It was the end of an era. I remember coming home from school to find my best friend, my dog Ginger, lying dead in the front yard. She’d been hit by a car and the driver apparently had moved her off the road and left her for us to find. As her owner, it was my job to bury her. She had been an awesome dog. I hunted with her. She slept in my bed almost every night. She played with and followed me everywhere. She even defended me against a rogue shepherd who threatened us once wh

One hot summer’s day on my Grandfather’s farm, my cousin Scott and I decided that it would be cool to shoot one of the white insulators wrapped around one of the lightening rods on the barn. This wasn’t an easy shot, but we wondered if the porcelain would shatter into thousands of pieces if we could hit it with a .22 rifle bullet. It did. It took both of us several tries, but I eventually hit it and it exploded into a shower of white powder…thousands of little pieces sprinkle