American Stars and Bars

A few thoughts on the new law in Arizona which will allow CCW holders to carry their weapons.

First off the law is being portrayed as "allowing gun owners to bring their guns into bars." Could be a little media bias there, because what the law says is that people who have a concealed carry permit would be able to go into bars, and restaurants ( this includes fine dining, etc, anyplace that serves alcohol), and continue to have their weapon with them, of course concealed.



There are a few things again that the press doesn't mention.

First, if the owner of the establishment posts a sign that prohibits weapons, it also applies to those who carry concealed.

Second, To get a concealed carry permit you go through training, firearm handling, the law and how it applies. It is also subject to a background check by Arizona DPS. Generally speaking people who have concealed carry permits are law abiding citizens who are choosing to take advantage of the Second Amendment (and remember, it is because of the Second Amendment that we have a First Amendment).

Third, 41 states already permit people who have concealed carry permits to bring weapons into bars and establishments that serve alcohol.....there hasn't been a deluge of crazed, drunk shootings across the country yet by law abiding citizens.

Fourth. The police usually arrive to collect evidence, not to stop a crime in progress.

Elephant Jokes and a Quick Note

Q: How can you tell if an elephant has been in your refrigerator?

A: You can see his footprints in the cheese cake.

Q: What did Tarzan say when he saw the elephants coming?
A: Here come the elephants.

Q: What did Jane say?
A: Here come the plums, she was color blind.

One of the first books I remember buying from the Scholastic Book Mobile in 7th grade was …..you got it, 101 Elephant Jokes. I wish I still had it, but don’t fear, as time goes by I’ll dredge more of them out of my memory. Shoot some my way if you have them!

Quick Note for the Day.
This is for Classic Rock Program Directors. Songs that sucked in the ‘70’s and ‘80’s still suck today..just because they are old doesn’t make them classic rock. Examples: Elton John and Kiki Dee doing Don’t go Breaking My Heart, Manfred Mann’s version of Blinded by the Light…the original from Springsteen rocks, Manfred Mann’s blows, anything by Styx. To be honest the last great rock album done was Darkness on the Edge of Town, by Springsteen in 1978, rock pretty much went down the tubes after that.

Decompression Time

Time for some R&R. School, work, church, life..it all adds up, and it was time to break away for a couple of days. Last week a friend and I headed up to Lockett Meadow, outside of Flagstaff for some camping, hiking and stargazing.


Being a desert rat travelling to the high country always brings a bit of trepidation with it. There are two things that have been drilled into my head from years of living in the desert. Will I be warm enough and will I have enough water. Not everyone in the world gets cold when it drops below 80 degrees, that seems to be a trait reserved for desert dwellers. So when I checked out the weather and found that that there was going to be a freeze warning in Flagstaff the night we were headed up I did a quick mental check list. Question one, am I out of my mind? Possibly. But, a couple of years ago my wife gave me a wonderful down sleeping bag for my birthday.



As an aside this leads to one of my all time favorite jokes.



Q. How do you get down from and elephant?

A. You don’t get down from an elephant, you get down from a duck!!!



Question two, is twelve gallons of water for two people, for one night really enough? Like I said, water is a great commodity to us here. (It was enough, even to completely drown the fire with).

Camping is one of my great loves. My parents started us out camping when we were kids, and I’ve been doing it ever since. I know a lot of people can’t relate to being outside like that, but I get a great satisfaction out of it. I hate to pack up and leave when it’s time to head back. I’m very fortunate that my wife enjoys camping as much as I do, and so does Hobie. She (Hobie) doesn’t care for the fire and being outside at night though. Her idea of a pleasant evening while camping is curled up on the bed in our pop up.

This trip Bruce and I tent camped. We did a great hike up into the inner basin, about 4 miles round trip, ending up at about 9,800 feet. Dinner that night was cooked over the open flames of a campfire, and that just about rounded out our day. We wandered into the meadow to see the stars. And there were stars, and planets, we could even see the swath that the Milky Way cuts across the sky. It’s sad to say that it is a strange sight to see that now. When we first moved to Phoenix you could see stars, and the Milky Way like that. No longer though.



