Category: Well I thought it was neat!
This is Mack — a truly great American.
I have a friend named Mack. Mack is the salt of the earth. He and his kind are what made America what it is. In addition to a lot of other positive attributes, Mack also has a superhuman work ethic.
Mack has a crew. They can do literally anything. They spend their weeks replacing roofs, building sheds and resurrecting derelict kitchens. They built me a new bathroom. Mack’s crew includes his son Corey and his friends Justin and Dave. They are all comparably awesome. Within the first half hour of their working on my bathroom, one of them had asked where I stood with Jesus. They’re the kind of guys who would gladly give you their shoes or shirt if they felt you needed them.
Justin is covered in tattoos and talks like a drill sergeant. That’s because he spent a career in the Army as a grunt and a drill sergeant before he settled down with Mack to build stuff. Justin did five combat tours in Iraq and Afghanistan.
On the weekends, when most normal people are kicking back and relaxing, Mack runs his own restaurant called Harmon’s in Paris, Mississippi. Harmon’s offers superlative Southern home cooking. I can tell you from personal experience that their fried shrimp and catfish are to die for.
Here we see Mack and Justin preparing breakfast
for 40 or so hungry veterans in rural Mississippi.
Harmon’s Restaurant dishes up great Southern food served with love.
If You Serve It, They Will Come…
The first Saturday of every month, Mack opens his restaurant up for a free breakfast for military veterans. Justin helps with the cooking. Donations are accepted but are neither sought nor expected. The food is basic Southern fare — scrambled eggs, grits, biscuits, hash browns, bacon, and the fixings. Anyone who has ever eaten in a military mess hall will recognize it. None of it is terribly good for you, but it is both delicious and filling. Mack feeds 40 or so grizzled old vets on Saturday morning out of his own pocket just because he is a great American.
Once word got out, the place filled up. It is amazing the extraordinary guys who just came out of the woodwork in small town Mississippi. One guy flew F-111 Aardvarks in the Air Force. Another spent a career underwater in submarines. A smattering served time in the Mississippi National Guard. All of the old WWII guys have passed, but Vietnam is ably represented. One gentleman was a Green Beret officer who did three combat tours in Vietnam. Another was a Special Forces doctor who treated both friend and foe alike during his time in Southeast Asia.
As you might imagine, there is no shortage of entertaining stories to be found in that place. I bring along a handful of machine guns each month for everybody to paw over, and we kill an hour swapping lies. Many of the guys in attendance used those weapons for real. Each meal starts with prayer, and wives get dragged along every few months just to keep the place civilized.
I typically toss a few machineguns in the truck
to give the guys something to paw over while we talk.
Packaging is Everything
If you partake in the mainstream media, all you are fed is doom and gloom. Americans hate Americans. The economy is in a freefall. Neighborhoods burn, and we rob each other blind. It’s all we ever see. One might be forgiven for believing that our Great Republic is on its last legs. Should you feel that way, I would assert that perhaps you’re getting your news from the wrong sources.
Down here in rural Mississippi, we’re doing just fine, thank you very much. In my neck of the woods, everybody is armed, yet nobody seems to get shot. Folks really don’t care what color you are anymore. We still go to church, and we raise our kids to respect authority and love their country.
Far be it from me to seem all judgey, but the folks running California, New York, New Jersey, and Illinois are all idiots. Urban spaces have become a hell of their own making. Tolerating lawlessness, disrespecting law enforcement, and paying people for bad behavior is a great way to let the inmates run the asylum. How is that working out these days?
By contrast, our streets are clean, our cost of living is low, and our people are friendly. The biggest problem we have in my little Southern town is that a lot of folks are moving here. But that’s okay. We’ll keep building houses and restaurants. We may even eventually land a Target to go along with Kroger and Wal-Mart. Down here where I live, America is still quite awesome.
Day at the range: Will and Danny didn’t have ready access to a battery like this back in the day. But now …
It’s really a wonder we survived adolescence. We first met in 9th grade and it was initially a mutual interest in firearms and the military sparking our friendship. School shootings were not a real thing, so it was okay to talk about guns in school back then. It’s indeed been a wild ride. His name is Danny, and we are the archetypal gun buddies.
