Grab Ass

That's what the kids called it, "play fighting", and it seldom escalated into real fighting. They called it "grab ass" in the army, and it was not allowed inside the barracks for safety reasons. A few of my high school friends did it to each other, but not to me, because I told them in no uncertain terms that I wanted no part of it and, if they insisted on doing it to me, they would no longer be my friends. If they did it to each other in my parents' house, I would tell them to take it outside, and they did, because they knew that, if they didn't, they would no longer be allowed in my parents' house. My parents didn't tell them that, I told them that. I don't remember a lot of that going on at Sawyer, but maybe I just wasn't paying attention.

There was some of it at the paper mill, and I once bid off of a crew to get away from it. It wasn't a problem on my new crew but, years later, during our sexual harassment training, I asked if homosexual harassment was prohibited the same as heterosexual harassment. I was told that any unwanted touching is defined as sexual harassment, regardless of the gender of the harasser or the harrassee. "Thank you," I said, "That's all I wanted to know", and nobody in the paper mill ever touched me again. The stuff they did in the Cheboygan schools didn't seem to have a sexual component to it, but maybe it was a manifestation of their suppressed sexuality. The gender of the participants didn't seem to matter, boys did it to boys, girls did it to girls, and boys and girls did it to each other.

"Mouthing off" included wise-cracking, but it also included "talking back" to a teacher or other adult. In the army, where it was also referred to as "talking shit", it included making mock threats for entertainment purposes, or pretending to be knowledgeable about something when you didn't know what you were talking about.

I don't care what Trump and Hillary say anymore, or what other people say about them. I already know who I'm voting for, and it's neither of them.

I am not familiar with the English oak, but most oaks are relatively slow growing trees. The growth rate of any tree, however, is influenced by genetics, climate, soil fertility, and availability of water and sunlight. When I first bought Beaglesonia back in 1986, there were a few widely dispersed red oaks on the property. Since then, little baby oaks have been sprouting up all over like dandelions. I don't know how that can be, since "The acorn never falls very far from the tree." The only theory I can come up with is that birds and squirrels carry them away and then lose them. I try to encourage my oaks like I do with my feral apple trees. Most of them will never produce acorns in my lifetime, but someday somebody is going to have a really good squirrel woods here, if somebody doesn't wreck it after I am gone.