Luck Of The Draw

I sit here,
Deep in thought.
How much more luck could I have?
Blessed with so many things
My talents
And the people around me
Some people
Walk miles for water
I walk to the kitchen
Others just don't have a home
I have 2
Some have only 1 parent
I have 3
How much more could I have?
Already gifted with so many things
The ability to write
Yet, the right to write as I please
I really shouldn't complain
I should look at my life
And be happy
I mean
How lucky could I be?

Anonymous


Sometimes I need to be more reflective about the positive aspects of my life. This poem helps to clarify that thought. Xavier

Desperados

Grandsons Layn and Carter.

Happy Valentines Day!

The picture is of me and my little sister, many moons ago. X.

Take Down Bow

I've been working on a take-down bow recently. It is out of a piece of Osage Orange stave that I have had in my stockpile for about 14 years. So it should be aged about right to make a very effecient bow. I added some recurve to each limb. You can see one of the limbs in my form waiting to cool down. I usually heat the area to be bent with a heat gun (paint stripper).
This bow is left handed. I shoot both left and right handed but prefer left. I have a pair of rattle snake skins which I will apply to the face of the bow sometime this week. I'll post the finished bow once it is done. X.

Agent Orange: A Country Without a Conscience

I was going to post this on my other blog 'Darkside of the Moon', but deciced it should go here. During the Vietnam War the United States sprayed over 80 million gallons of chemicals in that country to kill anything that grew from the ground. The concentrations they used were 13 times what our own USDA recommends. This figure was only recently revealed. They had been lieing about the concentrations for years, imagine that!
Above you see some of the planes spraying this liquid death. I saw this first hand, up close and personal. They didn't bother at times to make sure there were no troops in the jungles below them. Our unit had this stuff sprayed directly on us. Little did we know then what this would mean, although many became sick shortly after.I would venture to say that the number of american soldiers who have died from this is many times over the 50,000 some thousand who were killed in combat. Sadly the body count goes up every hour of every day. The death and destruction to the country of South Vietnam and it's people goes on daily as well. Many children in Vietnam were born with deformities.
The country that did this is the same country that decried Saddam Hessein for his use of chemical warfare. What hypochrosy.
I have battled with cancer and diabetes which was caused by Agent Orange. Many of the soldiers I served with are either dead or are suffering the ravages caused by Agent Orange. Over 50 of the soldiers in my company from Vietnam have died since returning home, as a result of what Agent Orange did to them.
Occasionally there will be a mention of Agent Orange in the media. However, not enough to suit me. Americans will wave the flag patrioticly when it suits them or there egos. But those same patriots stand quietly by as many a brave soldier dies a slow death in the heartland. I see my anger is starting to rise to the surface. It has been there for years and I know i must let go of it.
Those of us who served in Nam, and our plight have been shoved aside as collateral damage by a government that has no 'Soul'. Steven Xavier White