A Name Worth Having

I grew up with a father that enjoyed war movies. It didn't matter if they were historical or fictional, if they had guns, explosions, and car chases, we watched it. I also came to enjoy action flicks just like any other guy but there is one movie that I enjoy more than any other. Braveheart.

I have seen this movie enough I can speak with the actors in each scene. It entails the story of William Wallace and his journey to bring Scotland freedom from England. It has the battles and witty comments I have come to love in movies but also because it's a part of my family's history. You see I am kin to William Wallace.

(No, not Mel Gibson)

William Wallace's family line eventually married into the Arbuckle family line, and I am proud to trace my roots to them both.

I grew up with my grandfather telling me stories of his past and tidbits of interesting things that have happened in and outside of our family. My grandparents house is littered with decorations that have a story behind them. I always marveled at how you can learn from history. I credit my love of history from my grandfather and the stories he has never stopped telling. One of them I love most of all, the history of my family name. Arbuckle. 

The Arbuckle's were also from Scotland. It began with "King Malcolm the Grim" - the hero of North Great Britain - who gave the name "Ar-Buckle" to his son, "James the Grim," in recognition of his knightly accomplishments. It was said that "James the Grim" could cut down the enemy like a farmer cutting hay and that at the first alarm of war he could buckle on his armor quicker than any of the King's knights. Hence the significance of the name given to him, "Ar" being the Pictish prefix of nobility. (St. Louis).

Later in the course of history another man named James Arbuckle, was one of the heroes of Waterloo, and was in the front of the charge of the Scottish Dragoons, which broke the line of the "Old Guard" of the French Army - the immediate cause of Napoleon's flight from the field. (St. Louis) The outcome of this battle would later be recognized as the end to Napoleon's rule as Emperor of the French. 

(Battle of Waterloo)

I am not completely sure if the next man is the same man mentioned at the Battle of Waterloo, but another James Arbuckle,  who may in fact be his son, was given a land grant  in 1860 from King George II for land in Virginia (now known as West Virginia). The record is framed in my Grandfather's house.

James Arbuckle's son, Thomas Matthew Arbuckle, fought in the American Revolution and my family can now say we are Sons of the American Revolution (SARS) and Daughters of the American Revolution (DARS).

Before the Wallace and Arbuckle lines intertwined, a man by the name of William Alexander Anderson "Bigfoot" Wallace, made his mark as a Texas Ranger in the 1840's. He left Virginia to avenge his brother, who died at the Goliad Massacre, saying he was to, "take pay out of the Mexicans." During Bigfoot's time  in the Rangers he fought in the battle of Salado Creek, battle of Hondo River, the Mier Expedition, battle of Monterrey, and the Comanche Wars. While invading Mexico in the Mier Expedition, the Rangers were captured prisoner and were taken to Mexico city for punishment. On the way they stopped at a Mexican fort for the night. The Rangers revolted killing the guards and escaping. While trying to get back to Texas the Rangers became lost in the mountains and became very dehydrated, up to the point they killed the donkey they brought and drank its blood. Eventually the Mexican Army recaptured the men. Santa Anna wanted to kill all of the men, but diplomatic efforts on behalf of Texas allowed Santa Anna to compromise that only one in ten would die. To help determine who would die, the Mexicans had 159 white beans and seventeen black beans placed in a pot. In what came to be known as the Black Bean Incident or the Bean Lottery, the Texans were blindfolded and ordered to draw beans (Wiki). Bigfoot drew a white bean and along with the other survivors was marched off to the Perote Castle for imprisonment. He would remain there for about a year until they were released. Texas had come to their rescue, finally. 

(The Black Bean Incident)

Guy D. Arbuckle (My great great grandfather) and his three brothers, Scott, James, and Thomas fought in the Civil War for the south along the border of Kansas and Missouri. My family was also victims in the infamous raids of the Kansas Red Legs and Union troops. My great great great grandfather was bled to death by the Union Army in an attempt to find out where his son's camp was located. My great great great grandmother had to move to a new town after the farm was burned down and looted. This account would later be justified by a southerner named William Quantrill that led raids in Kansas.

General Matthew Arbuckle, Commander of the US Army stationed in Indian Territory in Oklahoma established a fort and named the mountains, the "Arbuckle Mountains." The fort he established is the terminal of the Trail of Tears. While the Army was relocating the Indians on the Trail of Tears the commanding officer fell ill and Matthew Arbuckle had to assume to command to get them to their destination.

(State park in the Arbuckle Mountains)

After the Civil War the Arbuckle Family moved to Denver. They had two covered wagons with false bottoms to hide their valuables. Also coming with them were freed slaves, who settled in Denver. Guy D. Arbuckle became one of the first members of the Volunteer Fire Department in Denver and eventually became a miner. When the brothers moved to Denver a gypsy fortune teller forecast that three of them would die in Colorado. James Arbuckle was killed in a mine cave in. Scott was shot in the back over a mine claim dispute, and Thomas Matthew was killed at Fort Garland in Colorado. The governor of Colorado, Horace Tabor, had married Thomas Matthew Arbuckle's girlfriend, nicknamed "Baby Doe." During this turn of events, Thomas Matthew had been in Mexico working as a bodyguard for Carlota of Mexico, who was empress consort of Emperor Maximilian I of Mexico, the former Archduke of Austria. Upon hearing of Thomas Matthew's return, Tabor sent four gunmen to Fort Garland to kill Thomas Matthew. Thomas Matthew was able to kill three of them but was shot and killed. When Thomas Matthew Arbuckle was killed there was an article printed about him that included the Gypsy fortune teller's prophecy. Guy D. Arbuckle came and buried him in the Arbuckle family plot  in Denver along with his other brothers.

