Remembering wierd stuff.

Over the past 5 years, I've paid more attention to my brain than I have at any other time in my life. To me, it's pretty easy to understand how anyone that had brain surgery, to remove a malignant tumor the size of a golf ball, would want to do that.

The fact that they had to remove part of my right temporal lobe has also influenced those thoughts but the bottom line is this; I've had so many conversations with friends and family about it that I've almost become enamored with the thoughts of the things that are still in my head.

I remember going to South Texas in 2007 and ending up on a cattle ranch to check a friend's herd. Buzzards had been attacking the new born calves and the owner was bound and determined to shoot every one of them on sight. As one of the new born calves was still being licked by his momma, the buzzards were circling. Everybody picked up their rifles and prepared to shoot as they landed.

As is true with a lot of real serious shooters, bets were made. When all the smack talk was over, Chance steadied his rifle on the hood of a pick up truck and claimed that he was about to shoot the head off the first one that landed. To me, because of the distance, it was an impossible shot but he was so confident that he could make it, Vic, Justin and Troy decided to let him shoot first.

The buzzard landed and when he stopped briefly, to determine his best approach to attack the calf, Chance took his shot and the buzzard's head exploded. At that point, as the buzzard was still flopping around on the ground, the crowd went wild. I don't remember who said it but when the shot was made and the buzzard's head blew up somebody said: "When the shit hits the fan, I'm coming to your house".

At that point in time, there began much discussion about the political campaign that was underway and the thoughts about immigration that was having such a large impact on Texas. Despite my error in predicting the outcome of the election, the guys wanted to know my thoughts about immigration, the eventual effects of it, the number of terrorists that came with that and how we would deal with it if the authorities didn't.

Even though we had already experienced the attack on the World Trade Center, other attempts to attack us had not yet been made. There were some additional plots that had been foiled through good intelligence reports and some fine work by our security snoops. Plots to blow up the Sears Tower and other places were made known to the public and this group of Texans didn't like the sound of any of it.

They asked my thoughts on the matter and I told them to begin reading and learning as much as they could about the history of terrorists. I had already done my fair share of study and knew as much or more than the every day guy on the street and I was more than glad to share stories of Genghis Khan, the Ottoman Empire and the never ending hatred of the Jews by Muslims and the Hitler loving Nazi Party as well as the hatred of Christians by the Muslims.

I went on to explain the thing things that would happen IF we didn't do anything about it. It wasn't a crystal ball thing as all I had to do was recount the history of such things. Sure enough, 7 years later, here I am considering the accuracy of those predictions and how simple it was to outline them.

Having said that, I must give credit to the thought process I learned in the late 60's when a master tactician told me repeatedly to "Pay Attention To Detail". Thanks Bernie. I did that and having done so, I know what's coming and what we will have to do to undo it. I'm feeling pretty good about all that and especially good that I can use humor to explain how I managed to pull that off with half a brain. I told the Chief of Staff for Neuro surgery that I bought a $200.00 brain implant from Sam's when I was on the way to Houston for the brain surgery and, having them install it after they removed part of mine, I was smarter now than then.

To all my buddies in Texas and elsewhere, let me say, get ready. Don't worry, you won't need a hunting license .