Best Things You Were Ever Given

my wife (best friend)

 

When I was pretty small, we would spend a few weeks every summer at my grandparent's dairy farm. My family's preference has always been to live in big cities, so the farm was a magical place for me. This was an old school farm: dairy, beef cattle, chickens, orchards, vineyards, 5 acre garden, crop production, the whole 9 yards. My time spent bottle feeding calves, picking grapes, gathering eggs, and digging in the garden... well those are about the only childhood memories I have worth remembering. I connected to that place, and I am the only one in my family who doesn't think food originates in shrinkwrap or that being self sufficient is worth the work. My uncle was the one who introduced me to all that their lifestyle had, because my mom was terrified I'd get hurt or dirty or something. So I'd have to say my uncle gave me the best thing ever, and that was the opportunity to connect with the lifestyle I was born to have.

 

A old beat up US Army pin round and gold with a eagle in the center and a old wore out MP arm band. My Granddad gave me as a kid he wore them in Germany 707th Military Police unit. I played with them for years I believe it is one of the reason I am what I am now.

Then when I was about 14 all my friends got new dirt bike and was racing, I wanted a yz 125 so bad I could taste it but my dad had got covered up about 6 months earlier and I don't know how many of you guy's know anything about the mines. Their Moto is If you aint digging coal we don't care and you don't get paided. So we was living tight and from month to month as a kid we don't see that. Anyway my dad bought me this old 79 yz 125 with the last few dollars he had. I was happy but it wasn't what I wanted, I wanted a new one, I wanted to race and race with the red and white colors. I never said anything to dad but after all the hours we spent working on it together and him showing me how to fix the carb, gauge the plug and just being with him I wouldn't have had any other bike and would trade my Harley now to have it back today.

Then at about 24 My Chief who passed two years ago gave me a St. Michael pendant for my first year and to show I was no longer a boot. My wife wears it today around her neck. All the other guys had already got theirs and I remember working so hard wanting mine. They wore it as a kind of badge of honor and the night I was given mine made me feel so accomplished like I had done something even more than the academy. This wasn't training it was proving I belonged. He was also one of the guy's who got me into prepping, he was an old Navy black opps. We were on news one time for some traing about hostages and the news lady ask him.( Chief you was in the military and S/F, you have been in combat and know what its like to take a human life. What Do You Feel When You Have To Take A Life Or Use Your Firearm In The Line Of Duty?) Chief looked at her and said hell honey when I pull the trigger I don't feel nothing but recoil!!!! That was funny the lady turned pale and walked off. Some people wasn't to happy with it. He had a remark for them to but I don't want kicked off the site.(lol)


My two girls I would call them angles but that's yet to be determined, they ride the fence on that.

 

I have nothing physical that my parents or grand parents ever gave to me and in fact, have no recollection of ever having gotten anything from them except the one thing that I hold most precious. I do not know how to explain this except to say that when I was younger, I had been saving my money earned with after school jobs to purchase a Gibson les Paul guitar. I had saved over $500.00, giving it to my mother to bank for me and was getting very close to the purchase price of $650.00. My mother had gotten addicted to opiates after some radical back surgery. She eventually took to the forging scripts and spent every dollar she could get her hands on to buy drugs from the street dealers. When my Father found out that we were totally in over our heads, about to loose our home, all of his savings having been squandered, he came to school to pick me up so I could be with him when he talked to my mother, saying that we had to get her help, that she was out of control. All the way home, he matter of factly told me of his total financial ruin and how desperate things were but that, none the less, we had to help my mother. He pulled to the side side of the road and we watched a herd of deer in silence for a moment then he told me that she had spent my money that I had been saving for my guitar and for the only time in my life that I recall, he broke into tears and told me that he didn't have the money to replace it.
That is the most precious gift I was ever given, raising the bar to be a man that could face ruin calmly yet shed tears over a child's toy that would be delayed by circumstance beyond his control; this is the man that I have always aspired to be.
When we arrived home, my mother, unable to face the shame of what she had done, had opened her veins and was bleeding out on the floor. I held compress bandages over her wounds while she fought me until too weak to fight any more, until the ambulance arrived and we rescued her. I learned more that day, about human frailties and emotional over-load, and honor, than I ever suspected existed. The bar is still higher than I will ever reach but the goal is priceless.