I have to tell you, gun crowd, you’re embarrassing yourselves. President Obama does not want to take away your guns. If you doubt me, please leave a comment citing anything he’s signed into law to take away your guns. If he did want to take them away, I’d let him, and here’s why: you don’t deserve them. I see you in the sporting goods stores, dressed in your wife-beater t-shirts, crowding the pistol counter, talking to the clerk

My Ruger SR-9 9mm pistol, with my TLR-3 Streamlight tactical flashlight mounted on the accessory rail. This modern, striker-fired pistol is an excellent design.

who is also a gun nut, discussing hydrostatic shock and whether a pistol cartridge is a “man stopper” that can take down someone on drugs, like killing humans is a sport. I gather from what I can overhear that you are buying your 20th or so .357 magnum, and this one is “for your wife,” which we all know isn’t true.

If you were married to my wife, you would know that gun ownership isn’t about killing people at all. In Abby’s family, shooting was about time-honored tradition. Her father taught her to hunt before he taught her to drive. Abby has known since she was six how to reload a spent .30-06 shell. When Abby was growing up, her reward for ironing was two .22 shells for every shirt she pressed.

Abby’s family never debated whether or not a .38 Special could kill a home invader or if a .32 auto causes a big enough wound cavity. They were too busy packing and freezing the venison Abby’s dad brought back from Wyoming on his last hunting trip so the girls could have meat through the winter.

I didn’t grow up in Abby’s family, but many of those values have influenced me. When Abby’s father passed away in April of 2010, a few of his firearms were passed down to Abby, and it is a privilege simply to be able to shoot them. I also own a few guns of my own, and while I don’t imagine killing anyone with them, of course I would if I needed to protect Abby or me. But the main reason to have them is the pure enjoyment of the sport of shooting, which we can do to our heart’s content here in the country.

Every firearm we found at Abby’s dad’s house was loaded, because he always said, “They ain’t much good if they ain’t.” He was that kind of guy; as straightforward as anyone gets. It is an honor for me to carry on his tradition of responsibly owning and enjoying firearms of all kinds.

My Smith and Wesson M&P (Military and Police) 15-22 rifle; this excellent weapon is built with all the components similar to the popular AR-15 assault rifle, but is chambered for the far more affordable .22 Long Rifle cartridge; shown here with the included extra 25-round magazine. (Note that the same tactical flashlight that was on my Ruger 9mm pistol fits on the tactical rail of this weapon.)

On the back of this photograph my mother wrote, "Sept 1973, occasion: Dedication of St. Margaret's Episcopal Church, Lawton, Ok. Richard Barron, Sarah Jo Barron, Nicole Barron."

My family and I were Episcopalians when I was young. For much of that time we attended an Episcopal mission in Lawton, Oklahoma called Saint Margaret’s. It was built in the southwestern mission style, and looked just like a Taco Bell.

As part of my parent’s plans and hopes for me to be a good Episcopalian, they “asked” me to be an acolyte, which as many of you know is the church’s equivalent to junior forest ranger.

My fellow acolytes and I were trained by a nice man who looked just like Don Rickles named Hal Sharp. He taught us when to kneel, when to stand, when to enter and exit, how to use the candle-lighter, how to tie our belt sash, and on and on. The Episcopal Church’s service is as rigid and dogmatic as any, so there were a lot of moves to memorize.

The first level of acolyte was simply “acolyte.” At this level, you carried tapers, lit and extinguished candles, and not much else. On high holidays like Easter you got to carry flags. The higher levels of acolyte were “crucifer” and “server.” The crucifer bore the huge brass cross on the handsome wooden standard, moved the lush, leather-bound Bible at the proper time, and held the Bible on its ornate brass stand during the Gospel lesson. The server assisted the priest at the credence table, giving him water, wine and wafers in the correct sequence.

Wearing the traditional cassock and alb for my duties as server in the Episcopal Church

When we were scheduled to be in a service, we would say that we were “on” Sunday.

