Uncle John

I found another picture of my great, great, great uncle John McCorkle, the scout and sniper that rode with William Quantrill and the Missouri Partisan Rangers. The picture is copyrighted so the site will not let me copy the image. Here is a link to a picture of good 'ol Uncle John. My family hero, that rode under a black flag of no quarter. He and his companions adopted the black flag after Johns sister, my great, great, great aunt was killed in the infamous Kansas City Jail Collapse in which Charity McCorkle was killed. This was also the impetus for the Lawrence Kansas raid. The man body of the preceding link is from my uncle's book "Three Years With Quantrill".

A Dream

Early this morning I awoke from a dream. I was dreaming about pain. And I was talking about it with my dead father. I said, Pop, I don't know if I can take this any more. As he passed through a door he said, sure ya can boy. I'm sure I can.

A Camillus USMC Knife

Take a gander at this knife. It's a modern day interpretation of the WWII KaBar. This one is done in stainless steel  but still utilizes the traditional stacked leather grip. It also has a stainless pommel and guard. This is a big knife, running to an overall length of 12 inches with a 7 inch blade. I have put a matte finish on the blade and sharpened the clip. I got this gem at a small town gun show, new, for 40 bucks. It has a heavy black leather sheath to which I have added black nylon 3/16" leg ties.

Another Crosscut Blade

Here is another knife I made from that crosscut saw blade. This section was so pitted I had it bead blasted which left a frosty looking finish. After 12-15 years it is just now starting to get some dark places on the blade. The scales are made from a wood called purpleheart. It is a very nice looking dense variety of wood. Again, the pins are nickel silver. The sheath is made from a piece of heavy leather I found somewhere and is not my best effort.

Marauders

I was flipping through the channels tonight and saw that NatGeo's show Doomsday Preppers was on. I went ahead and clicked the remote and got a revelation and a  surprise. Tonight's Prepper Idiot was a man and his friends who are not really preppers but call themselves marauders. Tyler and his friends stated that in the event of a calamity they intend to raid actual preppers. This guy is a total asshat. He carries about 150 extra pounds of blubber and about 25 pounds of shit in head. Here's an idea, since he announced his intention to raid preppers in his area, why don't the preppers in his AO make a punitive strike and punish those that have every intention of stealing from them and committing violence upon them. I have said it before, you have to be a little off to put your preps and plans on TV. This just proves my point. This guy fabbed up some home made body armor out of bath tile, fiberglass matte, duct tape, roofing tar and some scrap metal. Claiming it would protect him from rifle fire. He then proceeded to test it by being shot with a 12 gauge that was obviously firing a light load of something as there was very little impact to him after being shot from a distance of about 3 feet. At that range the shot would still be in the cup and he would have been struck with, oh say, an ounce and a quarter of lead traveling at a decent velocity. Let's see him try that test with a .308 at 50 yards or even a hundred. Hmm, how about it tough guy?

A Little Cutter

A several years ago I made this little knife. Some would call it a patch knife, others a caping knife. I just call it my little knife.
   It's made out of a small piece of a crosscut saw blade, am antler tine from a deer I shot and some nickel silver pins. That steel is quite hard, I spent many hours sanding and polishing that diminutive blade and it still has pits in it. To pin the handle on it I annealed the tang in two spots, drilled the antler, squirted in a little of epoxy and inserted the tang. After the epoxy hardened and locked the tang in position, I drilled the tang and tine as a unit. Then inserted the pins and hammered them to a tight fit. I think it came out looking quite nice. I made the sheath out of an old leather purse my ex was going to through away. I stitched it with some artificial sinew.
Here's the little knife now...

It's Done

The body shop called last night and my truck is done. I will pick it up this afternoon on the way to an evening of very little work.
This weekend I will begin working on a house my mother owns. It is the house I grew up in and my sister and her family now live there. They had a small fire a couple of weeks ago. Between the fire, the smoke and the water damage there was a lot of work to do. Then the contractor that the insurance agency recommended did a lot of shoddy, substandard work. I will try to make things right and get a bunch of stuff the insurance company requires to be done before the claim is settled.
How does this sound for a contractor? When the dumpster was filled up he did not contact the insurance company and request a second one so the debris just accumulated. The painter was drinking on the job, the "plumber told us that he just went to class the night before and learned how to move a water line and someone else took the test for him. The GC convinced my mother to use OSB to save some money and now it is costing her hundreds of dollars more. And he cannot explain why. He cannot explain why it costs over five hundred dollars to cut a water heater loose and take it out side. He thinks a hole in the wall that shows daylight and flows air and is next to some waterlines is just fine. If you live in a cold zone you know this is a recipe for frozen, burst water lines. Oh and here is one of the best, the gas line to the new water heater is surface mounted and crosses the wall at a diagonal. And he thinks that's fine. Mom paid for a bunch of plywood and there were several sheets left over. Those have disappeared and a bunch of remnants showed up. Mom has fired him obviously but I sure hope he shows up while I'm there. I cannot stand folks that call themselves contractors, remodelers or home improvement companies when in fact all they are is scam artists that haven't the slightest clue about what it takes to be a craftsman.
On another note, I sure hate to turn in the Volkswagen Passat I've been driving. I give it high marks for comfort, gas mileage, braking and performance. It looks pretty good to.

