On television. On video games. Violence without consequences. It’s mind-numbing. Killing is more real than that. My mind wanders back to a moment. In Viet-Nam I never had to put a person in my sights and pull the trigger. That was not my primary job. My primary job was to provide ammunition to the people whose primary job it was. It was my secondary job; pulling the trigger. Was I well programmed enough to do that? Could I hold the bead on another person while I pulled the trigger, knowing the consequences; extinguishing the life of another human being? I never had to find out. Might I have lifted off him ever so slightly as I pulled the trigger, trusting that I would just miss? It would be excusable to just miss. It would be hard to tell if a person just missed, or just missed on purpose. It never occurred to me at the time, but it occurs to me now. There was a moment though, when another person might have faced that same decision. Our entire unit was under fire. I was in an exposed position. So was Mosley. We found what cover we could and scanned for targets. All we got was jungle a hundred yards away. Our own men were between us and the jungle. We held our fire. I heard the bullets snap through the branches over my head, but no leaves or branches fell on me. I looked up to see no foliage above me. I was hearing the sound of bullets snapping through the air as they went past my head. I don’t think either of us ever got full cover. How could the bullets come that close without actually hitting us? Only now has it occurred to me to wonder. Was there another man out there with a fellow human being in his sights? Did he try to hold that bead steady and just miss, or was it just too real? Did he shift his aim slightly as he pulled the trigger so that he would barely miss, just close enough that no-one could tell if he missed on purpose or not?
Here’s a deer
…you don’t often see.
Axis deer. Wandering around the edge of town.
Mule deer and white-tailed deer have spots when they’re fawns.
Axis deer always have spots.
Axis deer. Wandering around the edge of town. Mule deer and white-tailed deer have spots when they’re fawns. Axis deer always have spots. Heavy traffic
Judy and the MRI machine
Never a good combination. We drove to Corpus this morning for an appointment with Judy’s orthopedic surgeon. He fixed her right shoulder a couple years back and it’s still working just fine. Now it may be time for him to do some work on her left one. He couldn’t tell for sure from the X-rays at the appointment, so he got her scheduled into an MRI the very same day. An MRI for my claustrophobe wife. Time for lunch, pick up some drugs from the pharmacy, and drive to the Imaging Center on the other side of town. It’s an “open” MRI, so how bad could it be? 10 mg of Diazepam, an hour or so in the waiting room, and Judy’s getting pretty loaded. When we got into the imaging room and Judy saw the “open” MRI machine, the stakes got higher. Now, not only is it Judy versus the MRI, it’s Adrenaline versus Diazepam. Diazepam was overmatched. Some careful preparation, minimal straps and restrictions, a little deep breathing, and in she went. They only needed her in the machine for 14 minutes. Judy wasn’t nearly stoned enough for that, but somehow she made it through. We were all exhausted, but she emerged victorious. MRI complete and the machine escaped unscathed. An uneventful drive home. I expected more snoozing from one of us, but the sedative had been totally neutralized. Judy was even still awake enough to get some food out of the fridge for us for dinner. What a woman! Next week we’ll find out what comes next for the shoulder.
Last weekend
We went on a birding quest. South Padre Island. There is an owl there that is not supposed to be there. A tiny little Flammulated Owl. Presumably he goes out to hunt each night, but every morning he is in the same group of trees next to the Convention Center. He parks himself way deep in the foliage, looks exactly like tree bark, and holds perfectly still sleeping all day. When we arrived, there was a group of people gathered around the spot, all starting intently through their binoculars, but none of them actually seeing the bird. We joined the group and scanned the scrub. After 20 minutes, someone found him and put a scope on him. We never did see him through the binoculars, but I got to look through the scope and get a full view of his face. Life bird! I couldn’t get a picture of him. Here is one I lifted off the internet of a sleeping bird.
Ours wasn’t nearly this exposed. Then we headed for the other end of the island. There has been a Black-legged Kittiwake flying around with the Forster’s Terns at the jetty. When we got there, the only Forster’s Terns we could see were flying all the way out at the far end. This is different. There is not group of people with binoculars standing around pointing. We’re the only ones there with binoculars. We put on our jetty shoes and started out. It takes a lot of concentration for people our age to walk on the jetty. No carefree boulder hopping for us; we’re watching our step! So out we go, watching our step, stopping periodically to see if we’re close enough to the feeding terns to pick out a kittiwake yet. Not yet. Keep going. Almost all the way to the end of the jetty, terns still in the distance, I look down at three laughing gulls. Make that two laughing gulls and a black-legged kittiwake standing on the jetty!
A nice pirate ship in the sunset on our way home.
Ours wasn’t nearly this exposed. Then we headed for the other end of the island. There has been a Black-legged Kittiwake flying around with the Forster’s Terns at the jetty. When we got there, the only Forster’s Terns we could see were flying all the way out at the far end. This is different. There is not group of people with binoculars standing around pointing. We’re the only ones there with binoculars. We put on our jetty shoes and started out. It takes a lot of concentration for people our age to walk on the jetty. No carefree boulder hopping for us; we’re watching our step! So out we go, watching our step, stopping periodically to see if we’re close enough to the feeding terns to pick out a kittiwake yet. Not yet. Keep going. Almost all the way to the end of the jetty, terns still in the distance, I look down at three laughing gulls. Make that two laughing gulls and a black-legged kittiwake standing on the jetty! A nice pirate ship in the sunset on our way home.