Firefighter Calendar

Today's "blog" is a bit of an ad, but it is for a great cause. Would you feel good about spending 20.00 if it might help save the lives of countless firefighters? Well, here is your chance. The literature I received recently says, "Do your part to help firefighters." I am not going to use that approach. You, the public, and my friends and family owe me absolutely nothing. I am a firefighter because I love the job. I love helping people and making a difference. Dang, I know that sounds so cliche, but it's true, and it is true for almost 100% of firefighters. We took this job, although the pay isn't great and the danger is, because we wanted to help others. So now, if you would indeed like a chance to give a little back, this is your opportunity. You don't owe this to anyone. But I can't begin to tell you how much we as firefighters appreciate your help.

Every year in the United States over 100 firefighters die. It costs over 800.00 to send each firefighter to a yearly seminar that could potentially save hundreds of lives. At these seminars there is safety equipment introduced, there are safety and rescue techniques taught that could help firefighters come home safely to their families at the end of a shift. This same equipment could save the lives of the public. One such item that was introduced to firefighters at this symposium was the "thermal imager." This heat sensor shows hot spots in rooms and has been used countless hundreds of times in fires to save firefighters, citizens, and even pets that may otherwise have died. The symposium has exposed many hidden dangers of which we, the fire service might have been unaware. But we would not have been able to attend this seminar and to learn about these dangers and the ways of avoiding them if it weren't for fundraisers we have put on ourselves, such as the selling of firefighter calendars.

And of course this isn't a simple donation, either. You actually get something in return, in this case a collection of fine photographs taken by a professional photographer and showing firefighters in...uh...shall we say "half dress" just having fun and sometimes in the act of doing what firefighters do--although admittedly dressed a little more..."warmly."

There is another side to this, and this is a personal and sort of selfish plea just for me and my teensy ego. When I tried out for and made this calendar it was with the huge challenge to outsell the other guys in the calendar, all but one of whom are younger than I. At forty-four years old I knew the contest I was going into with guys sometimes half my age. I believe I am up to the challenge. I was photographed at 9 percent body fat after a year-long odyssey to lose the 12 percent that finally melted away. I threw my all into that work, and I can't say it was easy. But I do heartily aver that it was worth it.

Now to meet the challenge and sell more calendars than anyone else in the state. I am going to need a lot of help to do this, and for this reason I'm asking all of you to send the link to this blog on to anyone you know who may want a calendar, or calendars, as Christmas gifts, or who simply wants to help out firefighters as an occupation and simply give back something for the sacrifice those in this profession have made of their lives. Again, I can't begin to tell you how much your help means to me. There are 3000 of these calendars, and it is going to be a long road to sell them all. Please help all that you can. Any calendars ordered directly from me will be autographed by me if so desired, and they need to be ordered soon before some other department gets them all.

By the way, the photos shown are not the ones that ended up in the calendar, but I don't have a scan of the real photo, so these will have to do for now.

You can order by sending a check for 15.00 plus 4.00 shipping and handling (add another 15.00 and only 1.00 more for each additional calendar) to Kirby Jonas P.O. Box 1045 Pocatello ID 83204. If you want your calendar personalized, please include the name.

You can also order by using Paypal and sending your payment to kirby@kirbyjonas.com . Either way, make sure to specify if you want your calendar autographed and if you want it to anyone in particular. Thank you so much for your help, and please pass this blog along.

Your servant,

Kirby Jonas

www.kirbyjonas.com

Where's the Axe? Time to Take Off My Makeup

Hey, I'm dying to get an answer to a question men all over the world have been pondering for ages. I've never talked to a guy who can answer this, so I'll leave it up to the womenfolk. Now, let me say before I ask this slighty touchy question that there is no way every woman out there can answer it. Some women, such as my wife, are just as perplexed as all of us men are. So, if you're not one of those ladies who knows the answer, maybe you can sit back in a comfortable chair and wait with me and the guys to see if a reasonable answer comes back from this.

Here goes... Why is it that when many (not all) females decide to start wearing makeup it seems to get thicker...and thicker...and thicker...and THICKER.... Until after some time it is hard to recognize the woman underneath it. Now, this process, in my observation, can be rapid or have a very slow onset. The rapid ones I really don't understand. The ones that start slowly and take years to build up I can understand. It's like back when I was chubby. It happened slowly, ever so slowly. I was wearing size 32 Levi's, feeling all fit and trim, and then they turned to 33's, then 34's, but it was over years. I saw myself in the mirror most every day, and it was so gradual I didn't notice it until WHAM I see a photo someone took of me and realize I was the size of the Notre Dame, and not nearly as pretty.

So as I say, I can almost understand how it happens that over a number of years a little dab of eye shadow here, a little bit of lipstick there, a smidgen of cheek rouge there ends up looking like it will have to be removed with an axe...or even a chainsaw. It's the ladies who go from the little bit to the slab so thick if you peeled it all off at once it would resemble a buffalo hide that get me.

What's the answer? There is a little secret that men should not be keeping a secret. Most men detest mounds of makeup on their ladies. Most women look so much better with less makeup than with more. It isn't just me who feels this way. I have discussed this topic with many a guy over the years, and never, not one single time, have I found a guy who feels a lady with tons of eye makeup, lipstick, rouge, or--I'll just throw this one in while I'm at it--gaudily painted fingernails two inches long, looks better that way. Sure, a little makeup can sometimes do wonders. I'm not contesting that. But when the chain on the chainsaw stops spinning, when you slap the axe back in the chopping block as you get ready for bed, if your family is calling 911 about an intruder because they don't know it's you, then I'm thinking there's a problem.

