story-time-with-mike

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Story time:

I was born and raised in one small town. My aubts and uncle's lived the next town over. My father had his faults like any human but he tried really hard to teach us (my 2 brothers and me) honor, integrity, loyalty, and respect. So we grew up broke AF, too. So we traded labor and work with others. They need a fence fixed, we need help for the roof, that sort of thing.

So... I say all that to say this: our family isn't famous or rich but we have a unique last name and the family has a good reputation. Even my nephews and my kids had good reputations. I 2008 my beautiful bride wanted a new car. All the kids were grown and she'd been driving minivans and SUVs and whatever for decades. She wanted a new mustang.

We walk into the local Ford dealer and start chatting with the sales weasel and we work a deal then head to chat with the finance manager. Now, we had cash to pay but I had to sell some stock to fund the car but the payment hadn't been deposited in the bank yet.

The finance manager knew my dad and my older brother. He knew of me and my wife. Let me be clear this is a car worth tens of thousands of dollars on a Saturday. He told us, "just take the car now, come back Monday when the check clears and we'll finish it all up and sign the papers"

And we drove off in a new car without so much as a single signature because of the family name and reputation.

it’s amazing what stuff will rub off on people ten to twenty years after the fact: if you commit to being yourself and try to act with some degree of integrity it will plant seeds all around you

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“If I loved you less, I might be able to talk about it more” is such a beautiful, profound, and real quote that you’d think it came from 1970s spirk fanfiction but it was actually written by Jane Austen

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Pardon me, do you have any Grey Poupon?

After Bill and Ted's Excellent Adventure came out, I got a small Grey Poupon and kept it in the glove box of my 1965 Mustang that had no AC. So I'm stopped at a light with two left turn lanes, I'm on the right lane of the two with my windows down (because it's hot) and up besides me pulls this black Suburban and I catch the window starting to roll down and this amazingly adorable tween girl leans out the window and she says it....

Pardon Me, but do you have any Grey Poupon?

And I finally got to do it! I said, "but of course" and reached over, got it out of my glove box, and handed it to her.

She squealed with laughter and giggles and I really hope she still remembers this as fondly as I do.

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Story Time I posted on the OG blog.

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Story Time: My First Best Friend

Mar 04, 2025

When I was maybe 2 or 3, we got a new dog. He was, compared to me, very small. He was Tiny. One of the things I kept saying was “Tiny, Tiny” and so we named the dog Tiny.

Here’s the thing, though. Tiny was a St. Bernard. Not just any St. Bernard because this little dude would come to be 180 pounds of dog. We all still called him Tiny but he was certainly my best friend when I was little. As a giant of a dog, he never left the yard even though he could. He had a long lead and leash when he needed to go out and just wanted to chill out in the cold weather or whatever. The only time he left the yard was when a dog was in heat somewhere. Tiny would break the chain or break out of the fence and be gone for a few hours then he’d come trotting back with his tongue just flopping around and a big ole grin on his face.

One day he got out and was gone for a while but this time he came back with something in his mouth. A little small…. kitten. He brought it up to us and laid it down at our feet and then looked at us like, “I did my job, now you can take care of her.” So we got a new cat that day. We named her Tigger. I don’t know why, probably my idea again.

Tiny and I spent a lot of time together after my brothers moved out. We played and romped and ran and he’d always win the Tug of War with the toys.

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Story Time: Tarzan Will Rescue Me

As a child of the 70’s, the black and white TV regularly showed reruns of Tarzan from the late 60’s. Across the street from our chunk of property was a “huge” forest that my little child mind was convinced that Tarzan lived in that big old forest.

One weekend, I guess I was being particularly annoying to my father. I was running around in my fruit of the loom tighty whities pretending *I* was Tarzan. At some point my father said, “Boy, if you don’t stop aggravating me, I’m going to tie you to that tree,” and guess what! I didn’t stop aggravating him and I told him he was more than welcome to TRY and tie me up, the REAL Tarzan would come rescue me.

So he did. He tied me to the old maple tree in the front yard.

I must have stayed tied up to that tree for 20 or 30 minutes doing the Tarzan yell thing trying to get Tarzan to come rescue me. At some point, I managed to wiggle just loose enough to get myself out. The whole time Dad was laughing at me, and I was giggling the whole time.

Me in my tighty whities.... note the death grip my mother has on me. My father is on the far right. My Grandfather and Grandmother are in the middle and I think that's my uncle Ron next to my father. You can see a little of the tree I was tied to on the far right of the photo

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So this is gonna be a long one.

TW: talk of self harm, bullying

I was bullied bad since 1st grade until high school. It was bad enough that I was going to kill myself.

