We’re gearing up for Thanksgiving here at Wayfarer’s Refuge. Looks like we’ll have seventeen people, give or take. I’m smoking a turkey, Number Two Son is doing a ham, and everyone else is helping with the food. It’ll be fun.
En Garde
I mentioned last week that I finally broke down and ordered my own gear from Blue Gauntlet. I’d been getting by with the loaner gear from the club, but only just so. The jacket I was wearing was a 56, and I needed a 52, for example. That doesn’t sound like a big size difference, but the sleeves were so bulky that I couldn’t properly close the glove around my wrist.
BG has a number of starter sets, which is the route I went. The basic foil starter set goes for $152 plus shipping, but my jacket was oversized, plus I chose a front-zip jacket. The basic one is a rear zipper, and I’m just not that flexible. I also chose a Belgian grip for my weapon. Their grips are relatively inexpensive in case I decide I want to try a different one. I also upgraded the mask.
All of the extras pushed my price to just over $182, and shipping ran $20.
I ordered it on the 13th and it arrived on the 19th. I admit I chuckled over the “Fragile” label on the box.
I’m pretty happy with how everything fits. I might have been better off with a size 53 jacket, but they don’t have odd sizes, and I think the 54 would be too much in the sleeves, so I’m sticking with what I’ve got. At this point, it’s just a matter of breaking everything in. That, and figuring out what kind of training gear I want to add around the house. Turns out Amazon has quite a selection of gear, too.
Passings
I didn’t mention it last week because I was still processing things to some extent, but I lost two people in my circle of friends a week ago.
I’d never met Jeff Asbury in person, but I talked with him plenty of times back when I worked with Ohioans For Concealed Carry. We connected on Facebook and stayed in touch in that vaguely connected way you do sometimes. We’d occasionally comment on each other’s posts and wish each other a Happy Birthday. I appreciated his insight on our common topics. He was a man of service, to his family and to his community. He died 14 November, apparently very unexpectedly. I wish his family and friends grace and peace.
Jared Miller was a fellow veteran fighting that insidious bastard, cancer. We met ten or so years ago when his wife and kids came to a few of our church services in a local park, back when Diana planted Freedom Fellowship. He was an Animal Control Officer for the local city and was well thought of. The cancer finally beat him 13 November. His family got some beautiful matching tattoos in tribute.
Then this week I lost another friend, a coworker from my funeral escort days.
Lynn Blackburn taught me so much about how to be a funeral escort. He emphasized that it wasn’t just about riding a motorcycle fast. It was about when to ride fast and when to ride slow. It was about choosing the safest path around the procession and through intersections.
More importantly, it was about serving the family and the funeral home. Helping get the church truck ready as the procession arrived at a church. Starting the limo ahead of time and adjusting the climate controls. Carrying flowers out to the van or hearse.
Saluting a veteran’s flag-draped casket as it’s loaded into the hearse.
Waving to the kids in the procession.
Tipping your helmet to drivers who made room for the procession.
He was my trainer for the first week at Police Motorcycle Escort. Our first day together, he showed me the route to Greenlawn Cemetery, and as he went to turn right from Greenlawn Avenue to 71 Northbound, I tried to go straight. He hit the brakes hard in some gravel and ended up dumping his bike, scraping the daylights out of his arm. The rest of our time riding together, I always greeted him with, “How’s the arm?”
Just a few weeks later, after I’d started running services on my own, I took a service to a church on the far north side of Columbus—maybe St. Peter Catholic Church—and only had a dozen or so cars.
But as we lined up after the service, I suddenly had 50 or so cars, and we were going to St Joseph Cemetery on the South Side. That was a lot of cars for one guy to haul, and it was a 25-mile trip through some ugly freeway interchanges. We’d have to take 315 to 71 to 270, and that was a mess back in 2001. Denny, my boss, vectored Lynn over to me and he picked us up around 315 and 270, talking to me the whole time, keeping me calm and guiding me through lane changes.
Lynn served in the Air Force and worked for Delphi for years, and Eastern Airlines before that, I think. Somewhere along the line, he became a reserve sheriff’s deputy and co-founded Police Motorcycle Escort with Denny. Lynn retired from PME during some of the political warfare between FCSO and PME, but still hung around the funeral industry, driving hearses and limos for Capital Support.
We stayed in touch for a while, trading emails back when that was how you shared memes. We drifted apart after I resigned from PME.
Lynn was good people.
Pacing the Cage
I got a freebie from Planet Fitness for my birthday that I turned into a free 90-day trial at SiriusXM, and I’ve been streaming it at home as much as in the car.
No great surprise, but Radio Margaritaville gets a lot of playtime.
I’m fond of sharing one of Jimmy’s comments from the 1978 album, You Had to Be There. He said he doesn’t listen to the old stuff unless he’s out on his boat, and “There’s some good shit back there.” That’s one of the things I love about Radio Margaritaville. I find that good shit that I haven’t heard before because I quit buying his albums. I listened more to Pandora, but Pandora’s algorithm doesn’t play the really good stuff that’s buried on various albums.
I found one of those songs the other day.
It’s a cover; Bruce Cockburn released the original as part of his 1997 album, The Charity of Night. He said of Buffett’s cover, “Buffet’s version of the song to me is so respectful that it almost suffers from that.”
The lyrics are just haunting.
I’ll leave you with Jimmy’s version from Beach House on The Moon. Have a good week, and Happy Thanksgiving to those who celebrate.
Thanks for reading. Feel free to share a thought in the comments. Sign up for my infrequent newsletter here. Find some of my other writing at The Good Men Project, too. Subscribe to the blog via the link in the right sidebar or follow it on Mastodon. You can also add my RSS feed to your favorite reader.
Share your thoughts!