Guns blame us as a declining society

Today was a one of the darkest days in American history; a young man ended the dreams of 20 innocent children, 5 good educators & his own mother. The liberal media is always there to quickly find the culprit that is convenient; in this case it was weapons in this country. The truth is we as a people don't take personal responsibility for our actions anymore. The facts will come out soon enough about this man & why he chose to alter our lives forever. The truth of the matter is our society has been morally crumbling for centuries. When I was a child in the 4th grade at Grassland Elementary, we did something stupid & were sent to the Principal's office for corporal punishment(paddling). We never did it again. I made a big mistake when I was about 13 & my father took his belt to me saying" I promise you this will hurt you worse than me". I never did it again. I was terrified of my parents & they were good to me. I learned respect, fear & personal responsibility for my actions. I still make mistakes on a daily basis but I learned personal responsibility. Today our children are diagnosed with some disorder early, medicated, neglected & put in front of a video game that promotes violence. As a child I was told to look both ways before I crossed the street, play in the creek & when Mom rang the bell, I better come home pronto. We never questioned or spoke back to our parents, it was the law. Today, children talk to their parents as if they are equals & why not parents are helpless because of laws to protect children from the very people who have the biological right to make them   fear God, country & the back of their hand. With the divorce rate close to 60% in this country; one of our biggest problems in this country is single parent households. One parent must work 1 or more jobs & the children are left home alone to watch violent television or surf the Internet. What kind of future can a child have if this is his reality. In the same show you will see drug use, adultery & cold blooded murder. The  sickest part is the parents don't monitor their children's programs. They have given up. I have never wanted children but if I were a Dad,  I would put the fear of God in them. It makes them be better people down the road. The bottom line I believe is that our children have no hope for their future, They see it in our eyes & our apathy towards this fast approaching reality. We are quickly descending into a morally corrupt & apathetic society. The bottom line is we have given up on our children & they are lashing back at us as a society with guns instead of pens or signs. It could be knives, grenades or rocks; we have let society dictate how we raise our children & we are responsible for what happens. Shame on all of us. We know better. We were raised better. Don't blame guns, blame ourselves & our government for telling us how to raise our children.
May God have mercy on our souls.
Rip Pewett a man who owns zero guns
p.s. the picture is of a man who distributes wealth at the speed of sound, never has held a job & would give all of our guns to Russia if he could

Top 10 signs you have fallen out of the raft on the Ocoee

Well we made it back from our annual pilgrimage to Benton TN & the nearby Ocoee River. Every year we witness other rafters being thrown out of the raft & some of our crew as well. Luckily, I haven't been thrown out since my college days, thanks in part to luck & a couple blondes. While on the river in a fairly calm section our crew wondered what the top 10 signs you have ben thrown out of the raft might be. In no particular order I'm gonna give it a shot.
1. your guide yells " Swim you fucking idiot"
2. the person next to you is now looking down at you shaking their head
3. you are suddenly rehydrating & you didn't bring a bottle of water on the boat
4. some jack ass just hit you in the head with a bag full of rope
5. it has suddenly gotten so cold that your balls have shrunk up inside your body
6. everyone is trying to give you their paddle & you don't know why
7. you find a pair of Revo sunglasses on the bottom of the river
8. you feel like you are in the pinball game called "River Rocks"
9. you find yourself laying on the shore with some fat kid poking you while saying "Mr, are you dead?"
10. you are buying the 1st round at Log Cabin Inn & everybody is laughing at you