The Next Whammy

So the love of my life walked out on me, my Father died, the ex got my house, I'm paying for things that she has and I don't, a tree banged up my truck, now the bastion if home improvement, my employer is cutting my hours. What a year this has been. I work part time for Home Depot. I have been getting 24-27 hours a week which lets me pay my bills. I printed off my schedule last night and this coming week I am scheduled for 20 hours and the next week I'm scheduled for 15 freaking hours of work. What is their saying? More savings, more doing, that's the power of home depot. Well if you work for them there isn't any saving. In addition to short hours, the hours you do get jump around all over the place, mornings, mid-day, closing. That in itself makes it very hard to get another part time job. And I don't care what BHO says, jobs in this area are very hard to find and get. Especially if you are graying and limping.
   The situation at work is very irritating, I have more accumulated knowledge than 99 percent of the folks at this store. You pull me out of my department and plunk me into any other except for paint(color blindness) and appliances and I can do the job. Co-workers and customers are amazed at the depth of my knowledge. HD keeps teasing me with lines like, "if full time was offered to you would you take it?" Yet the actual offer has never been made. I have outstanding customer service and will do what ever is asked of me and then some. I am usually a see it do it kind of guy but at this place that will get you in trouble. We are left with a weekly work list and will get in a crack if it is not done, yet we are only allowed to do any of the work list or shelf maintenance the first and last two hours of the day. Needless to say, I stayed up late last night scouring the job boards for gainful employment. I am racking my brain for a home based business I can do to earn some cash. I do have a few ideas but they all require a varying amounts of start up funds. And there are no start up funds in my budget. This is getting very wearisome.

Wham! Boom, Crash!

I don't know what I've done to piss of the guy upstairs but I'm really getting tired of the hits to my life, soul, spirit and wallet. Yesterday I walked down the street to my mother and step fathers house. I had not been there 5 minutes when one of my neighbors came down and told me a tree had fallen on my truck. Well, thankfully it wasn't a tree just a 20 foot limb. It was over 8 inches in diameter and fell from a height of 30 feet. If I had parked a little more squarely in the lot It would have landed on the cab. Here is the bitch, I was trying to be nice to my electrical contractor and let him park in my paved covered driveway so he would be close to the work and have his tools covered. So much for being a nice guy.

The truck is at the body shop, I'm in a rental and we'll see how this latest scenario shakes out. I must say though, the Volkswagen Passat I'm driving is very nice. It has crazy good brakes and this car really moves out. It makes me realize how tired my truck is.

WTF?

My shift a work this evening started with my boss telling that the HR lady had to speak with me yesterday about WORKING during the all day sales event. What all day sales event, I've never even heard that phrase, I said and then told him that story was very interesting as I did not work yesterday! He stammered and said well it might have been another day. In my days of management you had to have you ducks in a row when you counseled someone and that included having the date correct for the supposed infraction. Huh, the infraction of working! Needless to say, My pressure vent was close to popping and he knew it. He suggested I take few minutes in the break room. So believe it or not I got in trouble for doing what I was supposed to be doing. That's two times in one week. In the other instance I had to catch up on a shit load of online training. Bossman ordered me to have it done by a certain day. So I bust my hump and get it done, then he tells me another manager complained that I was disappearing from my department! This is what life is like at Home Depot. Thankfully, I had two customers that made my a day quite a bit better and one outstanding coworker that really brightened my evening, Thanks Fabi! The job search is going into high gear.

I Like Knives

I like knives. I really do. It's possible I might have every knife I ever bought, traded for, was given or found. That being said, in this recent move there are a couple that I have yet to find. But I will find them rest assured. I do want to modify my opening statement. My house was broken into once long ago and a significant number of automatic knives were removed from my possession. I replaced them with a lesser amount of better blades.

Take a look for your self.
This is the gang...

The roll of folders and a few others...

 

 

 Some fixed blades and folders. the large double edged knife in the center is one I made when I was 14 or 15.Made of unknown quality of stainless with walnut from a civil war plantation house. Next to it is a large one I made from a cross cut saw blade, with purpleheart wood and silver pins. Above them is a green river knife that I put water buffalo horn scales on. Miscellaneous others too.

