boulder City News and Green Valley News were the first papers where I made all my living as a writer.

It was good. I learned a lot. I made from friends. Out there I learned the real power of the media for the first time. That was also the first time someone tried to get me to run for office, namely the Henderson City Council.

I did not know while living out there, but I missed the South. I missed trees. I missed being able to grab my canoe and hit a pond for an evening of fishing. I missed being able to grab a gun and step into the woods to get something for supper. I missed so much more.

I really did not know how much I missed. I got the first idea of it when we (wife) and I crossed into Texas. We stopped at The Big Texan in Amarillo, home of the 72 ounce steak. The waitress took our order. She spoke with a Southern accent. I wanted to hug her. It reminded me of a Tennessee family I saw at The Hush Puppy restaurant in Vegas. I heard their accent and it was hard to not run up and hug them.

I got catfish. Real catfish. Real deep fried catfish. I could almost hear the gas burner under the pot holding the hot grease.

I was so happy to get back to the South.

DREAMS I'LL SEE

For years I dreamed of living out there again. It is much less now. For a long time, I dreamt I was back out west either working for or looking for a job with a newspaper. I'd wake up and be angry. Yes. I know I am the only person who can make me mad. These were (are) my dreams and I do not like them. I got angry because my brain apparently feels I need to go back out there. 

Yes. They are just dreams. I do not get angry any more, but I do not like these dreams. I wish they would stop

No. Just no. For years I swore I'd never go back, never go too far past the Mississippi River. Texas, certainly. Past that? Noooooo.

I have visited the northeast part of New Mexico for a freelance job twice and I will go back more, at least as long as I keep the freelance job. It is wonderful there. Live there full time? Don't think I could do it.

Also been to eastern Washington State to hunt with Jesse. I do not consider that to be out west, event though it is geographically. Don't want to live there full time either, but go back to visit and hunt or fish? Absolutely.

FLORIDA

Got into an argument with an editor at the Georgia paper I worked at after returning from Nevada. He was the editor and I was a reporter. Moved to Florida.

Spent 2.5 years working for John F. Lee at the Apalachicola Times and the Carrabelle Times. Unlike the erstwhile Georgia newspaper editor, I have kept in touch with John. 

John Fred Lee taught me A LOT about how work at a newspaper, how to be a boss (both good and bad) and how to do a lot more. I checked with him before writing this. He was an ass at times. Yes, I have his permission to state these things.

Shari actually told him once, "I wish you had lupus."

I. Was. Floored. She told me she'd never wish that disease on anyone. And yet, in a moment of pique, she did. John Fred Lee could do that to people. He was the most divisive person in Franklin County when he ran the newspaper.

JFL shows up sometimes when the Sandman comes. We talk about me going back to work for him. Except as of this writing, he's not at the paper any more and has not been there for years. Still, impressions.

Yes, I met a lot of people there, people who took me and Shari in, protected us, fed us, helped us and even helped pay some of our bills when she had to quit work because of her lupus and the need for a hip replacement. To all of you, thank you. I wish I could tell you how much it meant.

Anyway, yes I dream about being back on the Gulf of MEXICO coast and working at the paper with JFL. Sometimes the dreams are good, sometimes bad. When I recall people who were there for us, wow. Too many to name, but three must be. The Miller Clan, led by Xuripha and the Pennycuff clan led by Charles. They did so much.

Then Jesse. He came up mean and nasty. Drinkin', Fightin'. Womanizing. He'd go to work, get done and spend money on chasing those three things. 

Then he found a Savior. He lived for his Risen God.

For a while anyway. He's gone to his reward.

He found out he had lung cancer. No insurance. He could not afford the expensive treatments. His only work was what he could get there in Franklin County before development exploded the place. He knew his time here was limited.

And yet, he paid to have a telephone installed in the house where we lived. Shari was fresh off a hip replacement and needed a way to call for help. We couldn't afford a phone at the time and this was well before cell phones were affordable and available in rural Florida.

You find a person friend like that, you have something worth more than Elon Musk's empire.

When Jesse comes around in the middle of my snoring, I'm so glad to see him again.

CANADA

Sometimes home is a place you've never seen before. Think of the song Beulah Land.

I could not live there full time. I am allergic to snow. It makes me break out in urges to move to the Equator. Some days I still think I could manage that. I know I could manage it if my beloved South ceased to be.

Will and Maggie.

I frequently dream of going to Canada. I wake up happy and full of joy that I was in the Great White North and then as I wake more, I realize it was just a dream. It has, a time or two, brought me to crying because I was not truly there.

Here's also a place where my dreams derail from reality. One time, I was dreaming about being there and coming back to the US. We rode a golf cart through the border checkpoint which looked exactly like a flea market. Booths, stalls, tables, people lined up on both sides selling about anything you can imagine and some things that defy imagination.

Customs had a small office just a few yards part, the US on the south side and Canada on the north side.

Bizarre.

Of skewers and hot pokers

 In a continuing effort to poke holes in stuffed shirts and run hot pokers through some eyes, a great friend has lent a hand.