I remember when I got “promoted” from mere acolyte to server. I suddenly thought the younger kids were little boys, and that I was a big, respected junior clergyman. As you can see from the photo, I was still very much a little boy.

My parents embraced the Episcopal Church for their entire lives. In Florida in the last 20 years of their lives, they were elders of Saint Thomas of Palm Coast, and their ashes are interred in the columbarium there. Despite their lifelong devotion, and to their chagrin, I never embraced the church, or any church. But when I was little, I imagined a beam of prayer energy shooting through the roof of our little Taco Bell up to God. My sister told me once that when she was very small, she thought our priest, grey-haired Bill Merrill, was God.

Though I found Episcopalianism obdurate and ritualistic, I did understand that its structure and elegance were of great comfort to my parents.

Saint Margarets Episcopal Mission

by Richard R. Barron

Sssssst!

Suddenly the fuzzy black spider leaped from the ceiling and parachuted to the floor on an invisible string from its abdomen.

Hairy and huge, it guickly made its way to my basic fear center. I returned the favor by treating it to its next dose of [2(2 (1-Methylethoxy)phenyl)methylcarbamate)].

When it hit the floor, it ran for cover, but the deadly neurotoxins were already working, and before it could crawl six inches, it was running in spastic, uncoordinated circles.

Spider

Sssssst! I sprayed again. Always hit them again, I say, and hit them hard. They’re the enemy.

“But spiders are our friends,” David whimpered to me at every opportunity. David likes spiders.

Once when I was five, I was in the backyard at Grandma’ s house. The home was fairly austere, but the yard was lush and huge. At the center stood a giant willow tree. Sometimes my sister Nicole and cousin Lori would gather yard-flotsam from under the willow, mash it into paste, and dub it “crummards,” which would sit in the garage until it became foul-smelling, then be thrown away by Grandma on her way to pick strawberries.

This time, though, the yard was mine. The evening sun glowed on the grass green and gold, and she and I had gone out back to enjoy it.

As a kid of five, I had abundant, random energy. I skipped, hopped, slid, jumped and bumped around the yard, spastically pining for Grandma’s attention.

I took position on the far side of the yard, came running toward the back patio. “Look, Grandma!” I excitedly shouted, about to perform some pointless but spectacular stunt in front of her.

“Rusty,” she interrupted, “you’ve got one of those big ol’ black spiders on your lip. ”

I reached up and pulled off a black jumping spider the size of a silver dollar. From my lip!

Sssssst ! A little more of the deadly petroleum polymer on this one on the kitchen floor should do nicely, should punish it for terrifying me so much as a child.

The spray soaked the bug w€etter but not deader. My father told me once that insecticides work in two ways. First the bugs had convulsions, then they hemorrhage. It moved slower.

I walked to the cabinet to put the spray away, and continued with my original activity. Since the spider was still alive, even though it was dying, I kept my eye on it.

In a few moments, I got bored and went on to something else. When I looked up again, the spider was gone.

How will I be able to sleep tonight?

Crazy Horse memorial, South Dakota in 2005; even using modern machinery and explosives for 60 years, this thing isn't even close to being done.

Adults believe this story as adults by resting on the time-honored “When I was young, I was taught that…” axiom, which conveniently relieves them from the burden of thinking for themselves.

I digress. The idea that the ark was real ignores a couple of simple ideas. First, there are now about 30,000,000 species of creatures inhabiting the earth, meaning that assuming we don’t allow for evolution of any of them (since the church doesn’t care for the idea), Noah and the Mrs would have needed to collect 60,000,000 organisms to populate the ark. Second, why would Noah collect ticks, but not unicorns? I can almost imagine saving the leech and the mosquito, but Noah, please. Ticks?

If each organism weighed just one pound, that’s 60,000,000 pounds, or 30,000 tons, roughly the displacement of a World War II aircraft carrier. An individual and his wife, even if he was assisted by family members and cheap Mexican laborers, couldn’t have built such a structure in the allotted time, and probably not in his entire lifetime. (I site as example the ongoing labor involved in the construction of the Crazy Horse memorial in South Dakota, which has been going on since 1948 and isn’t even close to finished.) None of that takes into account the needs of the creatures on board, since you can’t just cram 60,000,000 creatures into a boat and stack them like cord wood; they require food and clean water (though maybe flood water was clean back then), and space to move about.

