For sure this was one of the best days ever. My parents trusted me and with that trust they were giving me permission to enter another phase of my short life. Certainly they now recognized I was becoming a man at the ripe old age of 12 years old. Wow, my parents had just given me a Winchester BB gun rifle.

I can’t recall if my dad said, “You’ll shoot your eye out,” like the father’s words in “A Christmas Story.” I do remember his stern warning not to shoot any animals and to keep the gun away from houses and windows.  “I won’t, I won’t,” I echoed, as I headed down the road to my friend Paul’s house, rifle in hand.

As a boy, I could not have picked a better place to grow up in then my old neighborhood in Mattydale, New York. Within less than one mile we had Hancock International Airport, US Air Force Base at Hancock, the Army National Guard and the Marines. Tanks literally rolled down the street a half block from home and then they would hold mock wars and drills directly across the road from our house.  The area was ripe for adventures of astronomical proportions for boys of my age. We would climb into the cockpits of fighter jets, wash the fire trucks for the airport fire department, make hotel reservations on the hotel courtesy phones at the airport and eagerly search for old spent shells from past war games.

Well, it didn’t take long before I broke my dad’s first rule. A BB bounced off of a sewer vent pipe and like gravity the little round brass ball found its way to our neighbors front storm door window. It made such a small hole in that glass pane, but nonetheless, it was a hole. “It was an accident dad, honestly, I didn’t do it on purpose,” I bellowed, voice quivering in fear. “I told you to keep that thing away from the house,” was my father’s reply. “I won’t do it again dad, please give me another chance,” I begged.

Chances come and chances go and I miserably blew my second chance. The third house from my parents was owned by an officer in the U.S. Air Force, who was married to a lovely woman from France. Just like my great grandfather from Glasgow, Scotland, our Air Force neighbor raised carrier pigeons. I was always fascinated with these birds and how they would come back to roost in their coops after carrying messages afar. So there I was with my little buddies, Paul, Jeff and Rod. Of all the stupid childhood things, we decided to shoot around the birds roosting on the roof of their coop in my neighbor’s yard. Each of us took a turn, shooting at the roof shingles, watching the pigeons flutter up in the air, only to land a few seconds later. Thinking back on this now, I realize how horrible and immature our boyhood actions were. I took aim at the roof, pulled the trigger, the BB ricocheted and hit a pigeon right in its rear. We scattered like feathers blowing in the wind as the bird rolled from the peek of the roof, down the shingles and to the ground. I, a person who loves all animals, had killed my neighbor’s pigeon.

I was sick to my stomach with remorse for my actions and fear of being found out by my parents. I remember like it was yesterday when the knock on our kitchen door occurred. I ran to answer before my parents could. Oh dear God, there was our neighbor, in his blue uniform, geez, he even had his Air Force hat on. In his hand he was petting his dead bird. “Hi Dennis, are your parents home?” he asked. “Mom, dad – it’s for you,” as I made a hasty retreat. I was summoned back into the kitchen as our neighbor, with soft words mentioned how this was his prized carrier pigeon. He had it imported from France (his wife’s native country). Being the kind man that he was, he went on to relate his own childhood memories of digging up his neighbor’s precious vegetable garden and that “Boys will be boys.” He asked my parents not to give me a strapping. “Yes,” parents did hit their children with belts in those olden days. Instead he recommended some other form of appropriate punishment.

My parents gave me the talking to of the century, took over possession of my BB gun and put me under house arrest. I never did see that rifle again and I must admit, there was a certain amount of relief on my part. I obviously wasn’t mature enough for a BB gun and although I didn’t shoot my eye out, I had broken both of my parents rules. Believe me, I could find many more non life threatening and adventerous pranks and activites to get into. And so it was, my boyhood years of exploration continued.

Written by: Dennis L. Page

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If you are running thirty nine, it means that your count down has begun for turning into forty; you need not unduly worry about your aging and you are getting into in your forties.

There is an English proverb ‘Life begins at forty. How true it is! In fact it is a prophecy.

From the moment you were born on this earth as a baby, no doubt your life had begun; you had begun to cry; you had been mother fed or you had been spoon fed; In fact you did those things without knowing that you were being nourished; if you were hungry or if you felt any uneasiness in your health, you had begun to whimper; you had been taken care of; attended to; you had been bathed; you had been dressed, you had been caressed; you had been amused. But it is quite sad that you cannot recall all those golden moments now by yourself. In fact you had learnt all those things only from your mother or father or from your elder brother or sister.

