Sorry, folks

Not trying to be out of touch, just been, well- out of touch.

I got shot last week, and spent the time between then and now recuperating on a friend's farm, a long way from access to any kind of technology newer than horse harnesses.

See, I was at the hardware store getting a blade sharpened for the lawnmower and I heard gunfire. Curiosity has always made me the type that will run toward gunfire, but this was not the kind I'm used to hearing. As I've said, lots of people here have guns and shoot, but this was hurried and seemingly random. So I got to the parking lot and saw an offworlder holding a kid by the hair and waving a little handgun around. He was screaming something incomprehensible but the kid was terrified.

I walked out and looked around, most people were pretty well ready to pop this idiot but a few recognized me and smiled. 'Go for it, Hank!' one even said.

So I walked over to the miscreant,who by this time was holding his gun more or less at the kid- I figured the way he was going it was most likely he'd shoot himself. I said 'You don't really want to do that, do you?" and he opened fire on me. Three shots, all missed, and I drew and fired at point blank range., just about. As I've said before, I'm a duffer with a handgun, but I was ten feet away. The Glaser entered his left eye, more or less, and didn't exit.

And as he dropped the gun hit the ground anddischarged, the slug ripped into my left calf. He was a better shot dead than alive.

The kid was happy to have it all over, and the cops came and cleaned up the mess. Another offworlder approached me, noticing the glove. 'Aren't you... you people supposed to be some kind of holy rollers or something? How could you kill someone in cold blood like that?"

'First of all, you were here, this was not cold blood. In case you hadn't noticed, the recently deceased was shooting at other people. On La-A that means he relinquishes his human and civil rights, and is considered fair game. Second, "We people" have no specific injunction agianst killing, nor any specific injunctions at all. What we believe is outside of your understanding, but it does not prevent us from engaging in a little herd thinning from time to time, when it is indicated."

"but how about 'thou shalt not kill" and that stuff?'

'While Christianity is just fine by me, I'm not a Christian. And there aren't injunctions against killing in Christianity, just committing Murder. The original text says 'Thou shalt not commit murder". Look it up. This reprobate was about to commit murder. I stopped him. Simple as that"

She walked off in a huff but I wasn't surprised. offworlders AND non-glovers wouldn't get it anyway I explained it.

Anyway, the police cut me a check on the spot, right out of the police fund. (Bodies of miscreants go right to organ banks. The shooter gets the proceeds) I tore it up and said they should put it in the cop's pension funds, and thanked them. Hey, thirty large is nothing to sneeze at, but the cops do a fine job, mostly, like in this case, of documenting. And I don't really need it.

So after getting the bullet pulled and stitched up, i called in, told them I would be unavailable for at least a week, and headed out to Jon's farm for some lazy afternoons fishing from a folding chair on the dock of his little farm pond. Happy to be alive, and now it's good to be back to work.