I'm the youngest of three boys, at the time of this story, I'm about 10 years old and both my brothers are in their 20s and moved out.

In 1983, I'm home alone and I have stolen my father's revolver. I've had it a week or so and sometime soon, I'm going to end it. Then my brother shows up after school with a new record. "hey, this a new album from that guy you like who sang with Rainbow" and he drops it on my record player. He opens the window and starts to smoke a joint as the first song of Dio's "Holy Diver" album hits.

Stand up and Shout.

Appice's drums, Bain's bass, Campbell's guitar. Dio's vocals pulled me in. It just slammed into me. Hard, driven, fast and mad like some new language.

I was the strongest chain, not just some reflection, so never hide again. I was the driver, I owned the road, I was the fire, I went out and exploded.

We listened to the whole album and when it was over, my bro left the album with me and I went and put the gun back in it's hiding spot.

I threw myself back into sports and martial arts. I won state, regional, and national fights. I met and trained with Bill Wallace, Joe Corley, Chuck Norris (I was even an extra in one of his movies), and more.

Just before the end of middle school, one of my bullies that'd I'd been ignoring for years at that point went just a little too far and said stuff about my mother. I beat the brakes off that kid bad enough that none of the other students would say what happened and he wouldn't say who did it.

The bullying stopped that day.

So Ronnie James Dio saved my life.

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Story Time: Everyone Has A Goat Story

AKA - The story of my first concussion.

Growing up we had some goats to help keep the weeds down and milk and eventually food.

The girl goat and boy goat did what goats do and had a couple baby goats. Once the cute little dudes started to walk you could kind of put your palm out and bonk them on their head and they'd start to play and headbutt you.

Now, I'm about 4 or 5 at this point and I thought it'd be fun to get down on my hands and knees and headbutt him with my head. My father, in his infinite wisdom, said, “you probably don't want to do that,” but I wasn't a smart kid and learned from experience mostly.

Anyway, little dude reared back and slammed me so hard next thing I know I'm face down on the dirt with my father laughing saying, “I told you,” at which point he had to take me to the hospital to get some stitches and monitor my brand new concussion.

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My father was raised by a bigoted asshole racist. My father tried everything he could to NOT be that type of person. Until about the age of 24, I was the youngest of 3 boys. Dad and step mom had twin girls about that time.

He was the type of father who let us learn from our experiences. The type who would say, “Don’t touch that it’s hot…. see, I told you. Listen to me next time.” My brothers are 14 and 15 years older than me and by the time I was 5, they were both married and/or moved out and all the chores fell to me. My brothers and their families would come over on Sundays for supper almost every week.

One week I was cleaning out the horse stables when my oldest brother, Lee, came over a little early. He looked at me and said, “hey, if you do that barefoot you’ll grow faster,” and it made sense to me since we composted the manure for the garden. I finished my chores, took a quick shower and enjoyed dinner with my brothers and nephews and family.

A few weeks later, I’m shoveling the stables again and dad walks by and sees me. He says, “Boy, where are your shoes?” I think he called me Boy because he couldn’t ever get our names straight, so using one for all of us was easier. Anyway, “Boy, where are your shoes?” and so I told him, “Lee said if I cleaned out the stables barefoot, I’d grow faster.” ”Oh. Ok.”

And that was that. It was years until I realized Lee was messing with me and that horse poop wasn’t helping me grow.

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Welcome to Story Time

Living a long life into old age means that you will likely suffer the deaths of many people that you've loved. Wives, husbands, sisters, brothers, best friends may all die before you do. Leaving you, ever more alone and lonely, to mourn their loss. You become the keeper of the memories as there's no one left to do the job but you. …and, there’s no one remaining who knew you as the child, teen, young adult — no one who knows the childhood history, the anecdotes, the ways you became “you.”

I want to start writing all the stories I can remember as I remember them so maybe when I'm gone someone somewhere will read them. Maybe a journal or a book. Don't know if anyone will ever read them but the chances are that the written word will far outlast me and some great great grandchild or just the guy burning ancient junk in some shed may stumble across it and for a moment, I will live in someone's imagination again.

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Baby caracal chirping

🔊

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hold up what do you mean humans can't tell if something's wet . what

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Not starting off well but I'll keep trying

wishing everyone a low pain and manageable symptom day youve got this.

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Rights aren't slices of pies. Folks having a slice doesn't take away from the pie.

And it's only been this.

Trans people have NEVER factually caused the loss of ANY woman's factual legal rights ever.

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I drew a little something for the Hiveworks micro comic summer~

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Crowley did it first. Aziraphale was just returning the favor, “remembering” the good old days. But Crowley did it first. He’s been willing to protect Aziraphale since the first moment they met. it’s part of who he is now.