Thoughts from the ammo line

Ammo Grrrll celebrates another anniversary with us: THE COLUMN TURNS 6. She writes:

Well, friends, it’s that time of year again. March has ended. And good riddance to it. Which means I have been writing Thoughts From the Ammo Line for six years. How remarkable that we all look exactly the same as when I started six years ago. At least that’s what your avatars indicate, and what MY mirror says when I threaten it with a .45.

Yes, it has now been SIX YEARS since I sent that first (much-shorter) little column to my friend Scott Johnson to see if he might be interested in a conservative Arizona woman’s take on guns. And stuff. He was.

And, just like that, I had abandoned my carefree retirement and signed myself up to produce a reasonably humorous, sometimes a teensy bit angry, opinion piece to turn in every single Wednesday morning, ostensibly for the rest of my life! How hard could that be, I thought? Harder than it looks, I found. One of the Guiding Principles of my Life is: “EVERYTHING, no really, EVERYTHING is harder than it looks.” Even FARMING! Who knew?

This column right here, right now, is #312, not counting a couple Extra Editions such as the one where Donald J. Trump pulled off the Upset of the Century and rather badly beat Hillary Rodham Clinton for the Presidency of the United States. Perhaps you heard about it? It was all over the news… That happened on a Tuesday, not a Friday, so I got to have a two-fer week. The shocking election was one of the highlights of my life, right up there with my marriage, the birth of my baby, and the Twins winning the 1987 World Series.

And like the Twins winning the 1991 World Series, the 2020 reelection of Donald J. Trump will be sweet, very sweet, especially after the rollicking recovery from the Wuhan Woes. But not QUITE as shocking and wonderful as the first time. We humans are like that: something miraculous and wonderful happens and we are thrilled right up to that moment when we take it for granted and it comes to be expected rather than miraculous. Like the miracle of toilet paper you could buy right off the shelves. Or the ability to welcome friends to your home with a hug. Or even just a handshake. Amazing how much I miss that.

Taking miracles for granted has been ever thus and recorded for all time in the Torah/Holy Bible. “Hey, look at that water from the rock and that manna that has appeared to feed us in the barren desert!” (A “sheltering in place” that lasted for forty years…so quit whining!)

And then, very quickly, “Manna AGAIN? Where are the cucumbers and onions we loved back in Egypt when we were slaves? Man, I sort of miss slavery…” And so on…

In fact, not to borrow trouble, but just wait till the end of President Trump’s SECOND term, when the fickle short-attention span electorate will be TIRED of full employment after the economic divorce from China, tired of energy independence and a booming economy that lifts all boats. Mark my words, people will be whining for the “cucumbers” of free college and free medical care and free housing and free food, because who wants all this responsibility and WORKING to get stuff when you can whine or riot until you get it for free or just take it from the people who did work for it?

Unless we believe Bette Midler, brilliant political thinker, who is certain that Trump will rule until he is dead or we are dead or both, up to and including 90,000 years. I’m sorry I will probably not be alive for even half of that 90,000-year run, but it should be an interesting one. Krikey, I didn’t even think we had NINETY years left, let alone 90,000. I thought we had fewer than ten, which is why I have given up dieting and flossing and taken up smoking again.

Hundreds of lesser prophets only believe that DJT will demand a third or fourth term, as they confidently predicted would happen with Nixon, Reagan, and “W” Bush. What do all these fellas who were NEVER going to leave their Presidential gig have in common? C’mon, think! Here’s a hint: they were all from the exact same Party which we had it on good authority was preparing concentration camps and also going to outlaw birth control for women! Yes, they were evil, Hitleresque, war-on-women, racist Republicans who any minute were going to make women wear unattractive bonnets, because if there’s one thing a sex-crazed toxic male loves, it’s a woman in a long shapeless dress and a bonnet! And not one of those pathetic imitation Hitlers seized power and stayed on past his eight years.

But back to the six-year anniversary of the column. One of the most embarrassing things that happened to me as a young person – there are sooo many to choose from – involved a tape-recorded Christmas carol for a pageant. It was in fifth grade and I was the only child in the group who knew how to sing harmony. So they stuck me right near the microphone and told me to sing loudly while all the other kids in the group sang melody.

And when they played it back, there was “Silent Night” with one booming alto voice belting out the harmony a third below the melody like Ethel Freakin’ Merman. Even the choir director could not help doubling over with laughter. They moved me to the back row and tried again. I learned at a young age that it is not true that you can die of embarrassment, but of course, that was decades before the Internet when things could go viral and hang around forever.

Anyway, that’s how I think of the column. Without the commenters, I’m just singing the alto part of a tune. I crank ‘em out, tinkering with them right up to the minute I hit “Send,” and usually am fairly happy with the work and anxious to get it out there.

And then come the parts that flesh it out – the inveterate punsters, the great memes and cartoons, the heart-warming sharing, the brilliant legal discussions, the back-and-forth between vets of our military branches, the occasional correction – oh, never fear, get something wrong and somebody WILL notice, especially about movie quotes or guns! – the civil disagreements, the camaraderie and really, sense of “family” among people we’ve never met. And it’s just plain FUN. Many kind readers say the column kicks off their weekend on a cheery, uplifting note. Well, dear readers, YOU make MY Friday every single week. I love you guys! Thank you, and thanks, of course, to the Power Line boys for the platform.

And now, finally, I am “caught up” in making compilation books out of each year’s collection of columns. The new one, covering April 2019 right up to today is called Ammo Grrrll Reloads and will be up on Amazon within a short time. Fear not, I will remind you. I may delay until the Wuhan Worries have mostly abated and your portfolios have rebounded! Thanks so much for buying it and reviewing it with five stars on Amazon. Except for the occasional spell-binding new novel by Max Cossack, I won’t be promoting anything else for a whole year!