Carolina Day

Other than relatively short time spans that are simply portions of our lives, we really don’t have that much of a concept of time.

Outside of people who really love history and can mentally picture the differences between time periods, most people don’t really process much of a difference between things that happened 100 years ago, and 200 or 300. 

But here you are commemorating your last year before turning old. You were thinking about that just the other day when examining career status, what you’re gonna do, etc. A lot of rapid development. What you’ve built your professional life on are things like data entry, and bookkeeping – literally the two fields AI we are going to gobble up first. You had a bit of a panic. What were you gonna do?

Until you realized the question was actually “what are you gonna do for the next 20 years?” A bit depressing. You still think of yourself as being in your mid-30s. Like you’re still a lifetime away from retirement, with over half your life still being ahead of you. Guess that comes from being an optimist at heart who never got married, had kids, etc.

The construction gigs have made you feel so much younger. You definitely feel your age in your aching body when you’re on them. But then you realize just how much you physically accomplished and seeing the other guys who are in amazing shape in their mid 30s gritting their teeth as they work and you realize you’re keeping up with them.

And when you get back, and the lower back finally recovers… wow. You feel stronger than ever. You didn’t lift weights in high school or college, so realistically, you might actually be stronger now. 😂 

Throw in that you’re sticking to this carnivore diet and you’re actually finally losing weight… wow. Today you hit the 15 pound point – which means going bowling, and using a 15 pound ball just so you can feel tangibly what your knees are no longer having to carry. An idea you came up with long ago. Actually an original one for once.😂

But good health or bad health, you can mentally process what up to 40 year time spans are. And since you love history and you *can* mentally processed the differences the differences between 100, 200, or 300 years ago… here you are celebrating the semiquincentennial anniversary of Carolina Day.

250 years ago, the legend of the Palmetto tree was born at manning an unfinished fort took on a superpower and won. The spongy palmetto log walls didn’t shatter under British Cannon fire. The cannonballs either bounced off or embedded themselves into the logs, making them even stronger.

They did succeed in knocking down the South Carolina flag, until pissed off Sergeant William Jasper had enough of that, picked it up, attached to a makeshift pole, climbed up on the wall while being exposed to murderous gunfire with courage, patriotism, pure spite or some combination of the three, and nailed it back up.

The British couldn’t break the fort’s walls, but the unfinished side was unprotected. British admiral Parker sent three frigates – Sphinx, Syren, and Actaeon – to sail around to the unprotected flank only to be stopped by the hand of God Himself (God decides where sandbars are 😂). All three ran aground, and they lost the Actaeon. 

Chain shot from the defenses rained down on the invaders, even wounding Parker, slightly physically, but more badly to his ego when the shot shredded his pants and he had to command with his ass exposed. The invaders stayed long enough to lose a little bit more and eventually fled back to occupied New York.

The Declaration of Independence was signed the next week. No source says word reached them in time of the victory at Charles Town, but an AI query holds that it actually was physically possible given increasingly unlikely factors – and that’s all you need to be able to claim with absolute certainty that the victory at Fort Moultrie inspired the founding fathers to sign the Declaration of Independence. Therefore it’s obvious that Charleston invented America. History just missed that detail.😂

Absolute proof. 😁

Sure, the British would take Charles Town four years later after invading Savannah because Sergeant Jasper wasn’t there to save the weak Georgians’ bacon, then marching up the coast and besieging the city for months. The war continued into what Cornwallis would call the “hornets nest” of fighting all across the rest of South Carolina as the Swamp Fox Francis Marion relentlessly destroy destroyed British supply lines and American armies led Cornwallis on debilitative wild goose chases.

After Bastard Tarleton got a pinch of what he deserved at the Battle of Cowpens at the hands of frontier brawler Daniel Morgan, the redcoats just up and fled northward, unable to hold anything but Charles Town. They finally left in 1782 when the Fighting Quaker General Nathaniel Greene escorted them out and gave them a Moultrie flag as a souvenir after Yorktown.

Aside from the tiny chance that word of Fort Moultrie didn’t get to Philadelphia in time to inspire the signing of the Declaration of Independence, all of that happened. All of it. And it happened here. The men and women of Charleston aren’t different as compared to the rest of the world today then they were then, aside from less farmers and more software engineers. But they were normal people. Normal men in South Carolina chose to protect their homes. Normal women stepped up to take charge of their homes and farms to make sure they were well-supplied and fed.

None of that is unique to the Holy City. 

It happened all across all 13 colonies. It happened in every country that has ever been attacked. Normal people rose up to fight for their homes. Half the time they fail, but the dynamics of the requirements for invasions always make them feel like the underdog. 

The American Revolution was miraculous. The more one studies it, more shocking it is that the Patriots won… at least at that point. America even then was too different from the rest of the world – even the British empire – to remain mere colonies on the eastern seaboard. War after war would have eventually transpired every few decades given the American spirit embodied in men like Sergeant Jasper. 