 

Here are some Harley Davidson knives by United, these have cryogenically treated blades and are SHARP. Some SOG knives and Cold Steel offerings too. Gerber knives and mulitools too. Top left is a Mel Pardue auto and a couple of Rob Dalton autos as well

Here are the Italians. Direct from the old country. What a shock I had when I had to replace the Italians that were stolen. I bought the originals from the A B Coltiere factory for six to 13 dollars each. Shipped in a tidy bundle labeled as BOOKS. Fast forward to the infamous day and the new ones direct from Italy were twenty-five to seventy dollars each. OUCH!

 

 

Here are the autos. Five Italians, One MicroTech, the Benchmade Mel Pardue, A ProTech Godfather and two Daltons.

Here are the ones I have made. From the top, the stainless double edge I made as a teenager, then a camp knife made from the steel from a cross cut saw blade and finally a patch knife made from cross cut steel and white tail antler tine with gimping and silver pins.

In my hunting fanny pack there is a Cold Steel Master hunter and a Gerber folding saw. MIA from the move is a Buck 120. I think that's it. I think.

Images From The Past

I did a little digging around and found a couple of pictures of my great, great, great Uncle John McCorkle. He, his brother Jebez and his brother in law T.B. Harris all rode with Captain William Quantrill and the Missouri Partisan Rangers during the War of Northern Aggression. Supposedly Uncle John would not cut his hair or beard until the war was over but I have not found a picture like that. Imagine this, a long haired, long bearded man dressed filthy filthy clothes, wearing a slouch hat with 2-6 pistols stuck in his belt and pockets and a steel eyed countenance knocking on your door in the dark of the night asking for dinner or food for his horse. That's how the Rangers got by, well that and some "foraging".  Any thing to get by. And mostly the good folks in Missouri supported them. Supported them with food, shelter, information and moral support.

Here's John McCorkle

 

 

 

 

 John McCorkle ( L) and B-I-L T.B. Harris (R)

 

 

Note those knee high cavalry boots and looking closely you can see pistol butts too.
I get a kick out of looking at pictures from my past, imagining what those folks had to live through, what they had to do to live. I find it fascinating stuff.

My Flags

In light of current politics, Liberal quotes and general asshattery, various blogger and news reports of the government shut down being the result of Tea Bag politician, Republicans and Conservatives in general I am posting some of my flags. I do this in case readers haven't figured out what side of the line my politics fall on. So, here are some of my flags....

The Tea Bag

The Confederate Battle Flag or the Southern Cross

 

 

 The Missouri Battle Flag (Civil War era)

 

 

 The Missouri State Guard Flag (circa 1861)

 

The Missouri State Flag (current)

 

 

These above all others.

Cover Thine Head

On my to supper today I spotted a young woman of color walking along the road. Wearing a very form fitting red top with long sleeves and a pair of white skin tight pants. Now these clothes accentuated the remarkable tits and fine ass she possessed. It's a good thing she had that white scarf wrapped around her head so I wouldn't get aroused at her appearance and have unclean thoughts. WTF? Seriously do those rag wearing folks of the desert tribes really think covering the head of a woman is going to stop impure thoughts by men?

There IS a Difference

Coming from a construction background, there is one thing that really aggravates me. That is the way folks use the terms track hoe and back hoe interchangeably.
Trackhoes have, well they have tracks and the hoe is in front. Backhoes have tires and the hoe is in back, hence BACK hoe. They usually have a bucket in the front.

 This is a track hoe...note the tracks. And the big freakin' bucket and arm or dipper in front. On a trackhoe the house rotates or spins to place the bucket where it is needed or to move the load where it is needed.





This is a backhoe... note the tires and the hoe in BACK. Notice the difference? On a backhoe the arm pivots from side to side to move the load or get the bucket where it is needed. Call me picky but...

A Walk In the Past

Today my step-father took me on a short driving tour of a Civil War battle field/site here in Kansas City called the Battle of Westport. We looked at several monuments and bronze placards that told the story of this fight. It is a really interesting site but needs to be developed a little further. For instance on of the markers, complete with a period correct Napolean cannon is on the grounds of the Kansas City Water Department. We walked on the grounds wear my state bretheren, on both sides shed their blood. It was a very thought provoking trip. After the battlefield we went to a nearby cemetery that has a section dedicated to the Confederate soldiers of many states that gave their lives in this battle. Here are some of the very interesting head stones I looked at today.

 The three pictures above are the Confederate memorial to all the soldiers that died at the Battle of Westport. It is topped by the stone rebel. The whole thing is over 20 feet tall.

 Yes, General Joe Shelby is buried here too. With his family around him.

 Somebody has a long memory. And a little bit of a grudge too.

 One of our honorable state leaders.

 This is the back side of Waldo Johnsons monument. It's a massive piece.

 These flags adorn the markers of all the soldiers graves. We found a few tombstones the someone had tried to chip away the Confederate flag. Truly sad.