Never mind that there isn’t any physical evidence of a catastrophic flood 6000 years ago. Bible believers disregard a lot of physical evidence and the lack thereof when it suits them. I also acknowledge that much of faith is belief in the impossible, since if it were possible, it wouldn’t be a “miracle.”

I also love the fact that the Bible made sure to have the ark made of imaginary wood (gopherwood), so no one could really prove or disprove the “miracle” of the Great Flood. That’s brilliant. It reminds me of the logic used by JFK conspiracy theorists.

Next week, the second shooter on the grassy knoll? It was me!

The Author at Two

The government is not your mother. Television is not your mother. The army is not your mother. The police are not your mother. Your mother is your mother. And no matter what, you are an adult, and you shouldn’t need your mother any more anyway, except for cordial chat and visits on major holidays.

I write this as I read two articles. One is by a mom who writes:

“The 2nd U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals in Manhattan on Tuesday declared the FCC’s indecency policy on ‘fleeting expletives’ unconstitutional. As a journalist, I am pleased with the decision and how it removes the FCC’s chains from the First Amendment. As a parent, I have mixed feelings”

The other item is about skin-whitening cream, and this is the lead:

“A new Vaseline ad campaign in India urging men to whiten their faces has sparked international controversy, with critics of the ads contending that Vaseline–a subsidiary of the Dutch-Anglo conglomerate Unilever–is promoting the notion that only white skin is beautiful.”

First, journalist/mom: Item number one is to drop the double standard. Either it’s good law or it’s not. Item number two is this: it is not the FCCs responsibility to raise your kids. It’s not the government’s or the TV network’s or the TV station’s. It’s yours.

Secondly, the skin-whitening cream: So what if some company comes along and offers a product you don’t like? They offer it to sentient, adult human beings, and if they are stupid and childish enough buy snake oil, they deserve snake oil. I don’t care if Vaseline offers Hitlerizing cream. I just won’t buy it. It’s not Vaseline’s job to take care of you. It’s not the government’s or the billboard company’s or… well, you get the idea. I hope.

Maybe "He" was on vacation in Aruba at the time. (Thank's to the internet for this image.)

She consumed me so much that I believed that surely she was feeling it also, that she could feel what I was feeling, even when we were apart.

I believed that missing her enough would make her miss me.

In truck stops and hamburger joints
In Cadillac limousines
In the company of has-beens
And bent-backs
And sleeping forms on pavement steps
In libraries and railway stations
In books and banks
In the pages of history
In suicidal cavalry attacks
I recognise…Myself in every stranger’s eyes

Morning

And in wheelchairs by monuments
Under tube trains and commuter accidents
In council care and county courts
At Easter fairs and sea-side resorts
In drawing rooms and city morgues
In award winning photographs
Of life rafts on the China seas
In transit camps, under arc lamps
On unloading ramps
In faces blurred by rubber stamps
I recognise…Myself in every stranger’s eyes

And now, from where I stand
Upon this hillI plundered from the pool
I look around
I search the skies
I shade my eyes
So nearly blind
And I see signs of half remembered days
I hear bells that chime in strange familiar ways
I recognise…The hope you kindle in your eyes

A Human Breast Nipple

My message today is this: men who are sexually aroused by breasts really just want to sleep with their mothers.

Fact: the breasts of mammals are not reproductive parts. The breast’s purpose beyond simple anatomy is to provide milk for an infant.

There are so many things more appealing to me about a woman than the fat surrounding her milk glands. I would say that her eyes are first, and to me the eyes that appeal the most are bright, intelligent, creative eyes. The smell of a woman, or at least the smell of my own wife, is incredibly intoxicating to me. The soft, white hollow of her hand, the way her hair frames her beautiful face, even the sound of her voice…

All this finds its way to my heart before her baby-feeding glands.