But never with the fervor and tenacity of the Patriots during that six years. Never in a manner that benefited the American dream. The desire to be citizens and not subjects. For every man and woman to be Lord and Lady of their own castles, to own the fruits of their own labor, to have public servants, not government masters.

Sure, current America has fallen far from these ideals, just as Jefferson said it would. We have our problems, but then so does pretty much every nation..

Reasonable people can’t compare modern America to Utopia; they must compare America to other countries. And what we have here is special and always will be. A country not founded upon ethnicity or geography, but upon the value of individual liberty in a federal republic with many states run many different ways, so all may be a free as they wish in their own paradise.

Reality may be what it is, but the blueprints are as well, as are the directions the founders gave us.

Your paradise is Heaven. Making your way Home the meaning of your life lesser until you have your own family. Then your meeting includes them too.

But while you’re here? South Carolina is a wonderful place to be from. As long as the Holy Spirit is in your heart, you can be happy living anywhere. And for the sake of a loved one, you would, and be just fine.

But if for some reason you were forbidden from putting one foot outside the borders of this state, you would be just fine until God called you Home.

So thank God for putting you here, and all of those who fought for it to be what it is.

Happy Carolina Day!

Slow Going

It can’t always be smooth sailing.

Sometimes you need storms.

Sometimes you invite them by not letting Him lead.

But the most important thing about weathering any storm begins with realizing you’re in one.

And then as always… asking for His Help to get out.

🙏🙏🙏

(Whatever this game is, it had an amazing composer.)

Dimes the World Changes On

You have literally no idea what direction you’re going. What it’s gonna lead to. Prayer lead to amazing things.

You run into an old song you hadn’t heard in six presidents and you start pumping the toes. And just like that, you feel like just going with it. Afraid of the tech? Charge it head on and learn how the darn thing works. Past was a blast, but if a ship sits still, it’s in the doldrums. That’s your life right now. Sail Forward. Doldrums suck. Run runaway.

Several days ago. Productivity has hit the roof ever since. Diet is holding strong. Weight loss is slow but steady. Dad noticed before you did.

Going boating for Memorial Day. Flame’s sis just got freshwater permit. Won’t be the ocean just yet. But you’re gonna bring a flag and a loud speaker. 😁

https://youtu.be/gMxcGaAwy-Q?si=puy38a_JAhxitxMM

Seriously, this is what celebrating winning sounds like. Go earn it. 👊😊

Praise and Thanks to God for all things that put a smile on your face, and never forget where every last one comes from. 🕊️

Alberta Finale

Three weeks total. Wasn’t the four minimum you were hoping for, but this has been great. The people here are ridiculously friendly, this tiny town is wonderfully quirky and for the most part, you always liked cooler weather.

Until you have to work outside in a foot of snow while another foot is accumulating beneath you, but not every day is Wednesday. 😂

This place actually reminds you of a cold South. Literally passing by General store just to get out of the house for a bit. 

Drumheller is about the size of Travelers Rest, SC, if it wasn’t close to Greenville. Big enough for an old school Walmart, but not enough for a Best Buy in retailspeak.

Thanks to a quirk in the schedule you have a day to rest before heading home, which has been great.

Difficult quantify how difficult the deployments have been because you’re just better conditioned than you were in 2022. But this one might have actually beaten Pennsylvania for the toughest gig you’ve had.

Working outside in the summer heat in Texas is rough whether you’re dealing with humid heat or desert heat. But freezing wind sucks the life out of you. Afternoons were better, but only when you started bringing a change of clothes since you sweated so much then the cold came right in and made a frozen shell around you otherwise.

The machines that you were fire-brigading were 50 pounds a piece and your squad moved 11,000 of them through freezing wind, terrible back pain, dangerous mud and a freak April blizzard. All to finish slightly ahead of schedule. Feels great; it really does. You went into the teeth of this place in literal subzero conditions and rocked the cas-bah so much the client asked yall to hit karaoke night with them. Roman Coles with one of your best bro coworkers was a great way to end the gig.

Wish you could be up here for months. Honestly, this place would be a great place to live. At the very least a summer home.

Even found a spot…

If you were to live up here, it’d be on a quirky place like Drumheller the dinosaur capital, and places like an actual saloon nearby for coal miners founded in 1913 lolz. 

But now, it’s time to head home.  Not sure what the immediate future holds, but that’s for next week to reveal.

Company branching into electrical; that might be worth getting into. Learning AI is a must either way. You will be carrying a torch soon enough.

It happens so fast. One song when you sit down in the plane. Cheesy, but you feel it in your veins. You’re going home. April in Charleston. The Sea calls. Gonna visit her tomorrow. Talk to Him. 

The future is up on the air in so many ways. This feeling though.☺️

You’re 49 now. But you’re still who you are and always were. Would be better if it was hymns that fired you up, but God can work with even Alestorm. Least until you grow up. 😂

Warmth. Life. Growth. Renewal. Confidence flooding your veins after kicking ass for two weeks.

First leg done. Chicago. So much more to come… ☺️

Holy City bound… 🕊️🙏💪