When you became a tiny tot, you had been sent to school to learn; when you were told, you had been promoted to next class or grade, you were quite perplexed and you began blinking without knowing what you had achieved. You were a free bird; you had played with other tiny tots until you got bored or tired.You had a separate world of your own something like Disney Land, where you had no worries of any kind. Despite being active in the school or elsewhere, you can recall your first memory or episodes of your life only with great difficulty.Your childhood was just a passing phase in your life.

When you were grown up into your boyhood or girlhood, you were into your teens; you were rather anxious when you had felt your physical growth and chemistry in you; you had also developed the first seeds of love, sex and freedom only during this period; you were even annoyed at the artificial fencing that were raised by your parents at this stage; you had even rebelled against your parents demanding more pocket money and unfettered freedom; but you cannot deny the fact that you were dependant upon your parents socially, and economically during your teenage.

When you got into adulthood, the next stage of your life, you had an all round growth and development. You had got educated and you were also decently employed or you had become capable enough to look after the business of your parents or stand up on your own legs.

When you were grown up and into your twenties, you also felt that you needed a companion in your life to quench your sexual urge, to vent your feelings and the element of sociability had grown up in you even stronger; it was quite natural that you fell in love and got married with your spouse. Once you got married you turned into a complete man. It was quite natural that you began to enjoy the life. It was true that sex played a predominant role at this stage.

Years rolled by; you had entered into your thirties; your active sex life promoted you into the next stage of your life; you became a father. Now you were saddled with the additional responsibilities of rearing up your own children; to educate them; to supervise them when they were grown up into teens; you also had yet another but very important responsibility of looking after your aged parents.

Now you had attained the age of forty and you were a fairly aged man;your look had changed; your outlook of the world had also changed; your temperament had gone from Phillip drunk to Phillip sober; no more yells; no more unwanted outbursts; your fiery temper had gone once and for all; you have become quite strategic and diplomatic; you had learnt from your mistakes; you had learnt to recall from your past experience.You had become an independent decision maker; you were self-reliant, besides you had to shoulder the  burden of taking care of your family members; you had varied social as well as economic responsibilities at this stage; by this time your own children had grown up; their growth had to be monitored; you had to necessarily guide them into their personal as well as economical ventures; besides attending your own health, you had to take care of your spouse, after all she was your better half; if you had failed in any one of your responsibilities, there was every reason that your spouse might get estranged from you; the reason might be sexual or economical; either you or your spouse might resort to a divorce proceedings that affected both of you socially and economically. When you had no other go but to necessarily divorce your spouse, you had to begin your life afresh. Besides, you had to take care of your ailing aged parents; your decision making capacities in all fronts were fully tested and subjected to acid test only from the age of forty. That is why it has been rightly said that ‘Life begins at forty’ 

Thus you can see when you attained the age of forty, you had to play a varied role as a husband for your spouse, as a father to your children and as a responsible son to your aged parents, apart from taking vital decisions in the economic front, whether it be in your employment or business, in social security schemes and in other social and legal issues. In fact, your multifarious activities in the social and economic front surfaced only when you attained the age of forty.

Therefore, no one can deny the truth in the proverb that ‘Life begins at forty.’                   

The George Washington Foundation, reports that the dig has uncovered thousands of pieces of artifacts. Some of them being, pieces of ceramic plates and bowls, toothbrush handles, pottery bits and hair rods or rollers, used for the stately wigs worn during that time.

The archaeologists are naturally very excited with their find, they have been searching for the spot, for seven years, and now they have hit gold, so to speak. They are still looking in the area for the families’ dairy house and the smoke house. They feel that many of our first president’s attributes and more of his roots, are buried, throughout the landscape of the property. They were able to locate the place where the fireplace stood in the home.

They are certain that this find will help them, fill in many of the holes in Washington’s life and history. So they continue to dig on the site, so far they have not had any luck locating the hatchet, that Washington allegedly used, to chop down that infamous cherry tree. But they are still looking, and finding many historical links to the past, this is truly a big, big dig, and of monumental importance to historians everywhere.