woodworker

I think I scared the poor thing.   

It's all true, as funny as it must have seemed at the moment.     And even as I was yelling and cursing at that lion, I could see that shadowy beast then huddled about in the Northwest corner of it's cage, and it never so much as let out another peep after it's first initial roar at me.  

Honestly, I wanted so much to hammer the point of my knife into it's hide, and somehow, I think that he decided that he didn't want to mess around with this guy on that particular night after all.  

The elephants on the other hand, had I not managed to stop in time,.. Well, that would have presented a whole different sort of problem for me. 

Maybe you'll get a kick out of this, or maybe you won't.   But at least you'll know that in the wilds of down town Detroit, I wasn't lying to you about this near death experience.   Anything that has to do with myself, whether humorous or not, is completely true. 

It goes like this,.. 

Danny wanted me to meet this guy, Dennis Manning.   So after Danny told Dennis that I would be coming by the next night, I went knocking on his door.

He was cordial, and had a friend with him at the time.   We then went down to his basement and shot a little pool.

Wasn't much talking on my part, as I was a very quiet back in those days, and was there more to get a measure of this guy than anything else.  

So, after a while we three got into my new, black, 1969 Pontiac Grand Prix, and headed off towards down town.

Dennis pulled out a joint, and it got passed around.   To me it didn't seem to be all that strong at the time, but maybe I misjudge it at that moment.  Anyway, as we got closer to the waterfront near Cobo Hall, Dennis said rather calmly,.. "Hey man, watch out for the elephants."

Without moving my head I turned my eyes towards him, thinking to myself,.. 'This shit isn't that good, just what kind of corn ball do I have here?'

Then, while still moving a little further on he said,.."I'm telling you man,.. watch out for the elephants."   

I was starting to get really pissed off within me, both at Danny for recommending this jerk to me, and towards this guy both.

Then Dennis suddenly threw his right hand up on the dash board, as he shifted his body towards me and shouted out,.. "WATCH OUT FOR THE FUCKING ELEPHANTS!"

I was furious and slammed on the breaks, and was about to rip his fucking heart out, when I saw before me not more than twenty feet away all these elephants.   My head must have been in the clouds, because if he hadn't have shouted at me, I am quite convinced that I would have probably crippled one of the elephants that night, and that would have no doubt prompted an angry retaliation from the others afterwards.

Honestly,..  Hard to explain the look in that elephants eye towards me.   It was aimed right at me and was filled with a mixture of bewilderment and promulgating rage.  

It kind of reminded me of that same look that Moby Dick gave captain Ahab in that movie when it turned it's eye right at him.

Anyway,..    

What had happened was the circus had just let out, and they were leading the animals down the street and back on board a ship to head back to France.

Well, naturally I got out of the car to watch this thing.   We all did.  

There was a whole string of elephants, not more than maybe twenty feet away, with these painted stars and things around their eyes, and at the very end was this adorable baby elephant that was holding onto it's mother's tail.  Very cute. 

All of this on a darken street in down town Detroit.   

I then meandered across the street to the other side to get a better look from a different angle, and had not been aware of this transport cage which contained a lion in it.   My back was not more than a foot away from it when it let out a loud roar!  

I mean, it was a full blown roar and quite startled me, as I found my knife then in my hand and was then trying to reach into this cage to stab this mother fucker with, while at the same time making my displeasure known towards this thing.  

I know that's hard for some here to believe, but tough, it is the fucking truth.   To me, there was only one king in that fucking jungle, and as far as I was concerned, it wasn't him!   And besides, I don't like being startled, or bark at, or roared at, by anyone!

But after about a minute or so, I started to cool off, as I heard Dennis say in a muffled voice about fifteen feet away.   "Jesus!"

We then walked further on and went inside Cobo Hall and watch some of the performers while they were still practicing their acts.   

Dennis headed straight off to talk to this leggy high wire woman who pretended not to speak any English.  While I had a little contest with the knife thrower there.  

