“[And] I am no longer competent at skipping.” – Robert Fulghum

After reading this single sentence, it got me to thinking, “Do I even remember how to skip anymore?” After all, I recall that as a child I used to skip all the time – especially if I were playing with my brother and sisters.

The following day, which happened to be one the rainiest days of the year in Northern Nevada, I challenged myself to find out. And much to my displeasure, I learned that I’d forgotten.

Instead of remaining defeated, I acted on my better nature, re-teaching myself how to skip. I am certain that my neighbors now think that my cheese has slipped off my cracker.

So what! I’ve never let a little embarrassment stop me from reaching a goal, no matter how insignificant it might seem to others.

It took about half-an-hour for the memory-muscles to return and before long I was sailing up and down the street like a pro. Perhaps, next time I’ll try my hand at cartwheels, followed by somersaults, then jumping rope.

First though, does anyone wanna join me in a game of tag?

In John Huston’s 1966 movie, “The Bible,” Nimrod shoots an arrow into the Heaven’s and God responds by confounding mankind. He purposefully confused our language, causing us to disperse so that we would never attempt to become greater than our Creator.

However, today it seems that we are on that staircase again, trying to be superior to the God who made us. This is being accomplished through the media, social media, and governments which are not only confusing our words, but are also confounding our ability to think clearly and there’s no way to return that arrow to it’s quiver.

Everyday I ask myself this question: ‘Do I think too much of myself?’

There is no middle-of-the-road answer to this question as we all have tendencies from day-to-day that lead us to one extreme or the other. Sometimes we need to convince ourselves of our importance because we will not hear it from anyone else.

After all, we all want to feel significant in some way – even if it is only within ourselves. On the other hand, there are days I also must ask myself, “Do I think too little of myself?”

That answer is also subject to our extremes.

It’s a time in life that I miss now, a when I helped the old folks dig the pit, split the wood and cook the cow, eaten fresh fruits and vegetables, sopped up gravy with bread cooked over a wood-fired oven, laid on old blankets in the green grass under the tall trees, chased friends around the pasture, drank tumbling water from the nearby creek, and laughed and laughed and then laughed some more, yet somehow finding my way home before the streetlights flickered, only to fling my clothes to the floor and my body on my bed.

Oh, youth!

“Nevada’s Black Rock glows perfectly white under a quarter moon at ten-thousand feet,” he told me, adding, “I can also say that mission was nearly flawless. Hell, my orders were to parachute from that 727 and that’s exactly what I did.”

Lighting yet another cigarette, “However, I didn’t like being used as a pawn in their money-making scheme. I mean they sure were pretty damned quick at getting those metal detectors and x-ray machines in to airports around the nation.”

“But what really gets me is how anyone can get D.B. out of a simple three-letter name like Dan,” he chuckled.

Childhood has a way of slipping by in the most painful way — through the spector of death. I came to this conclusion again after finding the name’s of two people I’ve known, listed in the obituary section of Crescent City, California’s local paper.

Brad ‘Dode’ Lockhart and I went to Del Norte High together. He was born in Dallas, Oregon March 20, 1962. Born without the ability to grow hair, Dode took all the teasing dished out to him in stride and it’s became clear he still had his sense of humor about it, judging from the obituary photo in the paper, where he’s seen wearing a shirt reading, “I’m too sexy for my hair, that’s how come it isn’t there.”

The other passing is that of Chuck Blackburn who was born July 8, 1936, in North Creek, New York and died March 13, 2018 at the age of 81. Chuck was a real renaissance man as not only was he a Del Norte High School PE teacher for over three-decades, he was also a sport announcer,  a newspaper columnist, a county supervisor and an author.

It’s truly a blessing to have known both men — even if it were only for a short period in my life.

One of my favorite tales from when my son was a little guy came as Kyle hugged me while he sat next to me on the couch

“I love you, mommy,” he cooed.

“I love you, too,” I responded, “But I’m daddy.”

Without missing a beat, he relied, “Oh, yeah — right. I love you — whoever you are.”

I laughed until I cried.

Poor Thomas’ Almanac for March 17: Today is the Feast of St. Patrick, or St. Patrick’s Day, whose said to have driven the snakes out of Ireland. Wonder if he could do that for Congress?

“Holy shit!” Jackson yelled as he came around the blind corner.  As if in slow motion, he watched as the child flipped through the air after bouncing off the grill of his truck.