Never leave a man behind unless you leave two

Sometimes your life doesn't always go the way you had it planned & it teaches the importance of friendships. I recently planned, booked & departed on a birthday trip to the Florida Keys with 6 of my good friends. The trip started simply enough as we took off on Southwest & would be changing plans in Tampa before heading on to Ft Lauderdale to pick up our van. Well, here is were the story takes a turn. One of my guys has had some health related issues in the past but had been cleared to travel by his physicians. We were about 30 minutes into our hour & half flight to Tampa when he became unresponsive. To say it freaked us out would be the understatement of the trip sooo far. Well, lucky for let's just call him Rocky, a physician is seated right across the aisle from him & went to work on accessing the current condition of our friend. As he was doing this the good people of Southwest provided all the necessary equipment on board to keep Rocky stable until we landed. I was amazed when it was determined we needed to get him to the ground asap, the pilot put the 737 into warp drive. The next 45 minutes were some of the longest of my life & I didn't want to look back at my friend for numerous reasons so I started working on plan B. As it turns out, the rest of us pretty much did the same thing. Both of the guys that grew up with Rocky wanted to go with him to the airport; hell looking back I think they just wanted to ride in the ambulance. It was determined that Matt would take one for the team & the rest of us would continue on to Ft Lauderdale to await for an update. It was determined after being probed & forced to do a heart stress test in a robe listening to his theme song, he would have to return to his hometown to have a procedure done. Our crew spent the night in Palm Beach & would pick up Matt the next day to continue on my birthday trip....and then their were 6. We reflected on the safe departure of our friend back to Louisville with every beer with a toast. Damn, he received many toasts & was in our thoughts as we powered on to Key West. The next day in Key West we had another friend have a heart or heartburn related episode at an Irish pub at 11ish in the morning. I can't believe this is happening AGAIN so me being a guy with high blood pressure, I scramble to find some aspirin to thin his blood. I find them from a nice couple, pass them down & when they get to Barry...he takes them. He isn't the one having the episode by the way, he is just hungover. Anyway it turns out to be a false alarm so we keep going. This trip turned out to be one of my best trips ever & I'm thankful our friend is making a speedy recovery. Reflecting back on the trip I realize how fortunate we are to have friends who are there during the good, the bad & the ugly times. Rocky has already RSVP for the trip next year back to Key West. I hope the rest of the crew follows suit.
Cheers,
Rip
p.s. a friend gave me a bit of advice & I'm so glad I didn't repeat it on the plane before we took
off for Tampa. " Don't die on your vacation as people will think you are lame"

When I was a kid, I was allowed to be a kid

It is hard to isolate the worst thing happening in our great country but the demise of one's childhood is in the top 10 in my opinion. What I mean is children are being forced to grow up way too fast in this society. I grew up in Brentwood, a small, rural town in Northern Williamson county. Now that is funny & precisely my point. If you compare the Brentwood I grew up in & the current town then you see exactly what I'm talking about. When I was a kid we were allowed the freedom to explore the creek across the street, the houses being built in the neighborhood & the cave behind our house with little warning given by our parents. We were told "Look both ways before you cross the street & you better come home when we ring the bell". Today kids are scared to play in creeks or caves & would rather play video games or surf on the Internet. Their parents have put such a sense of fear into them about abduction; the idea of having fun is replaced with cautiousness towards anything foreign to them. The removal of corporal punishment in the public school system has lead to a systematic breakdown of respect towards our teachers. Children these days are allowed to disrespect their teachers, their parents & any adult in society. Back in the day this behavior wasn't tolerated in the schools or the home. If you disrespected a teacher then you were paddled by the principal; if you disrespected your parents you had a belt taken to you. Today, teachers are fired for physical punishment & parents are taking to jail in hand cuffs for doing the right thing. With the development of cable television & the Internet, children are exposed to scantily clad pop stars dancing like they were strippers, other young children in compromising sexual situations & programs perpetuating graphic violence. When I was a kid we had 3 channels on the television & Charlie's Angels was as close to porn for us. We watched Gilligan's Island, Mr Rogers & Bozo the clown....then went outside to play with our friends wearing jeans, a t-shirt & tennis shoes. Their were no medications to cure our conditions, we weren't ADD, we were just not very smart. We weren't autistic, we were brilliant but a little different. Now, with the cellular phone explosion, children can be tracked by their parents & don't even have conversations as texting is the greatest thing. All these pall in comparison to the U.S. debt these children have inherited from our government. It is estimated that every child under the age of eighteen has inherited $72,000 in debt when they can't even get a credit card until the age of eighteen. It is truly sad that our society has done this to our kids. I believe that somewhere out there in a small town kids are allowed to be kids & they don't know any better...or worse. Good for them.
Cheers,
Rip Pewett kid at heart
p.s. the picture above could of been the Pewett boys rolling our Big Wheels down our driveway, taking that hair pin turn & jumping the curb right into the shrubs. It was some of the most fun 2 kids could ever have.