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Boomer’s Sunday

Boomer’s Sunday

Weekend Open Thread: You Want Gun Pr0n? I Got Yer Gun Pr0n Right Here!

49 thoughts on “Happy Holidays to All… Take care of yourselves”

    1. She ran off with a biker 36 years ago on Christmas eve and is now all alone
      in Daytona Beach and on probabation until May of next year.
      The biker OD’d on coke 10 years ago as he was facing a prison
      term for dealing the shit.
      Each Christmas I cry when I hear the song “baby won’t you please come home for Christmas”
      She ain’t coming home and if you are reading this baby…you know who you are.

  4. Nice. Very nice. Thanks, Dave.

    Merry Christmas, Happy Holidays, Feliz Navidad, and Happy Whatever-Floats-Your Boat.

    Peace to all.

  5. I try. I finally felt like putting up the tree for the first time in three years. I’m still debating the outdoor stuff. I’ll be visiting my daughter and granddaughter for Christmas Eve.

  7. Sun of Beach! Mother Flowers!
    Right in the feels.
    Alright, you got me (we?).
    Happy Holidays, Merry Christmas!
    May all your gatherings be warm and full of cheer.
    Now back to your regularly scheduled drinking.

  9. Well now, that brought tears to my eyes. At least partially because I have grandchildren across the continent from me

    Name edited to protect PII.
    AW1

  11. Darn you, Dave, for making an old man cry. That was beautiful.

    The best of the holiday season to you and the Soviet, Dave. All the best.

    I never decorate for Christmas; I live alone so what’s the point? But I’m going to spend Christmas Eve with my daughter and grandkids. There’s hope for the old Commish yet.

    1. “I never decorate for Christmas”

      Buy a string of battery operated Christmas tree lights and
      adorn a tiny tree along a lonely roadside somewhere.
      Preferably off in the woods a bit.

      1. You know, Beans, that’s not a bad idea at all.

        Thanks for the suggestion! I may just do that.

  14. Saw Dave’s video yesterday… got real dusty at the house. Very moving.

    Merry Christmas to you and the Soviet, Dave

  15. Guess it’s time to change those filters again. Damn all of this fur baby dander in here.

    Dave, for our sakes, we do hope that Santy Claws brings you a new robe for Christmas.

  17. Merry Christmas too all. We all need a little more kindest in our hearts. Love one another a little more. Stop the hating and pray for each other.

    Name edited to protect PII.
    AW1

  18. Merry Christmas to all of you, Happy Hanukah to those from the seed of Abraham.

    Like most things in this world, for those with some treadwear on the tires, this Season has a blend of joy and sadness and melancholy and peace. May the joy and peace help you endure the sad and lonely feelings.

    Take care of yourselves, y’hear?

  20. This is a long one, but too many of you lovable, curmudgeons of all ages here at TAH have struck a deep nerve. This is an issue that had existed, yes, thankfully past tense, in several generations of my own family. I thank God, Mary, All the Saints, the Trees, Odin and the Universe that sentence is past tense. I am truly one of the lucky ones that the understandings below came for me and mine before the headstones were engraved.

    So, in the spirit of Christmas, the only aspect I celebrate any longer, I offer to you deplorable cusses the wisdom I was fortunate to be given. Sometimes, others need to hear this from other than the one from whom they are distanced. I sincerely hope these words help bridge the distances in your lives and you find peace together.
    ————
    There are few, very few, valid reasons for an adult child to permanently cut off contact with a parent. So why does it happen so often?

    Well, it’s not about forgiveness, not to me. I don’t even like that word.

    I don’t believe in forgiveness as most describe it, or more correctly stated, act on it. In fact, I’m not sure exactly what real forgiveness is supposed to mean, based on how so many demonstrate what they call forgiveness.

    We’re told that holding onto things hurts us, and for this reason we should forgive others. When someone tells us they forgave someone else, that they told the other person they are forgiven, we are to believe it is a selfless act. It’s said that when you tell someone else you forgive them for their bad behavior, for hurting you, for not being who you wanted or needed them to be, it is somehow liberating, even virtuous.

    I call bullshit.

    Telling someone else you forgive them is all about you. It is virtue signaling. You are saying you’re so much better of a person that despite their bad behavior, you hold no ill will towards them. It is saying that person is so far beneath you, so much less than you, so insignificant that even if they do something truly heinous to you, it does not matter to your existence. This is how too many view, and act on, what they consider forgiveness.

    I suggest something else, a different way to consider forgiveness, a different way to act on it.

    Forgiving someone, to me, means recognizing that most people do and say things because it is what they know. Or don’t know. Parents do want what is best, however they define that, for their kids. It is kids who are the selfish and self-centered ones. And that is okay, that is what kids are supposed to be. Becoming more than selfish and self-centered is the primary task of growing up.