Jackson felt an awful pit well up inside himself as he raced to the child’s side – that’s when he realized the child wasn’t a child after all – but a ‘little person.’ And this little person was a full-grown man.

The man was breathing, which was a relief to Jackson and he didn’t seem to have any cuts or broken bones. And since he was in the middle of the Redwood forest, Jackson knew his cellphone would be useless.

A minute or two later, the man opened his eyes, blinking hard as if he’d been sleeping and looked around, “What the feck happened?” he spoke in a thick Irish brogue.

“I hit you,” Jackson answered. He tried to get the little man to lay still, but ignoring any possible injuries, the man sat up, crawled to his knees and stood up.

“Well, diabhal!” the man exclaimed, “First time in over 400-years.”

More than a bit confused, Jackson asked, “Wha..?”

“Supposing now you’d like the gold?”

“What the hell are you talking about?”

“Oh, don’t play coy with me, boyo. You caught me and now you get the pot of gold.”

“Mister, I think you hit your head a little too hard.”

“You’re the one that hit my head,” the little man returned. Then he walked over to the side of the road and dragged from under the ferns, a two-gallon pot of gold coins, “Here, take it – you earned it fair and square.”

Looking down, Jackson felt his heart skip-a-beat, realizing they were real. When he lifted his head again, the little man had vanished.

Two sharp pops interrupted the buzz of young voices. And for a moment an awful stillness hung over the classroom.

It was my fourth day on the job as a substitute teacher. I had seven tours of duty in the Marines between Iraq and Afghanistan and I recognized the sound before it even registered in the children’s minds.

Seconds passed. Two more bursts of semi-automatic gunfire, this time louder.

Looking at the youngsters, some whose name I had yet to memorize, I knew their terror.  I was also terrified, because a lock-blade knife was all I had and not the M-4 or 1911 I’d been packing two-months before.

Seconds passed. Another pop, pop…louder…closer.

“Okay, let’s go into lock-down mode like you’ve practiced. I’ll close the blinds as you push your desks in front of the door. Hurry!”

Seconds passed. Two more pops…even closer and louder.

“Now, tip those two tables over on their sides and lay down behind them.”

Seconds passed. More gunfire, this time accompanied by the jangle of spent casings.

Sitting in the corner, I wedged myself between the wall, under the flag, and against the door. Looking down, I thought, “What a day to wear dress shoes,” as I longed for something with more grip.

Seconds passed. One more pop.

Planning, it was the core of my being the last eight-years and I already had an ‘actionable’ one working. The shooter would either have to blast his way through the door or smash open the small window above and to the left of the door handle.

Suddenly the glass shattered and an arm in black with a black-gloved hand, the pointer finger’s tip removed, reached in. As the shooter touched the handle, I pounced; combat mode, where nothing but survival matters.

Grabbing the gloved hand, I twisted it forward, rotating the arm through the small window. I cranked until the shoulder joint gave, I jerked up and in, twisting even more; three, four, five times.

Screaming, all the screaming. I couldn’t tell if it was the children, the shooter or me.

As I felt the arm go limp, I pulled out my flip-blade knife, the one I carried the last two-tours in the Helmand Provence, and flicked it open. I proceeded to hack at the attackers arm and shoulder.

Blood gushed from the limb, through the broken window, and flowed down the wooden door. I could feel my hand slip from time to time, sliding down the blade, as the knife struck bone.

Reaching through the window, I thrust my blade into the shooters’ back and neck repeatedly. I stopped at the sound of heavy industrial plastic rattling across the linoleum floor.

The arm, body still attached, remained wedged, unmoving in the window’s frame; threat resolved.  Minutes later, police rushed through the classroom door, hustling us, hands in the air, out the front of the school, me to an ambulance.

At the hospital, a surgeon worked on my hand, calling me a hero. “I’m no hero,” I argued.

For a week, I couldn’t get away from the label. The entire world was there the day I was awarded a plaque and a medal for having taken down an armed shooter ‘with nothing more than a pocket knife,’ as one news reporter put it.

Hero, that’s what they called me – until the day I was quietly summoned to the district office and unceremoniously fired for violating policy. You see, in a ‘gun-free zone,’ not even a folding knife’s permissible.

“Here’s your coffee, ma’am,” he said, handing me the cup. Then he chuckled, “I realized afterwards I should’ve used the scissors from the desk.”