{"id":10017,"date":"2012-05-24T11:44:08","date_gmt":"2012-05-24T18:44:08","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/pwoodford.net\/blog\/?p=10017"},"modified":"2012-05-25T10:21:50","modified_gmt":"2012-05-25T17:21:50","slug":"thursday-radio-bag","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/pwoodford.net\/blog\/?p=10017","title":{"rendered":"Thursday Radio Bag"},"content":{"rendered":"

\"\"I grew up with radio, not so much with TV. \u00a0I don’t think mom and dad got their first set until I was seven; one year later we went to Germany and left it behind. \u00a0For the next three years all we had was American military radio, which broadcast old serials and sitcoms from the 1940s, or Deutsche Rundfunk, which broadcast classical music. \u00a0Most baby boomers my age grew up with Howdy Doody and I Love Lucy; I grew up with Fibber McGee and Molly, Amos and Andy, Our Miss Brooks, Inner Sanctum — and Beethoven (Wagner was still verboten<\/em>).<\/p>\n

It should come as no surprise, then, that I keep radios around the house and listen to them. \u00a0In the garage, on the patio, next to the shower. \u00a0And until a few years ago in our home office, where I listened as I worked at the PC. \u00a0Then I started to blog. \u00a0Now, though I still listen to the radio when I’m working in the garage or out back, I keep it turned off when I’m blogging. \u00a0The comforting background murmur of NPR? \u00a0When you’re trying to write, it’s distracting.<\/p>\n

Why am I telling you this? \u00a0Because Donna mentioned moving the office radio to her desk this morning. \u00a0Which means she intends to listen to it. \u00a0While I’m at the next desk over, trying to write. \u00a0How am I going to explain this to her? \u00a0Ah, maybe she’ll read this blog post.<\/p>\n

——————–<\/p>\n

Around 6:00 PM Tuesday, 30 minutes after Donna and Polly clocked out and drove home from the gun shop where they work, a 26-year-old man walked in, drew a pistol, and shot himself in the chest. \u00a0The bullet missed his heart but severed his spine, and they say he was probably dead before he hit the floor. \u00a0The gun store specializes in police supplies and I believe some cops were there when it happened; whether they were already there or got there immediately afterward, customers and staff were not allowed to leave the crime scene until 10:30 PM. \u00a0Wednesday, Polly watched the store surveillance tapes with the other employees. \u00a0She said the guy had been in earlier that day and had purchased a pistol — the same one he shot himself with later.<\/p>\n

Around the beginning of the year Polly and I went to Tucson’s Marksman indoor firing range to do some target shooting. \u00a0We spent an hour there, fired a hundred rounds from my two pistols, and had a great time. \u00a0What’s so interesting about this suicide, at least to me, is what Polly learned from her co-workers yesterday — that people go to these indoor ranges to kill themselves all the time. \u00a0Someone said that the range Polly and I visited in January has had two suicides so far this year. \u00a0Someone at the store actually said, according to Polly, “I wish the son of a bitch had gone to Marksman to off himself.” \u00a0I’m so glad Polly and Donna weren’t there when it happened.<\/p>\n

Silly me, I thought there was a waiting period on gun purchases. \u00a0I guess that’s one more restriction the Kenyan Muslim Usurper has gotten rid of as part of his secret United Nations Agenda 21 plot to disarm Americans.<\/p>\n

——————–<\/p>\n

Dreamed I was in back in uniform and enrolled in some sort of war college. \u00a0The place was spread out on an old Army post — dorms here, classrooms there, parade fields, wooded areas. \u00a0In the dream I went to classes like everyone else, but with a vague sense of disorientation and anxiety, as if I really wasn’t supposed to be there. \u00a0It was the day before graduation and I was running around campus, turning in textbooks and manuals, settling dorm fees, getting travel orders, packing to leave. \u00a0Suddenly I realized I hadn’t written the 500-page dissertation on NATO we all had to turn it. \u00a0I’d forgotten all about it, hadn’t written a single word, had no idea what to say. \u00a0Now I knew why my classmates didn’t go into town with me at night — while I was at the movies they were typing their papers.<\/p>\n

It was my old college dream — probably yours too — the one where on the last day of the semester you remember an important class you signed up for but never attended, and you rush in and grab a seat in the back of the room and they’re all conversing in a language you’ve never heard and you wake up in a heart-pounding panic. \u00a0Only updated.<\/p>\n

I’ve had this same war college dream before, maybe three or four times now in the last few years. \u00a0I have no idea what I’m anxious about. \u00a0I hope I haven’t forgotten some vital life task! \u00a0The dream is clearly trying to tell me something.<\/p>\n

——————–<\/p>\n

Donna and I are driving to California next week. \u00a0I took the car into the shop today to make sure it’s in shape for the trip: battery, air conditioning, etc. \u00a0With the price of gas — especially California gas — we’ll spend more driving than flying, but we can strap our bicycles to the back, take as much luggage as we want, keep our shoes on, and bring back boxes of wine. \u00a0It’s worth it, and in any case we’ve always enjoyed long drives together. \u00a0Shit, you can’t even count on sitting together on the airplane any more unless you’re willing to pay extra for a window or aisle seat<\/a> — they’re charging extra now for every seat other than the middle ones. \u00a0If I get my way, I’ll never fly again. \u00a0I bet a lot of former frequent fliers are boycotting airline travel — I certainly can’t be the only one.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

I grew up with radio, not so much with TV. \u00a0I don’t think mom and dad got their first set until I was seven; one year later we went to Germany and left it behind. \u00a0For the next three years all we had was American military radio, which broadcast old serials and sitcoms from the […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[555,2],"tags":[803,802,801,804],"class_list":["post-10017","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-local-color","category-personal","tag-dreams","tag-guns","tag-radio","tag-road-trips"],"jetpack_featured_media_url":"","_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/pwoodford.net\/blog\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/10017","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/pwoodford.net\/blog\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/pwoodford.net\/blog\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/pwoodford.net\/blog\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/pwoodford.net\/blog\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=10017"}],"version-history":[{"count":26,"href":"https:\/\/pwoodford.net\/blog\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/10017\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":10043,"href":"https:\/\/pwoodford.net\/blog\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/10017\/revisions\/10043"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/pwoodford.net\/blog\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=10017"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/pwoodford.net\/blog\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=10017"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/pwoodford.net\/blog\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=10017"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}