A great trip, with a good friend, and back to life with gusto!

The Farm

My dad, got back from the farm last night, a very long awaited trip for him. The farm is in Middleville, Michigan, a small town in south western Michigan, population 2,721. Dad, who is going to be 88 this year, has been going to Middleville since he was a kid. We went there for weekends and vacations when we were kids.


Uncle Andy and Aunt Jerry, my Godparents, were the ones that we stayed with there. Going to the farm was always a treat, and one of my favorite things that we did. We lived in a two flat in the south side of Chicago, so going to the farm was both literally and realistically another world. Our backyard was probably about 30’ x 30’. Uncle Andy’s farm was about 350 acres.

We rode in the back of the pickup truck, played in the hay in the barn, watched as Uncle Andy milked cows, helped (at least we though we were helping) dump grain for the cows, named the wild cats, played in the shed, ran through corn rows, helped bale hay, shoveled corn into silos, picked ripe tomatoes and fresh sweet corn for dinner, visited other cousins, went to the lake, had fresh ice cream made at Uncle Sam’s dairy (Uncle Andy’s brother), had bonfires in the fall, played in the winter snow, took walks through the fields in the evening, where we would see deer, rabbits and pheasant.

Uncle Andy and Dad taught me to shoot and hunt on the farm, and it was where I first got behind the wheel of a vehicle, learning to drive his pickup in the fields. My dad let both my sister and I begin to drive on the back roads long before we were of age, but it was a start for us.

Sometimes my folks would rent a cottage at Barlow Lake for vacation, and we’d spend a week there. Barlow Lake was probably about 10 miles or so from Uncle Andy’s. This still counted as being at the farm, because it was so close! We learned how to swim there, how to fish, how to row a boat. Uncle Andy took some old cow bones and dumped them in the lake. Then he took us over there in a boat, and told us that they were Old Man Barlow’s bones….

Uncle Andy died in 1998, of Alzheimer’s. I didn’t see him the last years of his life, when he was in a home. The last time I saw him was when I was leaving Michigan after a short visit, to fly back home to Phoenix. He and Aunt Jerry made it to the airport just before the plane was going to leave. My folks didn’t think they would make it, but I knew differently.

I knew he was going to be there, and he’s still in my heart, and memory, and so is the Farm.

I’m into the blog for about a month now. Looking back I see that some of my ramblings are quite long, so I’m opting for some short thoughts at the moment:


It’s 2009, debit cards have been around for …conservatively 20 years now? How do I still manage to get behind someone in the checkout line that has no idea in the world what a debit card is, and how to use it?

I see Michael Moore has a new movie….why doesn’t he just go away, like Air America and Nova M radio did…( the HUGELY successful liberal talk radio networks) . And he thinks that the free enterprise system doesn’t work.

Here’s something really cool to listen too, Google the Bob Davis Podcast and tune in to some of them…

If you live in the Phoenix area, The Dignity Memorial Vietnam Wall will be at Phoenix Memorial Park, 200 W. Beardsley Rd. Phoenix, AZ. 85027 Thursday Sept. 17th through Sunday, Sept. 20th.



A Time to Remember, to Reflect, to Heal



That’s all folks…leave comments and tell your friends.

Back to the Fun

It was a great morning, so I took the bike out for a ride. It’s hand built and made in America, not many of those around. And guess what, it ain’t a Harley! Gotcha didn’t I. It’s a Cannondale, which alas, has moved production to Taiwan, another American Beauty leaving us. It makes it all that much sweeter to ride.


My wife and I are going to ride in the El Tour de Tucson this year, we registered today for the 66 mile event. With the ride date being just two months off I realized that it is time to get on the bike and go.

Bike riding has always been a blast for me. I remember the first one, with training wheels. Once they came off dad would give me a push down the sidewalk and away I’d go, for a few feet. But the distance got longer, and the wobbling got less. Soon I was riding.

