On a clear day you can see amarillo

I am 61 and i am not sure how i got to this place i reside in now, and i dont mean the geological location either.Yesterday i was 25, no wrinkes or crowsfeet around the eyes, a life time ahead of me,drag racing on weekends, running the drag at night, terrorizing the girls, and having a blast, gas for my new elcamino was .44 cents a gallon, didnt know if i could afford to run it or not, would have to make some adjust ments to budget, truck payment was 85.00 a month rent was 120.00, eating was no problem, you ate when you thought of it, you could judge the strength of a muscle car when he pulled under the drive-inns awing, if he rattled the awning, he may be a contender, if not, usually a wanna be,when we get to bench racing, and start talking about the good old days, i lived them, life was good, fast cars, all the gas you could burn , because you could afford it,We used to punch off the traffic lights with the police cars, they not old did it, they demanded it, and i was always eager to oblige
The Elcamino had posi-trac and would run straight in first , second and third, as long as you were willing to stand on it, and i did my share of standing on it.I kinda cheated right after i bought that car, took it back to Dad, he slipped a 390 horse cam with isky anti pump up lifters in it, and that engine would run over the redline any time you wanted.
Only two other friends knew why it ran so hard, we had lots of fun with that car,ran a local boy with a hurst 442 blue printed and balanced right out of the shop, for pinks, I can still hear him hollering shift, shift, thru his open window, I knew his dad, he worked with us, and i knew what was being done to the car and by whom, i didn't take his car after we ran, cause his dad would have took both of us out, but he never wanted any more SS396 Elcamino's any more.
and it wasnt that i didnt get beat, a local boy was quietly working on his 50's model 4 door ford, going about his business building a giant killer, I ran him twice, he broke me from sucking eggs,He beat me the first time, shamed me the second but it was great, and i wouldn't have missed a second of it.I would go thru the list of classics i owned, but it causes my oldest son so much trama, i tend to shy away from doing that, lets say, i would be more than independently wealthy had i kept what i had over the years.
But as always , all good things come to an end, i met my other half, we started a family and the rest is pretty much history, just a few memories from 25 to 61.
I am a button pusher in a plant, you want some black soot made in your plant, i am your guy, have worked shift work for going on a life time, 25 years this summer. They called it R&D , I called it a very long party.It was a family owned concern, and as such it was very informal and very personal.
That changed over time as the powers that be changed, i had a good time,fun place to work for a very long time, till the bean counters got to comeing around, It is still fun, the people there make it that way, not like it was, but you can still see it, if you look hard enough
I was lucky growing up,My heroes were Gary Cooper, Roy Rogers, Lash Larue, Hoot Gibson, Gabby Hayes, Gene Autry and Audy Murphy John Wayne to name a few, and as i got smarter and older not necessarily more mature, My Dad and My Brother's were added to that list as well
My Dad was one of three men that i personally know that could diagnose a car problem over the phone.But that was the day when we still had mechanics, oh the guys that work on them now are technecians, and very smart, i wont take any thing away from them, they work hard at what they do, the ones that really work at it.
That was the time before onboard any thing let alone computers were installed in cars, My new pickup is smarter than me, and I won't let it imtimidate me, and my new motorcycle is also, no telling how many computers it has on it.I kept my old one too, and 85 1200 , paid for, no need to give it away so it is i n the shed too, insured and paid for, covered up in the corner, we will ride again,
I am home convelesing from surgery, two hernia and one for prostate cancer, if my dr knew i was riding in wheeler tx last monday, he would have strung me up, had threatned me before the surgery anway, that i could not throw a leg over it, till he said so, i do how ever start it to keep the battery up
The days have been so pretty here, and when my brother called saturday, and said he would be in Wheeler Tx on monday, i got a little curious, This is a good place , nice community and nice folks, but not a place he would frequent, i just sat back and decided to wait for things to unfold.
I later recieved an email from him advising me of what the trip was about, and i am profoundly glad he let me in on it.
