Storm Approaching

January storm with high winds and heavy surf approaches the beach at Gulf Shores, Alabama.

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Nuances

I like the nuances of color, and the pattern in this seashell I found on the Gulf Coast beach yesterday.

Revolver

I remember hunting whitetail deer with this .357 magnum many, many years ago. After two seasons of sitting in the snow, getting cold, bored and never seeing anything to shoot at, I gave up. Deer hunting was one of the least interesting activities in which I have ever engaged.  Retrospectly, I’m glad I never had the opportunity to kill a deer. While I’ve shot squirrels, rabbits, partridge and a few other small game animals, I never derived any great pleasure or satisfaction from the killing sports. On the other hand, I do remember some fine meals of rabbit stew, roasted partridge, and pheasant pie.

I still keep a collection of firearms, and even fire them occasionally – rarely, but only at paper targets. The cartridges in this holster belt have somewhat corroded and have over the years, undoubtedly, lost some of their explosive power. Soon, I will take them out, polish them up and replace them in those same loops, maybe tomorrow. In the meantime, the guns sit in a cabinet holding on to memories of times long past.

 

Neighborhood

Thick fog muffled outdoor sounds in the late night. No one heard the wrecker pull in and park behind the Mercedes sedan. The operator worked quickly, quietly. He jacked up the car, removed the mag alloy wheels, set the car down on cement blocks, and silently drove away.

The following day, a neighbor came home for lunch; saw the expensive, violated car sitting on blocks, knocked on his neighbors door and wondered whether anyone noticed the theft of their neighbors wheels. “What kind of neighborhood are we living in that something like this could happen?” It was near noon. He knocked on the owner’s door. She was shocked, but not entirely surprised to see her car sitting as it was.

Several months earlier, she financed the expensive wheels and tires, but failed to make payments. After many unsuccessful attempts to collect, the finance company repossessed their property.

The car owner shrugged her shoulders, “I didn’t make my payments, so they came and got ‘em. I’m getting them back, I just have to go down and make a payment.”

Dark nights still bring in thick fog, the atmosphere is still eerily quiet, and there is no vigilante group to keep watch for furtive thieves. The Mercedes owner has her wheels back and all is as it should be in the Deep South neighborhood.

Lost in a World of Their Own

Prairie Dusk

Mobile Bay

Mobile Bay looking southwest from Daphne, Alabama at 3:30 P.M, Dec. 10, 2018,