The Floggings will end when moral picks up :) lol

Word
(Power) Cherishing

verb

gerund or present participle: cherishing

1. protect and care for (someone) lovingly.
2. 
   

(Force) Prizing

verb

gerund or present participle: prizing

1. use force in order to move, move apart, or open (something).

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Transitioning.
From Pain to Joy.
Easing the childhood moments that should be cherished into a memory where they can be prized and then discarded as a trophy.
Done with the memory - move forward.

Like I did with 2nd place Shakespearean Festival Plaque.
It was a shared device so it was mailed back and forth for many years to share in it's achievement.   Eventually the cherish became tarnished with time.  The prize was realized to hold little value and let go.

Call me odd, but my emotional attachment to detailed events in my life has been long overdue to be dealt with.  I was unaware of the decompression I needed to now stay under the 1975# safety lift of my life.  Taking myself to the upper limits of pressure is no longer a part of my life.  Learn my place in it all where I am at is the new puzzle I call daily existence.  Now that's Cool.
Like John Denver sings in Poems Prayers and Promises ...

The changes somehow frighten me
Still I have to smile
It turns me on to think of growing old

I'm good with it all.  

Today I began testing how this looks from an iPhone.
The old format was "nasty".

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Hiking: My sponsor granted me the funds to begin pre-purchase of gear at end of season/year sales.

I started with my maps.  theatguide.com is having a 2020 pre-sale of the data book and mini maps for the journey's.

Hennessy Hammocks held their season ending scratch and dent sale already and are loosing overstock right now with a 30% sale.

Jack's -R- Better (JRB) has a very broad selection of quilts that I need to consider for my Hammock/Tarp sleep system considered.

I'm still teetering on 200# .... will I be under or over by April?

Transitions still ....

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N-SSA and NRA 

- "Breaking targets is what I enjoy to stay sharp for Deer Season."
~ My dad Lenny Tokarczyk

My dad would take us all around to events sponsored for N-SSA and Civil War Weapons we enjoyed shooting.
Cannon, Mortar, Pistol, Carbine, 3 and 2 Band Musket.

Patience and skill in a slower ignition process to launch a projectile did make it much easier to bag a deer each year with a center fire slug.  Rim cartridges were not allowed in NYS the last time I bagged game for my families freezer.

That's were the title of today's blog came from.  A Plaque:
"The Floggings will end when Moral picks up."

(The Circle is the Shed where the plaque resides)
(Google is AWESOME!)

Near it is (or was) an encased can of Carling's Black Label Beer.
Words on the glass: In case of thirst, use this to put out the fire first.

It never froze.  Looked the same each Spring, Fall and sometimes Snowball events. 





My Dad and I enjoyed shooting Civil war weapons.
Somewhere along the way you meet characters with names like Tiny, Snuffy and like me, Zak.  People are people.  Everyone was a mothers cherished little boy or girl.
I learned early about lead smelting/poisoning and how to handle asbestos and others who have a, lets say a complicated, tricky past.

Muzzle Loading Weapon Shooting Competitions.  N-SSA.

One lone soldier stumbled into an adjacent regiment's camp with an offering for fire wood.  A Quid Pro Quo type of deal.
His 6 pack of Carling Black Label Beer for some fire wood.
All he could carry.
Well, debate a happened among the leaders of the 1st U.S. Art Batt. K.  still standing there that evening.  Moonshine and Jack aside, they discussed the offering and the gesture to assist this "Rebel" in our midst.  (I was a little too young to partake in either the conversation nor the moonshine - just so you know) ;)

These seasoned monarch of this camp space did not want to waste the young mans time nor fully snub his offer of Beer for Wood.

I call them seasoned cuz this group of men are the same group that had balls enough to deal with an international incident north of the border one July 4th in Fort Erie, Ontario.
More on that later.

So, they accepted his offer knowing full well the beer sucked but those that purchase it in the south get a worse than bad version of it since it's from Canada. It was cold, but it still sucked.  It was spit by everyone that could not believe it was that bad cuz it was cold.
I had one to myself.  So I saved one for the "wall" in the rain shelter.

Now the semi-rest of the story - Let's fly to the Peace Bridge and then enter the lawn area of Ol Fort Erie (Canada Side) ...

Innocently: some whom I'll never be able to remember their names, for they are passed now, hoisted an American Flag over the fort at night so in the daylight hours, sirens, press and the like fill the re-enactment camp the very morning they will be acting out a battle at a time when the event did happen in history.  A flag did briefly rise a few times on the pole in the 1800's, but it was not gonna be up in the 1970's!
I was not "there" when it happened with whomever did it.
But I was "there" by association and that has it's inner circle privileged to information to learn from.

Being an american on foreign soil during a history re-enactment (gone bad) as a kid who got to drink his "fair share" of Guinness within those walls of a great fort with awesome friends who had to work there as guards ... Priceless.

That is how I've come to love the pure refreshing taste of Guinness.
Any pub in London, Isle of Wight and now in my grocers beer section.  Hands down, "the can" with the cat toy produces the BEST recreation of the tap drawn brew.

Oh, and the Rebel in our story, a brother in arms.

Back from Canada and now back in the woods somewhere near Winchester, VA

In his arms that day was Beer and he carries a good load of wood back with only a few to pick up in the morning light before we all went down to the range to create the largest cloud of smoke in reflection and reverence of a time when Americans were actually shooting at each other but now can stand side by side, joke, laugh, break targets at 50 and 100 yards, fart around the campfire, be humans.  I do miss those moments.  Glad I was there when there.

Ah, so many memories along this path to becoming an American.
Enter the bowels of any "system" and one learns entries and exits.
Why?  Jus Cuz they were "trained" to. 

Turning off the old "Monkey Mind" or "Mind Frick".
Self - help training, well, so far so good from my 0 to 10 scale. 
I'm Bigger than my Problems.  I'm told the rest I desire will follow.


~ Kindle