Odds n Ends

Our youngest son was married in our back yard Sunday. It was a nice day, warm but with a good breeze much of the time. My brother the preacher performed the ceremony. It was a few friends but mostly family, and we sat around for hours on the back porch just talking and eating. We had all sorts of food and drinks. Since the actual wedding only took about fifteen minutes, it would be accurate to say we had a family pitch-in get together, and oh by the way, a wedding. I enjoyed it, and everyone else seemed to be enjoying themselves too. The bride walked from the house to the site selected for the wedding with her two sons, one on each side holding her hands. They then stood up with her instead of bridesmaids. My grandson (grooms nephew) stood up with the groom. To me this was so much more pleasant than the grand, formalized weddings. There wasn't the lengthy wait for things to start, but at two thirty everyone stopped their conversations, put down their food and drink, moved from the porch to chairs set up for the occasion, the minister, groom and best man took their places, and out came the bride. The woods that wrap around the lawn was the backdrop, and to me God's own creation beats the most elaborate cathedral ever constructed by the hand of man. May God bless this new union.

A few days ago I learned there's a fellow south of town that works a yolk of oxen. The Amish will hire him to break new ground for plowing, and he takes them around to old fashioned festivals to do demonstrations. Each ox well weigh in close to a ton and according to him are more intelligent than a horse. He said his lead ox knows and responds to about 30 different word commands. I'm going to make a point of giving him a call to see when I can visit with him, or catch a demonstration. That's another little part of Americana I've never witnessed.

In October my brother and I are going to make another trip up to Knob Creek Kentucky for the gun show and machinegun shoot. Twice a year they have quite a large event with a lot of dealers in all things relating to guns and shooting. They have a controlled "jungle" range you can go through and shoot at pop-up targets, and the centerpiece of the show is about once an hour they cut loose with the machineguns. If you own a fully automatic weapon you can shoot it there, but they have all sorts of these weapons you can pay to shoot. Put on good ear protection if you're going to shoot or watch. They even have a modern Gatling gun that fires so fast it's just a roar. They will drag old cars onto the range, 55 gallon drums, etc., and swiftly reduce them to scrap metal since there will be a dozen or more all firing at once.