Blaze has Grown up

I was on the phone last night talking with my eldest daughter, Blaze. She was telling me about saving the world from the likes of people like me. You know people who drive SUVs, vote Republican, and get on our knees now and then to ask God for direction. I know you know these types; they think it’s a good idea to kick Osama in the ass before he gets another shot at us; they don’t have a hard time connecting Saddam with the terrorists of the Middle East; they believe that life is a precious commodity and not something you willy-nilly throw away because you don’t think that person deserves to live.

The two of us bantered back and forth for over an hour on a variety of topics. When I finally hung up I thought where did I miss the bus on her. She has grown to be such a joy. She has all the energy I posses, she has all the smarts you could possibly use and she is one of the prettiest women I have ever known. She’s an acorn off the old tree, but she has grown into her own oak. I began to think of the different stages of her life that may have something to do with how she turned out.

When she was five, a friend of mine and I took her pheasant hunting. A typically smart thing for a Pirate to do, take a little girl who had rarely been around a gun thus far in her life and start killing things in front of her.

On our way out to our favorite hunting place, out in the middle of nowhere we came across two rooster pheasants graveling along side a cornfield. I pulled the truck over and Mike and I snuck up on the birds. POW! POW!

We had hit one of the birds. I mean to say I hit one of the birds, God only know what Mike was shooting at. The bird didn’t die right away it started flipping around and around. My daughter was standing on the seat in the truck screaming her head off. Daddy, help the birdie, please daddy help the birdie. I ran to the injured bird and rung its neck and then threw it into the bed of the truck, but it flipped around in the bed for some time after it finally died. By now Blaze was completely losing it. Crying, pleading and sobbing her little head off.

Mike and I looked at each other and tried everything to calm her. She wouldn’t have it. No way is she going to sanction her daddy to kill birdies. So Mike suggested we go back into town and see if we can get her something to sooth her. We drove back into little Warden, Washington and went to a small café to buy Blaze something good to eat like warm apple pie alamode and hot chocolate. After she got her fill, Mike and I decided to take Blaze home and we could just come back out later or maybe tomorrow. Leaving town I decide to go another direction home so I wouldn’t alarm Blaze anymore than I already had.

A few miles outside of Warden we came upon a pig farm. There were thousands of little piggies running around. Mike looked out at all the baby pigs and said, “Look Blaze, look at all those baby piggies.”

She immediately sat up in her seat and with the look of horror. She lunged at me and wrapped her arms around my neck and began to plead with me. “Please daddy, don’t kill the baby piggies, please, please!”

I figure she has become a paramedic/firefighter in order to save the world from her Pirate daddy.