I pulled out my high quality Italian made stiletto, which he looked over for a while.   And then I pointed at the painted star on this wooden thing that I guess some of the animals would use to posture and pose upon.   And yes, I beat him that night, which brought a snarl upon Pierre's lips.   

Anyway, that's my little Mutual of Omaha moment.   Nothing really major about it all.   Except that I wanted my friend Foamy to realize that his friend might be a little bit out there at times, but he isn't a fucking liar.   

A little post script:  

At the rate of speed that I was driving, had I actually collided with one of those elephants, it would have most likely have broken it's leg, which would have then caused it to roll over and crush the front end of my car, leaving me with no other way to exit, then by heel and toe express.

No doubt the others would have chased after us, and it would have made for a strange ending for one with an already unorthodox past.  

13 hours ago, Foamy T. Squirrel said:

I'm hesitant to give orders to my British cousins and friends. But I do believe the President of the United States should have kept his mouth shut. It's not our business in our dealings with the EU or the UK  as long as you continue providing great ales and fish&chips when I visit.

 

Don't forget, this is the same guy who returned that bust of Winston Churchill to Great Britain. 

The truth is, he doesn't give a shit about Great Britain or it's people, just his precious one world order. 

And to me, he's really nothing more than a third rate con man, coming off as smart or clever to only those that are stupid around him.    

5 minutes ago, HarleyFatboy said:

A man with cat like reflexes.....I like it!   You should have been a boxer, sugar ray wouldn't have had anything on you!    I have a lot of different kind of stories but the problem is I can't remember over half of them lol.    Another good story by the WW!!

When I was 20 years old I was driving my motor scooter home from work after pulling a double shift because the same fucking people never wanted to come to work.   At any rate, I had a 40 minute ride to get to my house which was on the bay and I had to cross a double set of railroad tracks that were literally about 5 miles from my house.   I know what you're thinking....no big deal right!   The only problem was that I crossed them in a dead sleep and totally shattered the arms that come down to keep people from crossing the tracks.   How I didn't kill myself that morning I'll never know.   I didn't wreck my bike and somehow never let go of the handle bars when I was finally awakened by the very sudden jolt and swerving after hitting those arms.   When I reach my house and got off the bike to take a look at the damage,  I had lost my headlight and left blinker.  Needless to say, that was the last time I worked a double shift when I would ride my bike to work.

Just as with me, Your guardian angel was there for you.    Boy, the ones assigned to look after me must have dreaded the job.   

When it comes to gun play, as Foamy might recall from the incident at Hemlock Park, where I showed this punk my own version of Russian Roulette, I tend to be a bit more diplomatic than I was on that particular night.

Honestly, while everyone is rather quick when they're young.  I was notably quick in my actions at certain times.  

Quick as lightning and as agile as a mountain goat.   There was nothing about me that was ever clumsy in my ways.  

And my mind when in the heat of conflict is absolutely uncanny.   So hard to describe, but even quicker, and more apt than even my obvious motor skills.

So that you will know just how unerring fast I could be I will relate a non-threatening event that took place, that is almost super human in the way of being quick.

There is an old bar trick where a person would hold a dollar bill just an inch away from your thumb and forefinger, and will say if you can catch it you can have it.   And then he will let the bill drop, and almost no one can ever pinch their fingers quick enough to grab that bill. 

Now imagine this,.. At a party at Joes house to celebrate his new baby, where there were a few friends then gathered around the kitchen dinette table which was up against the wall by a window.  

I was sitting on the inside close to the window, and some girl was sitting to my left.   Directly across from me was some other girl, with Joe then sitting on the outside part of this booth like table.

A girl, named Karen was then holding Joe's new baby, and was then throwing it up a little bit into the air and then catching it.

But, on this one occasion, she dropped the baby, and I dove under the table and caught the kid just a couple of inches away from the floor.   I caught it like a football.    And the amazing thing, though I didn't care about it at the time, was that I didn't even knock over any drinks!   That surprised me.