These gents rode with my, lets see, my great, great possibly three times great uncle. The design at top center of the stones is also found on the top center of Quantrills tombstone in Higginsville. I'm going to try and find out what it means.

All in all it was a very moving day for me. Walking the grounds where people of my ilk fought and died and then looking at the graves of many of them brought many thoughts to my mind.

More info here and here. This a very good site with a ton of pictures.

Family Ties

Here's how my family rolls, I have historical cousins that rode with...Quantrill. Yep, THAT William Quantrill, one of the original bad boys of terrorism, murder and mayhem back in the 60's. The 1860's that is.
Here's the Wiki on him.

Here's one of his tombstones, this one in the Confederate Cemetery in Higginsville Missouri. This grave contains recovered stolen bones!



His group was responsible for the sacking of Lawrence Kansas and other towns and farms. He copied the tactics of the Native Americans and introduced guerilla warfare to the Civil War or rather the War of Northern Aggression. Two of his disciples are rather well know, Frank and Jesse James.

Here is another write up about this particular devil.

I don't agree with all of Bill's actions but we can learn from his tactics.
 After 5 years of warfare on the Missouri/Kansas border before the actual start of the War, Kansas and Missourians were well versed the fine art of death.
For more information on the interstate warfare that went on during 1854 to 1865 period find a copy of Jay Monaghan's book " Civil War on the Western Border 1854 to 1865". Read this book and see how many names you recognize, men that cut their military teeth on the Missouri/Kansas border war.



Here are some links to the Confederate Cemetery and Memorial in Missouri.

http://www.civilwaralbum.com/misc4/higginsville1.htm

http://mostateparks.com/park/confederate-memorial-state-historic-site

http://lafayette.mogenweb.org/cemetery/higgconf.html

http://higginsvillechamber.org/memorial.aspx

Here is a nice article.. http://www.richmond-dailynews.com/2013/05/higginsvilles-confederate-home-cemetery-has-strong-ray-ties/
Indecently this is the only state park in Missouri where it is legal to fly the Confederate Flag officially and that only came around a few years ago.

Another Life

Today I write this from my new house and write as a single man with no marital obligations. Bright and early this morning I made an appearance in divorce court. Very quick, entirely too quick for the dissolution of a 30 year union, 15 minutes, a couple of signatures and its over. Well, now that it is over I start my new life. I'm living in a city I said I would never live in, using services I said I would never use and putting prepping and such on the back burner due to lack of space. I'm trying to fit 25 gallons of crap into a 5 gallon bucket here.
   I will work on organizing this chaotic mess, get my finances in order, let my heart heal a little and decide whether I can trust a woman again. So onward and forward. Oh yeah, today I picked up an application for a new job at a hardware store. So maybe there will be changes on that front too!

Kansas City, Kansas City Here I Come

Today I started packing for the next phase in my life. Damn I have a lot of kitchen stuff. That's what got packed today. A little every day and it will be done. Thankfully a lot of my stuff is already in boxes of one kind or another. I also got all my bullets, powder and primers boxed up. For the first time in my life I will be living in a major city. This may be the thing that lets me get ahead spiritually and financially.
In addition to the house, I found that the city has a program where they clean up crappy property and offer it to neighboring people at a dirt cheap rate. This house has a vacant lot next to it that the city owns and after I get my utilities turned on and pass a background check I can buy this 1500 square foot lot for the astounding sum of, wait for it, Seventy Five Dollars! That's right 75 bucks. Big enough I can put in a nice garden and later build a good size shed/garage at the back of the lot. Even though I have always said I would never live in a big city this may be a very good deal. Pictures to come!

Mr. Short Stuff

I have written about this before, but our gun laws are ignorant. They were written simply to keep guns out of the hands of the innocent. My pet peeve is the issue of short barreled shotguns. Well actually my pet peeve is all gun laws but the issue of these shortened shotties is particularly offensive. If a person were to create a short barrel shot gun that person would be liable for a shitload of years in a federal institution. If a shot gun manufacturer takes a shot gun receiver and stamps it pistol and then assembles it with oh, say a 12 inch barrel and a pistol grip, in the eyes of the law it is probably legal. Or a person can get the proper forms filled out, jump through the hoops , pay the tax and build or buy a shorty. Yet today we have the most powerful handguns ever made and a person can carry one of them under their coat with a concealed carry permit. If a law enforcement type checks that person out and they have a .460 Ruger  in a shoulder holster they might question the choice of carry gun but nothing will happen. Put a shot gun of the same physical dimension in a shoulder holster and let the same law enforcement type check you out and you will be thrown to the ground, held under gun point, arrested, questioned till the cows come home and finally imprisoned for 10 years. WTF?  Here are some of those little guys now...

Here's a video of what one of these items can do, turns out they are not simply the short range gun they have always been type cast as.