Family Stories pt 4: "Shotgun Tom Kelly"

Riding home from a family dinner at Hacienda in NW Indiana, I was not really listening to the radio, it was background noise. My father in law was driving, my better half and I were in the back seat, both lost in our phones, oldies playing in the background. I heard the announcer speaking for a moment, and then something made me sit bolt-upright and start listening closer.

"Did he just say "Shotgun Tom" Kelly??"

"I don't know. I think so, why?"

"Oh, when I was a kid in San Diego, my dad was friends with a local dj out there with the same name"

"Probably just coincidence"

Let me share with you all, my view on coincidence. I am an avid reader, some might say even obsessive. But there are 5 books I read at least once every year. In no particular order, they are:

The Prince - Niccolo Machiavelli 

The Art of War - Sun Tzu

The Perfect Kill: 21 Laws For Assassins - Robert Baer  

The Four Obsessions of an Extraordinary Executive - Patrick Lencioni 

The Godfather - Mario Puzo

It's that 5th one that I quote, when it comes to coincidence...sorta.

"Accidents don't happen to people who take accidents as a personal insult" - Don Vito Corleone. Well, the Lion version goes "Coincidence never happens to men who take such things personal". That said, I decided to google the man my father considered a friend (I make that distinction, because Tom may very well not remember my dad, and my dad made friends everywhere he turned. Wonder where I get it from...I digress). Turns out, it was the SAME Tom Kelly! 

Tom may not remember my dad, but then again, he may. My dad was a man who, for all of his flaws, was widely loved by everyone he met. He made quite an impression on complete strangers! But if Tom doesn't remember my dad in life, I can't imagine he could ever forget his death, even if he didn't realize who had died.  You see, my dad drove gasoline tankers, the BIG ones. His truck pulled two gasoline trailers, and the day he died became front page news. On the morning of April 1st, 1989, there was an unknown carbon monoxide leak in the cab of his truck, and at 4am, at the Las Pulgas Rd exit of the I-5, my father's truck overturned and exploded, causing the biggest traffic jam in San Diego County history (at that time), backing up traffic as far south as the Tijuana boarder and as far north as San Juan Capistrano. The I-5 was backed up for better than 6hrs. It was the talk of San Diego radio and news for that day and several to follow.  

http://articles.latimes.com/1989-04-02/local/me-1695_1_traffic-jam

At any rate, it's interesting how something as simple as the name of a radio DJ/announcer from your childhood can bring in so many memories.
How small of a world this is, indeed. Welcome to SiriusXm and The 60s on 6, Mr. Kelly.

You may not have remembered my dad, but he certainly thought the world of you.

Wade "Lion" Lindwedel

President

True School Entertainment, LLC

A Few Gun Facts

This is for all of you “take em away” people. SPOILER ALERT: It will NEVER happen.

Facts gathered and originally posted by George Pardos of The Bear Newz

I want to share some gun facts with some of you, because it seems the left is absent of facts and that the feels outweigh common sense.
 Please share so people can at least be enlightened on facts.
1- DC vs Heller was a decision to say the 2nd Amendment guaranteed gun ownership outside of militia affiliation.
2- 31% of all homes in America have a gun.
3- There are 101 guns per 100 people in the USA.
4- Mass shootings account for a small fraction of gun deaths.
5- If you do not introduce a gun into commerce, you do not have to put a serial number on it. Estimated 3 Million guns in the USA that are under this.
6- There are 33 GOP governors in the USA, most of those states are pro gun. You arent passing gun laws to restrict ownership.
7- Cato institute and Pew research have estimated that roughly the amount of gun owners willing to go to war over gun ownership is around 11 Million. Part of the III% number that you see floating around the internet.
8- Rape is one of the crimes that rises in neighborhoods with no gun ownership. (Chicago Tribune source)
9- In 2017 the state of Wisconsin there were 588,387 licenses issues. It makes Wisconsin the 8th largest Army in the world for reference. On par with South Korea.
10- Texas had 1,030,000 hunters in 2013, making it the 4th largest army in the world based on comparison. Only behind India, China and the USA.
11- In 2012 there were 891,000 police officers in the USA, which means that they were outnumbered 131 to 1 in comparison to gun owners.
12- 10,847,792 were made in 2015
The number of pistols, revolvers, rifles, shotguns and miscellaneous firearms manufactured in the U.S. in 2013, the latest full year available. That's 4,441,726 pistols, 725,282 revolvers, 3,979,570 rifles, 1,203,072 shotguns, and 495,142 miscellaneous firearms.(ATF numbers)
13- Guns are a 13.5 Billion dollar industry yearly.
14- How would you enforce confiscation ? The numbers alone do not have personnel needed for execution.
15- You can not make ammo expensive as reloading and manufacturing ammo is relatively easy.
16- You can print a gun, as 3D printing expands so do the designs for firearms you can not stop the printers.
17- States without the death penalty have lower crime rates.
18- Armed populations have always made insurgencies work, for example, Vietnam, Angola, Rwanda, Rhodesia, are some examples.
19- Gun crime is going down every year since 1991.
20- Violence has gone down since 1991 also.
21- As of 2015, states with the most guns had the lowest gun violence. (Politico)
22- States with most gun laws also have the least deaths. Legislation strength has a correlation with lower crime.
23- Mass shootings are less frequent. (Politico)
These are some of the facts about guns, you might not like them but facts do not care about your feelings. Here is the thing, the idea of grabbing guns in the United States from gun owners is next to impossible. You arent getting them, you cant get them and the saturation level is so high that it is not fathomable. There endeth the lesson..

Last Thoughts As I Go to Bed

There is something that happens to you when you surround yourself with excellent people. They tend to expect and even  demand excellence from you. How can you go wrong with that? The opposite is equally true. When you surround yourself with negative people you tend to begin to absorb that and immerse yourself in negativity. The biggest problem there, is that that same negativity will drive away the people who could have a positive impact. It all comes down to the choices we make, in our personal orchard.  Anyone who has spent any time around trees knows that if you have a branch that isn't producing fruit, you have to cut it off, lest it kill the entire tree. This is a life principle as well.  If you have read my writings, you know that I firmly believe that. You see, iron sharpens iron. It may seem like a bit of a played cliche, but it's an undeniable fact.

More importantly is your position, or as we called it in the Army, your "situational awareness". You have to be aware and beware of those in your life who have a tendency to wallow in misery. It's something that some people can't seem to live without. The saddest part is that they are so firmly entrenched in their misery, that they will sabotage their own happiness AND attempt the same with yours. When you start to stand up, they want to pull you back down. As the OTHER cliche goes, misery loves company.

All of this seems like rambling a bit. Chalk it up to me being tired. The bottom line is this. IF you want to succeed, surround yourself with successful people and emulate their habits. But for G-d's sake, get rid of the negative influences on your life, and demand excellence from YOURSELF!

It's all a choice.

"There are those who look for ways to succeed, and those who look for excuses NOT to."
- Sir Mixalot

Goodnight, you little bastards. I love you all

Lion Lindwedel