He bought the domain name for the place I live. Being deliberately obfuscatory here because some of this needs to remain confidential until the Great Debut.

This is after an elected board attempted to buy that domain and failed.

Skewer 1.

My friend further bought other domains with different endings for this community. He is fully on board with my plans and is laughing out loud right now.

Skewer 2.

AZGal who is conspirator 3 in this massive eye-poking adventure, is coding the pages. She too is laughing, hard.

Skewer 3.

The pages will support my local business endeavors. Some elected officials have attempted to deliberately sabotage my business endeavors and stop others.

Skewer 4.

The pages will also reflect the above elected board has refused to consider me for post of CEO despite being eminently qualified and having only 1 other applicant *AND* more qualified than some who previously held the post. Would I take the job if offered? Irrelevant.

Skewer 5.

One of the elected board members self-styles as a digital creator. This person now does not have the chance to create the person's grand online vision.

Skewer 6.

Another elected official was alerted to the purchase, but is not privy to the specific details. This person was only told an overseas corporation bought the domains.

Skewer 7.

When this purchase is mentioned, we shall have splodey heads among the elected officials.

Skewer 8.

When the project has its Grand Debut, the splodey heads will be on the level of Fat Boy (some of you will get that) with fallout being far, wide, toxic and noxious.

Skewer 8.

The Short Painful Life of Norah Vincent - Part II

 Norah Vincent is dead.

Who is Norah Vincent? A better question is "Who wasn't Noah Vincent?"

Think John Howard Griffin. Think Ralph Ellison.

Please leave your arguments about gender constructs at the door. How you choose to identify yourself is not my business. I do not want it to be my business. Please do not make it my business.

Argue the idea behind this blog if you like. Cut loose! I like it.

TO READ OR NOT READ

To read or not to read. That is the question. Whether tis more idiotic to remain unread and look down upon those who cannot read, while being exactly same, or read and by reading realize one's own shortcomings and by realizing, end them. Yeah. Shakespeare is gonna have Words for me when I get to the next realm of existence.

Ennyhoo.

I have not read Mr. Griffin's work. I probably should. I did read Mr. Ellison's work at the prompting of a HS English teacher. She said I would really like the book.

I read it. The only reason I read it is because she suggested it. Were it a class assignment or even an individual assignment from her to me, the book would remain forever unread. It's how I roll.

I told her I did not like it. And yet, it has stuck with me. I vividly remember passages. With 40+ years of experience now behind me I can still say I did not like the book. Today, I appreciate the book. Like, well ... maybe. Need? Without question. That book was a shot of verbal nutrients to an embryonic philosophy that continues to grow today.

Mebbe I do like it after all.

LEARN MORE

Until today - 10 March 2025 Gregorian - I had no idea the person Norah Vincent existed. Now I do. Now, I must learn more. Why?

Read this.

https://www.theguardian.com/world/2006/mar/18/gender.bookextracts

Norah's literary work is the experience men have. 

Someone is going to insist this is a hasty generalization, perhaps a bandwagon fallacy or some other kind of flawed logic. G'head.

Norah said the 18-month experience living as a man so transformed her, that her only release was the final option. Sad, sad, sad. It is also reflected the reality of being a male Homo sapiens. Men account for 80% of suicides. Men also commit somewhere around 90% of violent crimes.

Causation is not correlation? Then you explain it. We'll get to a statement on reality in a moment.

What Norah reports in her book is what heterosexual male Homo sapiens in the United States and likely the modern world experiences. Is that experience universal? It is for every heterosexual male Homo sapiens I've come across. It is in the anthropological studies and books I've read.

(Unless you are an anthropologist or sociologist, I'm willing to bet I've read more of the studies than you have.)

If you are that person who says this is so much fertilizer, I'm willing to bet you are not a heterosexual male Homo sapiens.

Remember, reality is under no obligation to conform itself to your expectations. Nor does it have to be warped to my preconceived notions. Arg. Complicated. Lemme simplify.

If the truth hurts, yer living wrong.

Can't make it any clearer than that.

IT'S TOUGH

Norah said that time she lived as a man, it was tough. Ellison wrote the same thing. Griffin wrote the same thing. Quibble semantics if you wish, the base premise is the same; live as someone else to experience what they have to go through. It is fucking HARD.

The difference? Norah died by assisted suicide in Switzerland in 2022. 

It is tough being a man. Women have a hard go of it too, but in today's modern societies - Taliban ruled Afghanistan, Iran and other places ain't modern - they have it easier than men.

You ain't gotta believe me. Norah did not want to believe it. Rather than stand on a belief without empirical evidence, she lived it. Well, she lived it for as long as she could and then she quit living altogether.

Do you have the kind of stamina to prove me wrong? Are you willing to risk the kind of breakdown she had to prove me wrong? Reality is, a lot of men don't have what it takes to live as a man in today's world. Some men are so shredded by it they resort to violence. Norah writes about that too.

Norah was also a lesbian and a feminist.