Joe's words spoken just then was a mixture of anger directed towards poor Karen, and relief at the same time, as he then said harshly,.. "Nice fucking catch!"  

Even Joe, who was sitting right next to where Karen was then standing, couldn't respond as fast.  In fact, no one, except for Karen of course, had even grasped just then that dreadful drop.  And though it was all a flash, I still remember that anxious look upon her face just then.

By the way,.. For what it's worth, I always gave credit to God for those times when that sort of thing might have saved somebody.    He still moves me even now.   Perhaps not as quickly, but in different ways all the same.

There, now I'm done.   Boy, sometimes writing is a bitch! 

1 minute ago, HarleyFatboy said:

Good story WW!   I bet your best friend had some ringing in the ears after that lol.   I've never shot at a person on purpose thus far through my life,  but to protect me or my family or my properties,  I would in a heartbeat.   I would have to be in fear for my life or one of family members life before I pulled the trigger though .   I through properties in there because if there is one thing I can not stand,  it's a thief!

I used to work with an older man named Joe when I was working the summers during my high school days.   There was myself and another dude named Anthony, both of us from rival high schools.   Every time that Joe fucked up on the job, Anthony would look at me with this "I'm stoned" look and say......That fucking Joe mawn.    He didn't say man, he said mawn.   Before long everybody in the shop would say it every time he fucked up.....it was some funny shit back in the day to two high school jock stoners lol.

In a car, at three in the morning with little or no traffic going by,.. it was loud.

49 minutes ago, Foamy T. Squirrel said:

I knew a professional hit man. He had retired. Alive.

He only used revolvers, and they were used, unmarked, and cheap. He didn't like anything fancy; they were only one-time single use tools for him.

He told great stories, but refrained from certain details for obvious reasons.

 

I never had to take anyone out that way, but I came close to shooting the nose off someone once.   It happened in the wee hours of night, and was a sudden bit of action followed by a loud report that startled a good friend then sitting beside me in my car.  It was pure reflex, as I quickly threw my arm across my friend's chest and took my shot out of the passenger side window.   And it's a good thing that this prick then parked at this gas station, didn't moved forward a few inches just then, or he would done more than just coward down into the floor boards.  

At best, he would have been left without a nose, at worse..

Oh he was a real scary looking guy, with his scraped knuckles and bruised up face, and his short cropped prison hair cut.  

And I didn't mean to be rude or stare.  But when he flipped me off, my lightning quick reflexes just took over.   

My good friend Joe, after we took off, shouted out,..

"JESUS FUCKING CHRIST!"    He was a little bit shaken up by it all.   

Joe had just gotten back into the car, and didn't know what was about to happen just then.

And it was both deliberate and fast on my part.  

Anyway,.. Joe was, and is, the best friend I ever had.  

3 hours ago, HarleyFatboy said:

What make and model was that WW?

The man's name was Sid King, and he smiled and said I've got something for you, and it was in a box.   I looked at it without touching it, while he was saying something, but I don't really remember what brand or make it was, though as I said, it looked very similar to that one in the video.

I was sorely tempted, but I had sworn off semi-automatics at that point in my life, due to the mess of empty cartridges they all seem to leave behind.   

I was offered a pretty nice gun with a silencer back in my youth.  Very similar to the one at the end of this video.

I'm half surprised I didn't take it.     

On ‎2016‎-‎07‎-‎13 at 4:22 AM, joe_bloke said:

meanwhile ...

This could be the dogs big moment.   Just look at that look on it's face.  

She must be in a state of sweet anticipation. 

"Oh, yes, yes, yes,..Please Paul,.. Please don't hold back now,.. I am yours!"

Good to hear from you Van.   I had you in my thoughts during that vote to break free off the EU leash.  

Even the EU flag resembles a choke collar for dogs.   

4 minutes ago, HarleyFatboy said:

I wish it was just my stomach, but unfortunately it's my blood pressure and I don't need that to get more out of whack than it already is.   My oldest brother knows how much I used to talk about politics and even he won't bring it up to me anymore because he is afraid it might get me to worked up and put me in the ground.    I will say one last thing though, and that is that I hope the American people are ready for what is about to happen!