Incidentally, there is a sister problem, too, and that is the whole perfume thing. If it smells like you washed your hair in it, soaked your clothes in it, or gargled it, it's probably too strong. Same phenomenon. I'm sure no sane woman ever set out to smell like a perfume factory. It's just that over time they have killed their olfactory senses, or at least damaged them to the point that a dab just isn't as good as a quart of Night Passion, Fruit Sensation, Daring Tryst, or whatever they call those perfumes nowadays.

Well... Anyway, I've been pondering these things for a good part of my life now, and I finally decided to pose the questions to those who might know. Unfortunately, as I think about it, if it's like the chubby Kirby phenomenon, those of you with the slabs of makeup and the perfume that can be smelled two blocks before you are in sight, you probably don't even know I'm talking about you!

Is "Me" an Evil Word?

For many years now I've pondered the modern question: Is "Me" an evil word? I remember sitting in Mrs. Baird's fourth grade class in Shelley, Idaho, listening to all the lessons about how sentences should begin with "Bobby and I," "Sally and I," "My dad/mom and I," etc. She would say something like, "You should never start a sentence with, "Me and Bobby," "Me and Sally," "Me and my dad/mom," and on and on, ad nauseum.

Well, that was all well and good. And it was about as correct as peanut butter and jam. That's just the way it's meant to be. The pronoun "I" is the subject of a sentence, the word "me" is the object. But I'm pretty sure something got lost in the translation.

Now, until recently, I made the strange assumption that the word "me" first became evil around that time period. Yeah, just about when I hit the fourth grade. But a few years ago I was watching an old episode of Gunsmoke (I guess ALL episodes of Gunsmoke are old, huh?), and I heard my hero, Marshal Matt Dillon, say something along the lines of, "Festus, go ask Miss Kitty for some whisky for Doc and I." I was horrified. I suddenly realized this villification (making something out to be a villain) of the word "me" has been underway for quite some time.

Now, I'm pretty sure that many of you are thinking, "Well, ol' Kirb has finally flipped his lid." While you may very well be right on that count, and since I'm up writing this blog at 1:00 AM I'm sure you are, at least in the case of this subject I am only speaking plain English. I just wish EVERYONE would!

I guess I need to get down to brass tacks here. A brief run-down on the plain and simple trick to knowing whether me (ooh, I said that bad word), myself or I should be used is in order here. First off, I. We all know this word. I. It is the word that gets used almost exclusively now that everyone has been sufficiently brain-washed into believing it is the only legal pronoun for oneself and that use of the word "me" may very well get you ten stripes with a cane. So now we use "I" as both subject AND object of any sentence that involves ourself. But that's not quite true. There is this phenomenon surrounding the word "me" that makes it suddenly okay to use, ONLY if it is used alone. For example, "Bubba gave a back rub to me," said Louie the convict. Hmm... Okay. Now let's look what happens when Frank, the ex lock picker doing ten years without parole, gets involved in the afore-mentioned back rub. Suddenly, "me" becomes "I" in a hurry, because even old Louie knows he's going to screw up his upcoming parole if he says the word "me" in combination with anyone else's name. So now, by the mandatory laws of common usage, you end up with, "Bubba gave a back rub to Frank and I."

So... Where did this transition happen? Why was "me" perfectly fine alone, but in combination with another name became "I." Even Louie, just a dumb convict thrown in prison for stealing gummy bears at Walmart, would think it sounded pretty silly to say, "Bubba gave a back rub to I."

That was lesson number one. Now I want to explore the side-phenomenon of the other personal pronoun, "myself." As anyone who paid two minutes' attention in English class knows, the only person who can give, say or do anything to "me," is "myself." Yet the word "myself" is frequently used by important sounding people like firefighters and cops to replace the word "me"--which is not only more proper but even shorter--in instances such as, "Why don't you meet up with Ragmannanon and myself?" Sorry. The only person who can meet up with myself is I! Not even a guy with a freaky name like Ragmannanon is allowed by the laws of English to meet up with "myself." Again, no one would say, "Why don't you ask Bob if he can meet up with myself?" Would they? So why in our current use of the English language is the word "me" banished except when standing alone?

Well, I hope you don't expect me to answer this question. I'm just as baffled as anyone else. All I know is that it's true. "Me" is an evil word. It has been villified probably since English teachers first started teaching English. Many of the teachers themselves use the words "I" and "myself" when they should be using me. How are their pupils supposed to learn otherwise? Actually READ that English textbook?!?! RIGHT!!!!

But I say we liberate the word "me." Give it back its proper place in the English language. Personally, I'd rather hear something like, "Me and Bob are going to the store," which is the usage for which teachers used to beat our knuckles with yard sticks, than to hear, "Do y'all want to go to the store with Algernon and I?" (Although admittedly if you're going to go to the store with a guy named Algernon you'd probably want to bring someone else along too, just for protection.)

Just take a moment, take that second name or pronoun out, and say the sentence in your mind before you say it out loud. You won't have to do this very many times before I have a new "me" convert and you realize how silly "I" and "myself" sound when used where you should be using that poor little evil "me". Then maybe we'll just have a revolution and everyone will start speaking proper English.

Nah, we all know that ain't gonna happen.