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When is helping not really helping?

I keep telling myself I’m helping my son.  I’m doing what I have to in order to help him get his life back on the road it needs to be on.  But when is helping not really helping?  What am I really helping him to do?  Am I helping him to get it together or am I helping him to keep running from what truly needs to be fixed?  By that I mean he has a lot to face and fix still.  Am I helping him to get to the road that helps him face and fix the mess he has created all on his own or am I helping him to run from it all and not really face it?  I wish I had the answer.  I wish someone had the answer but when they do, I don’t really want to hear it.

I have been told that I am only enabling him and not helping him.  That’s a hard pill for a parent to swallow, enabling instead helping.  I have prayed and prayed and still I can’t find the answer or don’t really want to hear the answer I get I’m afraid.  I don’t know which it is.  This is my firstborn son.  My blood, my child in my eyes even though in all reality, he’s a grown man that has to learn to live his own life and be responsible for his own choices.  What gets me is this was the most independent child we had.  I think his first words were ‘I do it’.  And do it he has, his way always.  That can be good but in his case, it’s hasn’t always been.

Still I have this darn decision to make about the truck.  Part of me wishes that someone else would make it for me and then I could say to my son that I had no choice but that’s the cowards way out.  Women think they are the only ones that suffer for their children but they’re wrong.  Father suffer and worry too, we just don’t allow it to show like women do.  There’s a part of me that wishes I could show it too but I’m a man and that’s not the way a man does things.

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Life can be hard sometimes

My oldest son has been a bit of a challenge from birth.  He’s basically a good kid but seems to get into crap without even trying.  Well I know I have sang the praises of my children which is what parents do.  No one wants to really air out their dirty laundry in public, now do they?  But I have come to the conclusion that to only hide these things doesn’t help anyone, especially someone else that might be going through a similar thing.

Drugs were a problem with my son for awhile but he basically has a handle on that now.  He’s working hard to get his life back in order but has a long way to go still but he’s working on it.  I’m not sure if those are just the words I want to believe or if they’re the way it really is.  As his father, they are the words I want more than anything else to believe.

Trouble seems to find him no matter where he is or what he’s doing and that has happened yet again.  He was in the south working with a carnival.   I now look at Carney’s differently than I used to since he took that job because the people he works for are really helping most of these people more than we know or could imagine.  Anyway, a lady asked him to drive him to the store and he said he would for $10.  He needed money.  What he didn’t know is that she was an undercover cop and lead him right into a sting operation.  That night, 4 guys were arrested and my son was one of them.

He didn’t have any drugs on him but he had a pipe and some scales in his truck.  The truck is in my name and therefore I’m liable for the tow and storage bill.  He may go to prison for solicitation and drug paraphernalia.  Now I have to decide what to do about his truck which has a lot of his belongings in it.  It has a camper shell on the back and that’s what he slept in.  I have been told that I need to get the truck out of my name because if he was to have an accident, I am liable for what ever damage he causes, even a loss of life.  I could lose everything I have worked for.  Now I have a tough decision to make that I don’t really want to make either.

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Cherokee Legend

Do you know the legend of the Cherokee Indian youth’s rite of Passage? His father takes him into the forest, blindfolds him and leaves him alone. He is required to sit on a stump the whole night and not remove the blindfold until the rays of the morning sun shine through it. He cannot cry out for help to anyone.

Once he survives the night, he is a MAN. He cannot tell the other boys of this experience, because each lad must come into manhood on his own.

The boy is naturally terrified. He can hear all kinds of noises. Wild beasts must surely be all around him. Maybe even some human might do him harm. The wind blew the grass and earth, and shook his stump, but he sat stoically, never removing the blindfold. It would be the only way he could become a man!

Finally, after a horrific night the sun appeared and he removed his blindfold. It was then that he discovered his father sitting on the stump next to him. He had been at watch the entire night, protecting his son from harm.

That’s what a father does……….protects not only his son but his whole family.  Unfortunately once they become a man, they are supposed to take care of themselves.  It doesn’t always turn out that way so who’s to blame if anyone?  That’s the question I want answered because I have no idea what the answer is myself.

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Nick Nolte

Nick Nolte has long been one of my favorite actors.  He has played in some of my favorite movies like 48 hours with Eddie Murphy.  Sure he’s had has hard times but who hasn’t you know.  I mean we all go through some tough times and not necessarily with drugs and alcohol like Nick has.  But one thing stays constant and that’s his ability to act.

