Granny shoots

Just to let you know, I’m a history geek. Ancient, modern, or period: I am so there. One of my passions is genealogy, because it is family and history. Not to mention scrutinizing hundreds of archive documents in print and microfiche to verify a single fact. I have tracked down many of my ancestors, yet have a few that are still tantalizingly out of reach. But this is not a mere listing of births, marriages, offspring and deaths. There are stories in those lives that begging to be brought to life again.

When I was young, the different family members told me stories about growing up, their parents, etc. Great stories, but not any better or different than what I could read in books. Some of them seemed to be just tall tales for my amusement. After all, who could imagine that my 70 year old grandmother (who weighed 100 pounds fully dressed in winter clothes) would have ever carried, much less shot a .45 pistol?

Later I learned that she was born in 1902, in a town that is now at the bottom of Lewisville Lake, Texas and later moved to Sadler, Texas. As a family of farmers living in a sod house close to the Indian Territory, they had a need to protect themselves from “outlaws and renegade Indians”. The part that ran chills down my spine was when I was visiting my aunt and she showed me the actual pistol, which my grandmother had gotten from her father.

My grandmother led a long and fascinating life. I miss sitting and chatting with her, drinking tea during the day and sipping elderberry wine after the kids went to bed. There are many more interesting stories about her and my other family members, but I’ll save them for another day.

Speaking of interesting old ladies, I got a tip to check out a blog by two old friends. I enjoy reading it because they shoot from the hip like my grandmother did. Check it out at:

http://margaretandhelen.wordpress.com/

Don’t tell them I sent you- Grandma never liked a snitch.

Water

Over the past month or so, I have learned of several friends’ experiences in the water. I now know that Rusty is diligently working at prevailing over her fear of water and learning to swim. Brenda is also taking lessons. Diving at Possum Kingdom Lake gave Westie one hell of a headache, and Lucy was small but fearless when she was young. Minnie and others visited various places where rivers, lakes, and oceans were focal points.

My home is located in a water rich location. Lake Norfork and the Norfork River are a short distance to the east, and Bull Shoals Lake and the White River to the northwest. The Buffalo National River is less than an hour away. The area has been listed in outdoor magazines as among the best outdoor living and fishing in the nation. Forbes just put us on their list of top ten best trout fishing in North America. We boat, float, fish and swim almost all year. When time allows, I enjoy going down to drown some worms, going out on the boat, or taking the kids and their friends to jump off the bluffs. I have actually taken my kids swimming several times in November.

In the summer of 2006, I had a unique opportunity to go out on Lake Norfork. Our fire department was paged out for a boat fire, so I joined several of the guys down at the marina to take care of it. The boat that was on fire was about 100 yards from shore. Two other firefighters and myself had to stand in a boat in full turnout gear to be ferried out to the fire, grab it with pike poles and drag it to where our hoses could reach the flames. There were a few things wrong with this scenario. First, turnouts weigh about 40 pounds- four adults plus an additional 120 pounds standing in a small fiberglass boat. Second, we grabbed short pikes; they are only 8 foot long, which put the flaming floater much closer to our ride than we liked. Most importantly, from my viewpoint, there was no life jacket within my reach. Unfortunately, like Rusty, I do not swim. I am not really afraid of the water, but I have never had any desire to learn how to swim. I still don’t. So why I hauled my ass into a boat without a life jacket is beyond me. We managed to get the boat within a few feet of shore, doused the flames, and then dragged what was left of it onto the shore. This was accomplished with typical firefighter bravado and dumb luck.

Since then, I have taken classes in water rescue and learned that structure fire turnouts should never be worn on or near water as they will soak up to triple their weight. If somebody was on the boat, our job should be to get them out; otherwise, we should just sit back and watch it burn.