Have a good night WW...

Me too.   I have the same concerns as you.   

So just try to relax, and remember, there is still a hope left for the moment.  

I know.  It ties my stomach up in knots too at times.   

14 minutes ago, HarleyFatboy said:

I know WW, it's very troubling and worrisome, not to mention just plain sad.   He has never been there for the good of the American people and it's very obvious!

Don't you think Obama choosing John Kerry in the negotiating role of that Iran deal was the perfect candidate. 

I mean, he must have known he could trust a traitor like John Kerry to carry out something so detrimental to both Israel and the United States.    Two countries Obama truly hates.

For a responsibility this great, he had to find someone who also loathes and hates this country almost as much as he does.

Thanks Harley.   It's both sad, and worrisome.   But I see right through this most transparent administration of his.

21 hours ago, Foamy T. Squirrel said:

I hate bringing history into this, but the collapse of the Ottoman Empire precipitated a couple of world wars. Ottoman Turkey kept a lid on things in that region for a very long time; since its demise foreign powers have not been able to contain the area, bring order to the area, or understand the tribal cultures involved. Euro-diplomacy has had many failures in regards to this region.

The Obama administration's decision to surrender the Middle East and North Africa to militant Islam in support for an "Arab Spring" was neither wise nor helpful. That is an intentional understatement; but the recent events are not surprising given the incompetence and criminal negligence of some of the US government's leaders in the Executive Branch.

I would suggest we force our "leaders" to understand all the issues involved before they take sides. That's what we pay them for.

 

 

 

 

 

 

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Surely Foamy, your not insinuating that that horse face, John Kerry, along with that black specter, that currently flutters around the White House are inept, and incompetent.  

For I see this con man, along with his braying jester as doing exactly what he had set out to do.   For he is merely transforming the middle east, in much the same way as he has been busy trying to transform this country.

*He wants to make Iran, and Isis, the controlling power over there.   His every action and inaction shows this to be the case.

And if Hillary, Obama's chosen one, should end up in the White House, it is America itself that will be left dying with her head now resting upon that sickly cot.   

Maybe Turkey should have changed it's name to Ham.    Then the Muslims wouldn't have wanted anything to do with it.

I think that Turkey is done. 

Prior to the Muslim strong hold in the middle east, in the pre-Mohammad era, the people there were largely Christian and peaceful in nature.   It's hard to fathom how that region of the world was once considered so intelligent in their thinking, and even thought of as being wise.

And yet words such as Arithmetic, Algebra, Astronomy, and many others are all Arabic words.   They had given us our numerical numbers, 1,2,3,4,5,6,7,8,9,10,11,12,.. ect.  Which even to this day encompasses our clocks, and is the basis for our system of mathematics.

And there in that slender country known as Lebanon, which was once referred to as the land of the prophets, and to which even the pharaohs of Egypt use to have their very thrones made from those great cedar trees that grew there in that region, because they believed that it profited wisdom somehow in doing so.

The people that lived there were Phoenicians, sea faring people, who had invented the triangular sail.  Making it easier to travel in any direction despite which way the winds were blowing.  

The point is, just look at that region of the world now, ever since the Muslims had driven out of it all of the peaceful people there over the centuries right up to the current times.  

It is a bleak, coarse, barbaric region now, with nothing to offer the world but it's hatred for our western civilization in all of it's form.

Think of all the great art, and music that would be destroyed if they should ever have their way.   It's almost too much to imagine. 

And yet this menace was allowed to enter into certain western countries through their guilt ridden naïve leaders, with welcoming arms, only to receive this form of gratitude from them in return.      

The native people there now can't even go to certain places, or gather up on certain occasions to even celebrate their own holidays, or their once charming customs any longer.   

In short, they have lost their freedoms, and their countries, through the fear of them now losing their own lives.