Bill the Butcher

  I grew up in Shreveport, Louisiana. I never once questioned my grandparent's income or my  Mother  or Father's!! It was never a discussion. We ate homemade meals consisting of meat, potatoes, and vegetables - (which were not an optional choice). No vegetables, no dessert!!! We bought produce from door-to-door peddlers. We never touched anything that did not belong to us. We never went into someone else's house, we always knocked and got invited in or we didn't go in. We never opened a refrigerator at anyone's house unless asked to do so. We were taught to respect other people's property. And we were rewarded for acting properly.   We grew up during a time when we mowed lawns, pulled weeds, babysat, helped with all chores.  We, by no means, were given everything we wanted. We went outside a lot to play, run with friends, play hide and seek, or went bike riding. We rarely just sat inside, only when we were Bottled water was unheard of. If we had a Coke, it ...

  And God said, “Let there be light!” And there was light! Unfortunately, that light did not penetrate the human consciousness.     God created man, man created theology, and theology begat religion. When man looked up at the sky and asked, “How?” It only goes to follow that the next question was, “Why?” And this is a good thing because the third question is, “Why not?” And then choices are introduced. God, in order to be God must be omnipotent. I’ve already written about man’s inability to understand timelessness. We don’t understand the time before time because we simply don’t have the ability to understand it. It’s not in the DNA.    All absolutes are destined to fail because we can’t form, or even understand an absolute. Only God can do that and God, to be God simply has to be One because if there is more than One it is no longer God, but Gods, and if there are God’s then who, or what created them and called them together? For that you need theology and to i...

  Back in the day, believe it or not, we had sex education in public school. Usually in health class, and as you might surmise, we, the eager students, heavily into puberty were all ears and groins. The very idea of an actual class containing the letters S E X was exhilarating. Especially if the classroom had  girls  in it!   The main thrust of the class was  The Idiot’s Guide For Avoiding The Clap!  Mainly concerning the application of what was then known as “a rubber” that could be acquired at the bus station. From there over the years that evolved to prophylactic and finally became the “condom” not to be confused with condominium or location where the rubber might be used. As you can understand, just the discussion of such subjects would fire high school imaginations, if not the teachers’. There were the usual pictures of genitalia in case someone in the class had never seen one. There were two models back then, innies and outies, of various sizes and sh...

  They were sitting on a back porch looking over the lake. It had become a nightly ritual, watching the sun go down across the lake as the breeze, and currents switched directions. The lake wasn’t wide. Just a backwash from the river that lay around the back of a strip of land. It was said that General Grant took shelter there when he took fire from a nearby hillside fort. If it were true or not didn’t matter. The tourists believed it.    As the shadows lengthened and darkness fell the conversation turned to the Civil War. The peaceful subset belied the years before. The idea of General Grant hiding just below, receiving enemy fire made the war seem real.    This sleepy little hamlet hosted a real live Civil War battle with control of the river being in jeopardy in 1863. The Union army stood up in righteous indignation to extinguish the resistance of a contingent of rebels one February day, thereby saving the Union for prosperity and securing the rights of Jack ...

  We bought a Mercedes. A two-seater. So nobody could ride in it but me and her. We still had the SUV, but this was just for us. God! How I loved to drive it. I never enjoyed driving a car so much. It had Bose speakers! Not that Willie needed Bose, but I’m deaf in my left ear and they’re loud. So there we were. Me and Pam. On the road again. For about a day.     Now I’m old so forgive me if my timeline gets scrambled. That and I lie some. Not as much as I used to, but at seventy-two you don’t have that much to lie about. You’ve already been caught in most things you pulled and nobody believes anything you say anyway.    But as near as I can figure, Jackie showed up long about that time. Well, she got dropped off by her dad. She’d turned up pregnant up in Detroit and he’d deposited her in Dallas with relatives. She was too high octane for them, and they politely threw her out. So he brought her down to Austin and left her in our driveway. Ok. Two seats, three peo...

  Exodus 3:14 And God said unto Moses,  I Am That I Am : and he said, thus shalt thou say unto the children of Israel, I Am hath sent me unto you.   Theologians, scientists, philosophers, writers, religious, and atheists have puzzled over this simple line since Rabbis penned it back in the old used to be. It sounded real cool in “The Ten Commandments” as Carlton Heston knelt before that burning bush. So different from what Joseph Smith claimed that he saw on Hill Cumorah millennia later. A voice saying it is what it is! Deal with it!   But it was much more than that. First and foremost, it was the name of God. Of course, greater minds than me will disagree. They will point to all manner of names. From El to Jehova, but only one time did God ever say “This is me! Call me by this and tell your people!” When Jesus uttered the words, “I Am,” Caiaphas tore up his clothes and throwed them on the floor.    But when “I Am” sa...

  I must’ve told this story a hundred times, but it bears repeating because a majority of readers simply don’t get it. It deals with communication yet there is a deeper meaning that most people miss as the attempt to conform to the New normal of social consciousness imposed by “Woke” advocates sleepwalking through life. And the story goes as follows:     After giving a speech from the south porch of the Capitol at Austin I found myself sitting beneath a spreading oak having a very politically incorrect cigarette when I was greeted by a young lady who asked if we might discuss my talk that day.    Now, this woman was appropriately dressed in jeans, the mandatory blouse, not too revealing, but not what could be called conservative, her hair long and with just a whiff of perfume drifting over me. Bright smile, clear eyes. And she asked if I might explain my speech to her. Well, not so much my words and ideas, but more about my delivery.    I asked which p...

  An exert from the book P4U - Tales of Life That was his motto, and one of the last things he ever said to what he told the nurse was his “best friend,” while in his final hour at the VA hospital.     He was a retired Sargent Major, three bronze stars, a silver, and a purple heart, Vietnam!  He was married to his “best friend’s” ex-wife, jokingly referred to as his “husband in law.” He loved to work with wood. He built altars for the church, carved images in wood, and doubled the size of his house, all by himself. He cooked, too. He could’ve cooked a combat boot and made it taste like prime rib.   He was married to his first wife, Jackie, for forty-five years, and she finally died on him. He lived alone for a while until he met the lady he’d spend the rest of his life with. She had a heart condition and no medical, so “The old sarge” fixed that. He married her and being a widower, he could give her his benefits. Literally saved her life. But life is n...