    Parents don’t want to hurt, disappoint, shame or anger their kids as their true, primary motive. Kids – particularly in the teenage and young adult years – often do want their parents to feel those things. Growing up means getting beyond that, but we need to remember kids’ motives are almost always from a place of feeling disconnected, misunderstood, etc. In other words, feeling the things teenagers and young adults feel and grapple with as part of figuring out who they are, who they want to be, and who they don’t want to become. This is their motivation for wanting to inflict those things on their parents.

    The problem is, too many kids get stuck in this place, become frozen in this time. In the most basic ways, they never actually become autonomous, self-directed, self-defined adults. They may not repeat the exact same behaviors as their parents, they may even become the exact opposite, but they are still being reactionary teenagers.

    How we change this is a long, involved and deep conversation. Why we – individually and collectively – must change this is pretty simple.

    There is going to come a day when the child that is filled with resentment and anger for whatever the parent did or did not do is going to be all alone with those feelings. There is going to come a time when all they will have left are those feelings, with no chance of resolution, no chance to discover there may be another narrative of which they are completely unaware. There is going to come a time when they will be sentenced to a life of regret. Regrets are the worst consequence of life, and the hardest burden to bear.

    If your parent is not sufficiently self-aware, not emotionally evolved enough to face their own failings for you to get satisfactory resolution, then it is on you. But, before you determine that the problem is in your parent, ask yourself, “Will resolution, repair, whatever, be defined by my feeling validated and recognized, by their admission of wrongdoing?” Be very careful in your answer. Holding on to that definition plants the seeds for the worst type of regret of all – the failure to see and accept someone for who they are, the exact thing you feel you’re not getting from them.

    To me, forgiveness of a parent looks like this – recognition they did what they knew with what they had.

    Parents did not create your life to make you miserable. They had hopes and dreams and wants and needs that may have been just as unfulfilled as yours, they had no idea how to fulfill or they failed to recognize needed to be fulfilled. Even if they never acknowledge their mistakes, don’t let their inability to do so prevent you from avoiding this biggest, permanent mistake … the mistake that leads to unresolvable regret.

    This is the biggest regret, the one that creates the unbearable burden, the one that causes old men to weep. Holding on to the blame, responsibility, anger, shame, humiliation, whatever, that you had the chance to address or just let go and didn’t can be an uncorrectable mistake. You are not responsible for avoiding this mistake, for preventing this mistake you didn’t recognize, didn’t foresee, didn’t realize existed. But now you know.

    Fix it while you can. Don’t become the old man weeping alone. No matter what your parents did or didn’t do to or for you, if you don’t grow up and see your parents as fully human and fully flawed, this is your future. The day will come when you realize this simple truth, this understanding of why old men weep.

    I hope and pray your day of realization doesn’t come after the headstone has been inscribed. The regrets the dead carried to their graves are buried with them. Then, your prediction that your parent really doesn’t care will be fulfilled. Because the dead don’t care. Caring is for the living. Live.

  21. Merry Christmas, Happy Hanukkah, Joyous Festivus and Happy New Year to all of the Fine people of TAH®™!

    1. I thought it was Merry Festivus? Oh, well, Merry Christmas, Happy Hanukkah, Happy New Year and Merry Festivus to all of you.

  23. I am going to break into this thread and be way off topic. I have not seen this on this blog and did not see it in the weekend thread. If so, I apologize.

    On Friday, the U.S. Army Court of Criminal Appeals upheld the conviction of Major Nidal M. Hasan, the Fort Hood shooter.

    (I am using his rank as that is what is on the decision.)

    You can read the decision here if you like:

    https://www.jagcnet.army.mil/Apps/ACCAOpinions/ACCAOpinions.nsf/ODD/81738150081BE81D8525863B00743D50/$FILE/oc-hasan,%20nm.pdf

    The bottom line is Hasan’s death penalty was upheld and may proceed.

    3. Great. I’ll likely only be about 100 when they finally put him to sleep like a sick dog. Personally, I would like to see him put to death like his beloved religion prescribes: lop off his head with a large sword. Or, better yet, Iranian style, with a crane.

      1. Dull hacksaw lubed with battery acid.
        Slow cut around the periphery avoiding any
        large blood vessels. Occasional wound irrigation
        with alcohol and then salt the wound to slow the bleeding.
        Wear a mask to prevent infection.

        1. Remember when the Iranians hang someone, the condemned is slowly strangled to death as the crane lifts them off the ground. I think that is sufficiently cruel, but would likely cause the Supremes to intervene by claiming it is “cruel and unusual,” as banned by the VIIIth amendment. Your solution is fine with me, but would never happen either. I think it would be sweet if the feds sent him to Utah, so we could hang him or shoot him. I would volunteer for the firing squad.

  24. I’m not going to pile on with all thie teary shit I;ve seen more than,

    Hi Dave, It’s nice to see you posting.
    Be well and your lovely wife and Merry Christmas and all that fancy shit too.

    Chip.

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