He was even named the “Sexiest man alive” by People Magazine in 1992.  Not too bad huh?  It was a great picture of him on the cover too.  But then you see a mug shot of him looking anything but sexy and I can’t help but wonder why we want to desperately to shoot someone down, especially celebrities.  They are people just like you and I.  They put their pants on one leg at a time just like you and I.  Sure they may pay more for their pants than we do but they earned that money with their acting ability just like we earn our money with what ever ability we have.

They entertain us, take us out of our lousy little existence sometimes and even through their art, give us inspiration to do better ourselves and still the media and us that are stupid enough to pay our hard earned money to buy the magazines and gossip papers that do all they can to bring them down.  We’re contributing to it.  Here’s a good example with Nick Nolte at the center.

“Nick Nolte, 67: Yeah, we were just as dumbfounded as you to realize that People declared Nick Nolte the Sexiest Man Alive in 1992, a year in which competition was apparently slimmer than Victoria Beckham in airtight Spanx. The actor, then 51 and coming off the success of “The Prince of Tides… more,” was called “sexy … very sexy!” by a dewy Christina Applegate, while the magazine enthused that he was a “big-lug Adonis with the heart of gold — sometimes known as the Bad Boy Reformed.” Except his bad boy days weren’t quite over. A decade after his Sexiest honor, Nolte was busted for DUI, which resulted in an epically unflattering, Hawaiian-shirt-and-electrified-hair mug shot that set the standard by which all celebrity police snaps are measured. He pleaded no contest and has continued to work steadily. And despite the occasional airport crash session and a tendency to dress like his homeless character from “Down and Out in Beverly Hills,” he’s still some one’s sexiest: Last year, at the age of 66, he welcomed a daughter with girlfriend Clytie Lane.”

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My wife is mad at me

I guess it should come as no surprise that my wife’s mad at me.  After all, isn’t that what most men say from time to time?  See, she has been working around the house and took down some old curtains in the dining room and put up some new ones.  I didn’t notice!!

Hey, I’m a man and I have had a lot on my mind lately.  Plus the curtains she took down were sort of a cream color and the ones she put up are a pale olive green.  That’s not a lot of difference other than the new ones are longer than the other ones too.  I just didn’t notice.

She was all happy because she had gotten them at JC Penney’s at a great discount price and wanted a pat on the back I guess.  Instead, I missed my chance and now she’s mad.  Guess I may as well just tell the dog to move over because I’m moving in the dog house with him.  I sure hope it’s only a one dog night and not a two dog night.  He’s a big German Shepherd so he should be able to keep me warm even if it is a two dog night.

Do you understand that expression, the one and two dog night?  It’s an old expression on how many dogs it would take to keep you warm overnight out in the elements.  A three dog night is a cold night!!

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PETA

I’m sure most of you know who PETA is and what it stands for.  But just in case you don’t, it stands for People for the Ethical Treatment of Animals.  I think that’s right.  It might be worded a little different but you get the idea.  This group does a lot of good but just like any other group, they get out on a limb on some things.  Did you know that they can come to your house and if by chance your dog has turned his water over and they see that the dog doesn’t have any water, you can be charged with animal cruelty even if you make sure the dog has water every day when you get home.  I don’t think that right.

Throwing flour on women wearing fur is crazy.  The animals that were used to make these fur coats were farm raised, not trapped like they used to be.  They were well fed and then, yes killed for their fur.  These animals are not then simply thrown out to rot, they are used for dog food and stuff like that.  These animals are treated better while they are alive than they would have been in the wild.  God gave us creatures for food, warmth and as companions too.

Yes it is wrong to club seal cubs for their fur.  I’m glad they are against that and anything that can lead to the extinction of a creature that God has given us.  Gluttony is a sin and can lead to the extinction of a whole species and with that in mind, they are doing a great thing.

But they don’t want deer hunted either.  Do you know what happens when there are too many deer in an area?  The deer don’t have enough food and then suffer, get sick and die a slow and painful death.  I’m sure there are some that suffer a slow and painful death when shot by hunters but as long as these hunters eat the animal, they are actually helping the deer that in the woods by thinning them out.  That’s far more humane than letting them overpopulate and die of disease and malnutrition isn’t it?  I think so.  All of this is just my opinion and if you see it differently, feel free to comment all you want and I’ll be glad to answer.