Seems that a young soldier had been killed in action in iraq, and his funeral was last Monday morning.The young man was a brilliant student and just a very good man at heart, Was an Eagle Scout, and I have a special place in my heart for those young men that will work that hard to accomplish an honor of that magnitude, Being an Eagle stays with you for Life, and this young man lived what he believed, He gave his life for what he believed in.

There is a group and i dont intend to give them much space, but a bunch of crazies that want to disrespect the sacrifice of our fallen, makes no difference to them if it is Law enforcement or Military or Fire Fighters.Not only will the descerate the memory of these people, they go out of their way to extend the anguish of the family involved with that sacrifice.
I was a reserve office for 5 years, I know what these men and women go thru every day, was never in the military, but only an idiot would not understand they are in harm's way every second they are in a hostile war zone in any country.Did they ask to go there,NO i can assure you they did not, they went willingly, so that what had to be done is getting done, and not on our shores, Ol Osama has allready shone us he will reach out and touch us and he wants to bring that business here, has several times allready and will continue to try with his cohorts as long as any of them breath.
Out of this , i joined a group called Patriot Guard and believe me I am not much of a joiner, i have been in the radio clubs and car clubs, and what ever, which most failed, because their cause was never clear, and most had way to many chiefs and not enough indians.
I will tell you , i came away from Wheeler with joy in my heart, Yes they lost a very bright , wonderul young man, that had a bright future ahead of him.I have never been any where and been treated any better with a group than the kindness and courtesy that was shown our group in Wheeler Tx.
The Patriot Guard will not go to a service unless they are specifically requested to attend by the family Period
I am not a spokesman for our group, they have really intelligent folks that do that
All i can tell you about is what i experienced, and what i felt and what i saw, and to say the least, i was very impressed.
Police officers and troopers came from allover the Panhandle, they were kind and courteous to all that i saw them deal with, they stood and visited with our group, and we had a very diverse looking group on monday, I rode in next to a new truimph, with a group from oklahoma, the chaplin from a cma group stood next to me at the cemetery, emotions ran high for all of us, the officers treated every one fairly and evenly, we staged at ten behind the court house and recieved our instructions . The Ride Captain was working very closely with the Sheriff's department, they made a place for our bikes and watched them for us through out the time we were in Wheeler, after we rode in formation to the funeral, we did what we could to keep the demonstrators from imposing there vile contempt and hatred on the solider's family, The sheriff's department gave the protestors a permit which expired at 11:00 am.
DPS officers and sheriff's officers and police officers moved in at 10:55 had them put up their signs , they loaded and left
We did run some bikes to keep them from getting their message out, i liked it, there was some noise, and it was loud, but it was never meant to disrupt the services which it did not. The funeral started at 11:00 as planned, we moved our bikes from the second staging area near the Highschool back to the original staging area to form a honor guard for the family and fallen soldier.
I h ave never been afforded the respect and kindness i saw exhbited by the citizens of Wheeler,
as we staged for the honor guard, on both sides of the street behind the court house,I saw citizens that had attended the funeral, walk in the street in front of us, the women waved and talked to us, the men took off their cowboy hats , some even saluted as they went by, and the car prosession was the same, never have i seen any thing like it.
Every intersection had one or more law enforcement officers blocking the streets, standing at attention or parade rest, as we went by all the way to the cemetery , we were at the end of the procession, so they could could have easily gotten into their cars and move out, before we got there, they chose not to and remained as they were,
We pulled into the cemetary, and walked to the graveside services, all attended, as the friends and family left the grave site, quiet a number came thru our ranks women and men a like, spoke to a lot of us, thanking us for comeing and participating in their grief and loss, i have never seen this kind of kindness any where, we were also ask to return to the school cafeteria to eat lunch before we left, that was fixed for us by citizens of Wheeler, officers and firemen and the bikers ate, signed the books the family and Patriot Guard had available , then we departed for our respective homes.I will never forget what i witnessed,you havent lived till you had a whole city hug you.