He goes by Dan nowadays. It seemed somehow more appropriate for a successful electrical engineer working for a high-tech defense contractor. However, we lived together for three years in college. I’ve seen him at his best and I’ve seen him at his worst. He’ll always be Danny to me.
The gun shows were a blast. We’d plot and scheme all the way there, buy an antique surplus MRE for lunch, then trade and barter until they turned off the lights and ran us out. On the trip home it was always exciting to pore over our newest conquests. Our resources were meager and our acquisitions comparable, but it was always fun.
I’m much better funded these days, but I can’t get nearly the rush out of a proper gun show as I did back then with Danny. In this regard I suppose it’s not unlike an addiction. It’s hard to recapture that first serious high.
Danny tries his hand with an oldie Beretta 38A. Full-auto is big fun,
but more so with a shooting buddy.
An Explosive Relationship
Now nearly four decades later, his wife still accuses me of trying to kill him. I’m not exactly sure that’s fair. There was of course the homemade spud gun I gave him for Christmas that exploded on his shoulder. He was answering the phone for a couple days when it wasn’t ringing, but there was no lasting harm. Then there was the home-built mortar at the bottom of the thick cardboard shipping container we used for a launcher. It detonated and shredded his pants leg. That ultimately turned out fine, too.
A blank 12-gauge shell and an Estes model rocket engine powered the ridiculous contraption. It did indeed pulverize the tube and simultaneously blew a not-inconsiderable hole in the ground, but of course that could’ve happened to anybody. There were a few others the details of which I’ll keep to myself as I’m not sure if the statute of limitations has yet fully expired. Regardless, we burned untold thousands of rounds together, it was always good harmless fun.
We inadvertently set fire to a shooting range in Oklahoma one time. My quick thinking saved the Porta-John from certain incineration. The mental image of us valiantly dragging that nasty thing out of the smoldering grass in the nick of time still brings a wry grin. It’s amazing the number of furry critters that can quickly exit a stand of tall grass when it is vigorously burning. That debacle ultimately claimed about three acres of Oklahoma grassland and allowed me to meet several very nice firemen. Once again — on balance — no lasting harm.
When I was in the Army and Danny was building military radar systems, we often lived on opposite sides of the world. However, our wives were (and are) best pals, so we made a point to visit at least once a year. Each time the ladies talked about kids and we retired to pore over our latest firearm acquisitions. Some things never change.
The Wayback Machine: A youthful Will and Danny took a serious “Man-cation”
when Will was stationed in Alaska.
Maturing … Kind Of
We each had three kids. They had two girls and a boy. We had two boys and a girl. They were each within three months of each other. The running joke was we would get one church with one preacher and one set of flowers and marry all six of them off in one fell swoop. Alas, his girls found husbands elsewhere so our plans were ruined.
Sadly, our kids have all moved away, though we do finally have a little freedom as a result. It’s a long drive, but we talked them into coming our way this year. Danny and I spent two full days pawing over the gun collection and burning bullets, swapping old lies and ones of more recent vintage. Nobody got blown up, blinded, or incarcerated. It was an altogether great time.
Guns are in the news these days for all the wrong reasons. If you really wanted to save children you’d outlaw skateboards or cigarettes, not AR-15s. But all of you know this already.
Firearms are used for recreation, hunting, personal defense and countless other wholesome American pursuits. And they also build some splendid friendships. No matter how much time elapses or how much hair turns gray or falls out, sitting down in the gun room surrounded by the inimitable smell of BreakFree always takes us back to better days.
We are gun buddies then, now and always.
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I miss old Walther!
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Remember this?
I had great uncles when growing up! They fed my sense of adventure without knowing it. I guess my mom and grandma should also share in the credit. You see, when I finished kindergarten, my mom started a wonderful tradition that shaped me more than she ever expected. It was her greatest gift to me.
The tradition started with a trip to the barbershop for a buzz haircut. Then, we’d drive to JCPenny. I’d sit in the back, rubbing the new stubble on my head as the aroma of Wildroot tonic wafted throughout the car. Once at Penney’s, she would buy me three pairs of Wrangler jeans, along with packs of underwear and t-shirts. Wranglers and t-shirts were the official work clothes of my uncles — Gary and Jerry. Naturally, I had to dress like them during my week-long stay at Grandma and Pap’s.
