This is my oldest story and a good one but as I was only five or six at the time my recollections are foggy as to some details. This is how I know it and every word is true . The Doobie Brothers "Taking it to the streets" was jamming on the radio and the race was tight! There I was, at the wheel of my rail dragster tearing toward the finish line when just then my dad grabbed me up from the seat of his PARKED, garaged dragster that didn't even have an engine that I had been playing in and started beating me with a fan belt from for a car until my back was bloody! I was five years old. I don't remember my mother learning of it just my blood in the bath water and her trying to comfort me. I learned years later that my mother had held a 38 special revolver to my dad's head later that same night but then knew only of the sudden divorce of my parents. Afterward on weekends that my dad was to have my younger sister and I for visitation he would always drop me off at his parents, my grand-parents, and keep my sister with him. His disinterest in and determination to have nothing to do with me upset his father, my grandpa very much. My grandpa was a very loving and responsible, hard-working man that was disappointed in his son and I have no doubt that my grandpa HAD told my dad this himself but it didn't seam to matter to dad he still wanted nothing to do with me. So during one of the weekends that my dad dropped me off my grandpa decided to entertain me by giving me my first shooting lesson with a rifle. My grandparents yard had one of those old rounded fruit cellars with the chimney out the top and my grandpa set me up on top of that cellar mound. Pop laid down a couple of boards for me to brace the gun on and began my lesson. First he had me sit down and helped me to steady the 22 semi-auto rifle he had selected to use for this occasion. Then he asked me if I could see through the rifle's scope and after a bit of fidgeting I began to see an image taking shape, "that is dad!" I said to my grandpa, "what's he doing in that tree?" I asked. "Bow hunting" pop said, "now get on your target" and so I leveled that rifle across the field toward my dad. "He's a ways away so you need to aim a little high," my grandpa told me and this I remember like it was yesterday even 35 years later,"don't jerk the trigger, squeeeeze the trigger" Pop said. POW! My first round hit over my dad's head but got his attention. POW! My second round got in there closer and he knew he better be moving! I saw him jump out of his tree stand and start running across the field. "Okay son, he's on the run now get in front of him" Pop said and so I did, POW! POW! POW! POW! Well I emptied that rifle on my dad that day while he was running across that field and never even grazed him! By the time that my dad ran up to grandpa's house grandpa had the gun and dad left! My father never did grow to want anything to do with me but you know it doesn't matter to me at all. See my dad may have chosen not to be a father to me but his dad did and for my Pop I am most grateful. Sleep in Christ old man, we will be together again. Your son, Dave.
Robert Burns' first daughter was Elizabeth. Her story and the five descendants Scottish lives are recorded here with the Bard's message today as ever in need. Al Quida listen: Then let us pray that come it may, As come it will for a' that. That Sense
The story of Ron Hull, paralyzed in a surgical accident back in the dreaded polio epidemic days, was able to overcome most of the stigma and stereotypes and "pass for normal" for 30 years. As Ron's paralysis increased gradually through the next 20