The Beast Lives

Back in spring of 1998, I was driving home from work when I spotted this ugly old truck parked by the road with a cardboard sign saying $350. So I picked up my brother in law and went back to look at it. Any woman who lives in a rural area knows to take a guy to shop for these kind of things, because many of the "good-ol' boys" still don't believe in talking to gals unless it's for sinful purposes. We looked it over, started it up (with a screwdriver) and took it for a short test drive, while the owner was listening to an old fart who was haggling about the price. We waited until the old fart ran out of wind, and when the seller asked us if we had any questions, I smiled and asked if he had change for a hundred. The old fart stormed off and a few minutes later I was driving the beast home.
The beast was used daily until about the middle of 2000; my mother proclaimed the beast unworthy as a family vehicle and purchased a '92 F150 Supercab 4x4 for me. The beast was sent to my sister's farm to haul wood and turn to rust.
A few months ago, my brother in law was looking at a car that a friend had given me and offered to buy it for the motor. I told him that if he brought my beast back, he could have the car. A week later, the beast was unloaded in my yard.
The poor thing had 3 flat tires, no exhaust system, and the bed was rusted away, but I put fresh gas and a battery in it and it fired right up. My son and I worked on it; we removed the bed and replaced it with a flatbed. Rewired the tail lights. He welded a receiver hitch on the back, and we reworked the exhaust (in true redneck fashion) into dual straight stacks. Then we finished the exterior with a little touch up paint and a toolbox bolted to the bed for storage. We originally were trying to create "the ugliest truck in the county" but we actually found one that would outdo this one. One thing is certain: this is a true butch ride.
It still needs some work on the interior, but it is insured, tagged and roaring down the road.

Stripping for the Summer

A few weeks ago, I mentioned on Facebook that I was spending the summer as a stripper, which got a few people excited. I wish I could live up to those expectations, but I can't. You might catch me in a strip club (if there was one in 100 miles) but it certainly wouldn't be on the stage. Folks would pay to keep me OFF the stage. Seriously. Unless it's to get a lot of laughs.
I have never been the cute petite type. Ever. When I was born, I weighed over 9 pounds, and stayed on the stout side ever since. In high school, I was described as being built like a brick shit house. That holds true today. I will confess that I am 1.75m. tall and weigh roughly 100kg. Not the type of gal you want to see shaking booty in public.

No, the stripping I am doing is on the floors of the middle school. My team is scheduled to strip and wax around 50,000 square foot of flooring before August 1st. It is not an easy job. It involves commercial equipment that will kick your ass and smelly chemicals. At the same time that we're working, the HVAC people are doing gas tests and annual maintenance on their equipment so we have no air conditioning. So I drink a lot of fluids. Every 2 hours while working, I drink two 20 ounce bottles of water and a quart of Gatorade. When on break or lunch I'll have an iced tea or a soda, and after work I drink whatever I feel like. In an average summer day, I will drink over 3 gallons of water and other drinks. That might seem like a lot, but with all the factors figured in, it is adequate. Last year I was drinking about a gallon a day, yet I found out what happens when a person doesn't drink enough; it was quite unpleasant and involved my only non childbirth overnight hospital stay. Not anything I want to do again.

The process is simple enough. Mix the stripper chemical on a 4:1 ratio in a bucket with water, then use an old mop to slop it on the floor. Sit around for 10-15 minutes drinking water while the chemical turns to a slicker than snot slime, then run the ass kicking scrubber through the slime until it makes a big foamy mess, making sure not to step on the slime. If you step on the slime, you WILL fall and bust your ass (and possibly other parts as well) and spend the rest of your day filling out worker's comp forms. Once you have all the slime converted to foam, we use the commercial vacuum cleaner to suck it up. After all the foam is gone, then the floor is mopped with plain water three times. Why three times? Because that's what the head supervisor says. When the floor is clean and dry, we run the ass kicking scrubber with a dry pad over the area to pick up anything we might have missed and smooth the surface. We then run a dust mop to clean the dust and it is ready for sealing. sealer and wax is applied with a mop. Two coats of sealer, followed by two coats of wax, with about two hours of drying time between layers. 12 hours after the final coat, we run the ass kicking buffer with a burnishing pad over everything to bring out that beautiful shine that will be ruined by the end of the first week of school.