Daily Chores
Uncle Gary was 20 years older than me, while Uncle Jerry was only 16 years my senior. Living on my pap’s dairy farm, they were the main labor force before they eventually bought the farm as partners. Dairy farmers milk and feed cows twice a day, in the early morning and mid-afternoon.
Between milkings, fieldwork is performed during spring, summer, and fall. Hay is mowed, bailed and stored for winter, while corn is planted, picked and/or made into silage for the cows. My favorite time of day was after supper, as the temperature started cooling down. It was during this time we’d roam the fields for groundhogs.
My Uncle Gary, in red shirt, with my cousins and his son, holding elk antlers, in Colorado.
Outdoor Adventure
Known as whistle pigs by the shrill sound they make to locate each other, I learned how to imitate groundhogs from my uncles. I’d make a low, long whistle to arouse their curiosity, making them stand on their hind legs to look for the source of who was calling.
I’d watch my uncles skillfully snipe the alfalfa-stealing vermin in awe. A few years later, I’d be going on my own groundhog safaris solo. This was where my mom and grandma’s contribution kicked in by allowing me to go hunt groundhogs unsupervised with a .22 rifle. Imagine seeing an 8-year-old toting a .22 rifle looking for vermin today.
Trapping sweetcorn and raiding raccoons was another adventurous activity I got to participate in. After watching my uncles bait and set the leghold traps, I soon started making my own sets. I even managed to catch a few raccoons in the process, too.
Room To Roam
For me, the farm was the greatest playground in the world. It provided me with room to roam, building my confidence by exploring hundreds of acres by myself and feeding my sense of adventure. Growing up in the suburbs of Washington, D.C., the farm was a great escape. It also laid the foundation of my relationship with my uncles and my love for the farm.
As a kid, they prepared me for life by tastefully teasing me. Gary called me “Boomer” and “City Slicker” for years. It wasn’t until much later that I realized “Boomer” was short for Baby Boomer. Go figure?! The teasing made your hide thicker while developing your sense of humor and interaction with adults.
During Grandma’s Christmas party, which was always the first Saturday after Christmas, my cousins and I climbed all over our uncles like a bunch of monkeys. Wrestling matches ensued, along with much teasing, laughing and other shenanigans. Then, we’d all sit down to a scrumptious homecooked family meal followed by more homemade cookies, cakes and pies. At its peak, over 60 relatives attended. It was a time of great memories.
Uncle Gary’s 4-wheeler set up with his oxygen bottle and rifle mounted,
ready to go spend a day in the woods.
Gettin’ Older Sucks
Denied to many, getting older is no doubt a privilege, but a big downside is having your heroes leave you. People die. Uncle Jerry died on a hunting trip in West Virginia with his nephews. I consider myself fortunate to have been on the hunt he died on by spending his last few days with him and knowing they were good ones.
Last week, my Uncle Gary died. He’d been on oxygen for the past two years from breathing in dirt, dust, fertilizer and insecticides while doing tractor field work on the farm.
I never knew a man who loved the outdoors as much as him. He’d ride his 4-wheeler for hours exploring miles of trails daily and spent every waking hour of deer season in his stand. He loved farming and the outdoor work it provided him.
Last year, during deer season, as I was leaving to go home, I walked past his 4-wheeler and had to take a picture. He had his oxygen bottle strapped to it along with several yards of tubing so he could wear his oxygen mask while sitting in his stand. He wouldn’t dream of missing hunting season.
On the night he died, Uncle Gary went out to dinner with two of my cousins. My aunt was babysitting their grandkids in Maryland, so Gary was “baching” it. My cousins told me they had a great time during dinner, complete with plenty of laughing, teasing and joking. Uncle Gary went home, changed into his pajamas and died with his oxygen mask on, sitting in his La-Z-Boy. I couldn’t think of a more peaceful way to go.
None of us are getting out of here alive, but it sure can leave a void when someone as special as Gary is called home. I’m lucky to have had an uncle as good as him. Who’d have thought that taking a kid on a groundhog safari would lead to a lifetime of hunting adventures, a love for the outdoors and, most importantly, a love for family?