When we moved from Chicago out to the suburbs it was time for a new bike. I was bigger and older (5th grade), and the distances were greater. That one was a red bike from Sears, just a plain old cruiser, but we put Ape Hangers on it. This was the bike that I used to ride down Nike Hill. Nike Hill was in the prairie behind us. One side you’d push your bike up, and the other side was a drop off. You guessed it, the thrill was to try and ride all the way down the drop off. I don’t know if any of us ever made it down the drop all the way to the bottom, but we had a blast trying. Nike Hill was one of the main reasons we learned to work on our bikes.

Then there was the blue Schwinn Stingray. Five speed, banana seat, gear shifter on the frame, hand brakes, this one was a ripper, and I swear I put thousands of miles on it. We made parachutes for them, a cigar box strapped to the back of the seat, large plastic garbage bag inside rigged up with lines. You’d pull the lid of the box open and the bag would shoot out, well, all out, and inflate. It didn’t stop or even slow us down, but we felt like we were driving dragsters down US 30, with Big Daddy Don Garlitz….BRING YOUR CAMERAS!

It could be a dirt bike too. There was a park close by, The Isaac Walton League Park. It was great, lakes, trails and woods, all in Homewood Illinois. We’d grab some sandwiches, ride the trails, fish for bluegill, and it was all thanks to our trusty machines. Sometimes we were the Rat Patrol, sometimes Tom Sawyer.

Bikes took me all over the place, both in my imagination and on the streets and trails. I forgot that and it became work for a few years. It was still fun, but it became more about the miles, time, endurance, equipment. I’ve done a century, and am glad, and I’m excited about doing a big ride again. But this morning I was a kid on a bike. It’s gotta stay fun.

Some Photo's for fun

Remember the Sabbath

Midnight, Wednesday September 2, 2009, and there is a Stephen King movie on. But it’s not the bewitching hour. Far from it as a matter of fact, although at one time I might have believed that it was.

I was getting ready to go to sleep a couple of nights ago, reading the Bible. I was in the book of Mark, and the passage I was in was Mark 2: 23-28. This is where Jesus and his disciples were passing through a grain field, some of them picking heads of grain, angering the Pharisees. They accused Jesus and his disciples of acting unlawfully on the Sabbath. Jesus replied to them, “The Sabbath was made for man, and not man for the Sabbath.” (Mark 23:27).

This led me to Genesis, and a specific verse. Genesis 2: 2, “By the seventh day God completed his work which he had done, and he rested on the seventh day from all his work he had done.”

A day of rest is nearly an unheard of concept in these so called modern times. Home phones, cell phones, work phones, Blackberry’s, I Phones, who knows how many cable news channels 24 hours a day, the internet, radios, Ipods, pod casts that can be downloaded, email, Twitter, Face book, blogs. Need I go on? And I’m part of it, almost impossible to disconnect. Heck, it’s nearly 12:30 am now and here I am writing this. That’s after getting up a 4:00am yesterday, putting in a full day of work, then a four-hour accounting class in the evening.

An acquaintance of mine who is a minister was in the restaurant today, and on his way out we briefly caught up on his summer. As our conversation ended, for some reason he bought up the concept of the day of Sabbath. His view is that God worked for six days, and rested on the seventh, enjoying the fruits of his labor.

My schedule doesn’t allow me to be off on weekends. My weekend is Wednesday and Thursday. But that doesn’t mean that I can’t have a Sabbath day. I can barely imagine, a day to rest, a day to be quiet, and a day to thank God for the blessings in my life.

I can read, write, play with Hobie, take a nap, visit a friend, play the guitar, write a song, spend time with my wife, and cook a wonderful meal for us. Any of the above, one of the above, maybe none of the above, I don’t know yet. But I’m going to enjoy a Sabbath day weekly. Can you? The real question is, can you, or I, afford not to? Not this kid.