Ooooo. I just heard the wind go out of a LOT of sails. Truth and pain, truth and pain.

GREAT EXPECTATIONS

Men have to live up to a higher level of expectations than women. We are expected to earn more. We are not supposed to cry or show reactions to pain. So many things are required that are not required of women. 

If a woman defeats us at anything, we are ridiculed. If we defeat a woman, we get, "Ooo. So you beat a woman" with as much sarcasm as can be packed into that small statement. A tie? "What, you ain't man enough?"

A woman defeats a man? "She got lucky." A woman loses to a man. "Yep. That's what happens."

We have to be macho!

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=YZ1glxX1BiQ 

The standards are not the same. As evidenced by suicides, violence and etc, male standards are harder than those for women.

Part II? Is there a Part I. Yes. Ain't ready to share it yet.

What do they see?

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=nOAjAWToYMI

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=OhEHB0a7Uyg

Both of these songs speak of a daddy's hands.

I posted about my own arm enders in a thread in another social media outlet. I wondered if the scars scare or intimidate people who look to close. I have plenty, on both hands.

Some scars came from being in idiot, the left index finger being one. That scar is a reminder of a cut that went to the bone. Wrapped it with a paper towel and electrical tape and went right back to being an idiot.

The oldest one is sort of a scar. Ya gotta look really hard to see it. It's a black dot under the skin. In second grade, I was bouncing a pencil and slammed the point into my hand. The graphite hung around for the 50-something years.

The left hand has 2 sets of scars from surgery. The right hand has one scar, but a second will be joining it before much longer. Carpal tunnel is annoying, but the fix is amazing.

Lots of scars from working on stuff and farming. Cabbage knives don't play. Sure wish I could get a case of 'em like we had back in the 70s and 80s. Dirt cheap, sharpen with a file and they could CUT. I only semi-joke when I say if you went to the Radio Ranch without a weapon, they'd issue you a cabbage knife at the door.

Ahhh. These hands stripped threads off a 1.5-inch bolt; yes, I used a cheater bar. Howard Morton and I stripped the threads off a 2-inch harrow axel bar. "Two monkeys on a 2-foot cheater bar," Howard said as Dad put heat to the bolt with the cutting torch.

Don't know how many nuts, bolts and screws these hands have tried to remove. Got no clue how many carcasses went under a knife in my hands. That meat fed so many families across 3 states.

These hands have removed a bullet, from my own finger. These hands have cut, intentionally and accidentally, other people. Intentional cuts were to remove hooks, warts, bits of metal, etc. I've never cut anyone out of anger.

These hands have punched things, but never in anger into another human. Doors, trees, cars, brick walls are another matter. A door here at the office bears witness to redneck rage. Working on that. These hands have also been the rock someone needed to steady themselves. Working on that, too, to get better at it.

These hands held the most precious things ever presented to them, my kids. I still recall what it felt like to hold Jesse and Susan moments after they were born. For weeks after Jesse was born, I felt the hospital bracelet on my wrist, despite it being discarded when we got home.

These hands dealt with both kids when they'd done something badly wrong. Not from anger, though. When I was done, well, if you are a real parent, you know what I went through. If you are not a real parent, you cannot understand.

These hands have wiped away every liquid substance the human body produces from other people and myself. Cerebrospinal fluid? Yep. Not many of you can say that.

These hands have reached out to lift people up, almost never to hold someone down and never to hold someone down once I became a professional journalist. Someone will argue that point. Well, if the truth hurts, yer living wrong.

These hands have written articles, stories and tales. Some news stories crashed the careers of some very important people. Some stories lifted people up. As best I know, these hands never wrote a story that caused someone to commit suicide. Can't say that about some brothers and sisters in ink.

These hands wrote stories that made people laugh. That's easy. These hands wrote stories that made people cuss - easy enough- and vow revenge on the hands and the rest of the body they are attached too. These hands wrote stories that made people cry, in a good way and a bad way.

I remember looking at my Dad's hands. I marveled at the size of his fingers. "You'll get there one day," he said. I did. I did not comment on his scars. I still marvel at the memory of Dad's hands. As Holly Dunn sings:

Daddy's hands were soft and kind when I was cryin'
Daddy's hands were hard as steel when I'd done wrong
Daddy's hands weren't always gentle but I've come to understand
There was always love in daddy's hands

Gonna just leave that right there.

These hands have plenty of scars, but not all are visible. Some are only visible if you were there to see how these hands managed the moment. Some of those stories created physical scars physical and invisible scars.

Today, I think I can see some of the fingers beginning to warp. I know Arthritis is settling in for a long-term stay. I can see invisible scars, even though I often wish I could not. But, I need to see the invisible-to-others scars because they are reminders of who I used to be and how I am not that person any more.

Today, I wonder what people see when they see these hands of mine. Do they see the scars? Do they even look at my hands? What would they think if they could see all the scars?

Doesn't matter. These are my hands. I am responsible for them.

More scars are on the way. May lessons that create those scars make me a better person. If so, I will proudly wear each and every one, visible and invisible.