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My people would call this a sign

A good friend of mine sent me some pictures of the most amazing thing I have ever seen.  In fact, my people would call it a sign from the spirits.  My friends live in Michigan and came across the pictures.  They know how I am about Gods creatures and knew how amazing these pictures are to begin with and wanted to make sure I got them.  I am so thankful to them for sending them to me and just wanted to share one with you so you could gaze upon the beauty of extremely rare ‘Gods creatures’.

Here’s the skinny on the picture.  It’s twin deer with their mother in the background.  That’s not the amazing part.  They are albino twin deer!!!  The chances of ever seeing one albino deer is highly unlikely but twin albinos!!  Just try and imagine the chances of that.  I can’t even wrap my mind around the thought.  Not only are they rare, they are absolutely beautiful. That’s their proud mother in the background of the picture.

I only hope that some hunter doesn’t shoot one of them just to have it’s head mounted on his wall.

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Decided to go fishing today

The day started off a bit rainy and chilly but I really needed to get out some so I decided to go fishing.  It was a bit uncomfortable at first but then the sun came out and all was right in the world.  The fish bit pretty good and I caught a good run of bass.  No I don’t bring bass home.  I put them safely back into the water.  That way there will be fish for the next generation.

I never take something I’m not going to eat and bass just isn’t one of my favorite fish to eat.  I personally prefer salt water fish but a good mess of strippers from the lake or the ocean, well you just can’t beat that.  I wasn’t stripper fishing today though.  I just wanted to be one with nature and relax a little and that’s just what I did.  It was a great day.

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HOPE for the New Year

HOPE is a four letter word but not one people use enough.  HOPE is the one thing we all have when we have nothing else.  HOPE gives us all a reason to keep trying.  HOPE give us all a reason to keep reaching for more.  HOPE is something you will have when you have nothing else left and yet HOPE is one four letter word that people don’t seem to believe in anymore.

I have so much HOPE for the new year.  I have so much HOPE for the world and my little part of it.  All I can do is try to make my little part of this big old world a better place and with that HOPE, just maybe it will spread.  When the white man first came to this country, Indians were looked upon as savages.  We all were peace loving people and willing to fight to keep what was ours.  That’s nothing more than the white people are guilty of too but we learned to live together and the world is a far better place for it.

My HOPE for the new year is that the world, or at least America, will still keep learning that we are all God’s creatures and all want the same basic things.  Those things are respect, honor, and to be able to take care of our families.  These are simple things in all reality and should not be so hard to obtain.  Through the great wisdom of God and our own people (meaning Americans) we can again find peace and prosperity.  This is my HOPE for the new year for not only Americans, but for the world.

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One of our traditions at Christmas

One of our favorite traditions at Christmas has always been to adopt a Native American family for the holidays.  The tribal counsel has requests for assistance through the holidays from young and old Native Americans in our area.  They don’t even have to be from the same tribe as we are and they can still be placed on our list.

This year there was a young couple that had just moved to this area.  They are of the Apache tribe.  They have two children ages 3 and 5 which are both boys and are only asking assistance with food.  That’s typical of Native American families.  We are a proud people and only ask for what is absolutely needed.  It’s hard to ask at all if the truth be known.

Well food is what they will get but the children will also have one of the best Christmas’s they have ever had too.  First of all, I want the family to feel welcome in our community.  I don’t want them to feel like outsiders like I know they already do.  We are all of one people now and must band together to help each other through these tough times.

My family went out on the 23rd and bought bicycles for the boys, clothes for them, and anything else my family wanted to buy for them.  With them being younger, it was fun to buy Legos, board games and hand held electronic games for them too.  We bought the family a DVD/VCR because we weren’t sure they had one and got several DVDs for the kids to watch.

As for the food, we purchased a $200 gift card at a local grocery store for them.  That should feed them for a few weeks.  Usually we do not get to meet the families we help but this one asked to meet us so the tribal counsel called today and wanted to know if it was okay with us to let them know who we are.  They came over last night and I am so glad that we met.  The kids were great and the family was so very thankful to us.  We now have new family members to celebrate life with.  That’s the miracle of Christmas for we are all Gods creatures.