Oh and Garfield the comic strip? His owner is Jon Arbuckle.

Bibliography

Encyclopedia of the History of St.Louis - Vol. 1 P. 89 - In St. Louis Public Library

Wikipedia Article - Mier Expedition

Notes from Scott Guy Arbuckle - My Grandfather

"The Adventures of Bigfoot Wallace" - John Crittenden Duvall

Quotes used from the book "Black Flag" - Thomas Goodrich

 

The Hunt

The 5:20 am alarm comes quickly after getting in bed the night before. I hop up eager to start the day. Deer season had finally arrived and I was ready to get into the stand. I walk over to the kitchen to fire up some coffee and get my clothes together. My dad is up by now making his way to the kitchen. We had talked the night before about where we wanted to hunt on our 200 acres. We decided to split up and hunt alone. A method I prefer because you only have to worry about your smell, your noises, and your choices.

I grab my gun and backpack and head towards the ATV. Last night was cold and there's frost covering the seat. This is a great sign. I load up the gear and hop on, it's about a 5 minute ride before I need to dump the ATV. If the coffee hadn't woke  me up, the wind chill on the ATV kept my heart beating. I find a good hiding place in some brush for the ATV and slide off.

There's an art to walking that only hunters know. How to make the least amount of noise while sifting through grass and brush is hard task while making it to the blind. If you don't, you run the risk of jumping up the deer bedded down in the woods.

Everything is in slow motion when you hunt. Never have I ever found myself focusing on something more than my hunt. I have waited all year for this. I can't let it be blown after forgetting a step. Once I get into the deer blind and set up everything for the hunt, the best part is divine intervention. The sun begins to rise.

If you find enjoyment in appreciating God's work, a sunset can be argued as one of the more popular forms of his definition of beauty. I am sure everyone has seen one, but how many have actually popped a tailgate and watched a sunset? Not many. I can tell you a sun rise is even more magnificent. A sun casting its light onto darkness is more vibrant as it breaks through the night.

As you sit watching the sun rise and keeping your eyes peeled for a buck, the world begins to awaken. Birds begin the chirp in. The soft coos of dove remind you off past hunts with old friends. The loud thundering of quail as the covey takes off is startling. Every breath of the cold air acts as a natural cleanser of your soul. You can feel the clean air reach your heart, purifying it.

By now a few does are under the deer feeder. I began scanning the trees and brush for any others. You look for anything that might be hidden from the naked eye. As time passes I find myself watching the deer in the pin. Every now and then a smaller buck might join the group and run off to chase a doe. The rut was definitely on. The bucks were pumped up as if they could smell something in the air.

As I am watching for movement between bushes and trees, something catches my eye. I zero in on the movement with my binoculars and catch the outline of a neck and shoulders of a deer. Immediately taking in the size of this body, I knew it was a big buck. My heart started pounding. I tried to find the shape of the antlers but the brush was too thick. He moved forward and I lost him. My eyes frantically moved across the brush looking for movement while my hands grabbed the rifle and slid it out the window for a quick shot. Seconds later the buck stepped out in front into the opening.

The rack was tall, I began trying to count the points, but he was moving too quickly to get a good look. He finally stopped and I counted 8 points. His spread was just outside the ears and looked magnificent.

By now my heart was racing. I had full blown buck fever and my hands were shaking. I tried calming myself by controlling my breath, but that did little to control a natural instinct.
But as I was caught up in the rush, I felt myself hesitate.

This guy was big, but was he big enough? How could I know. It's the first day I have been able to hunt. I have no idea how the rest of the ranch my look. My hand slowly slides off the action of my Browning .30-06 and I use the scope to focus on the antlers. After another 20 seconds I couldn't justify harvesting him this early in the season. I decided to pass. Just then he turned his head, saw a doe and took off.

I've been thinking about him all weekend. It's now Sunday and I'm still hunting the same blind. I haven't seen him since yesterday morning and I'm sure the rut has him pretty busy. I did have the opportunity to look at some other bucks, none of which compared to that eight pointer. That's the beauty of hunting, I hope to see him again.

The Tree

It was sometime in June while I was traveling to San Francisco. I was with my family on a vacation to see all the marvels the city had to offer. We saw the Golden Gate bridge, ate on Fisherman's wharf, toured an aquarium, walked around Chinatown, and ended up on a tour bus sightseeing the city that would eventually lead to the Muir Woods. If you are not familiar with Muir Woods, they are very similar to the Redwood Forest. These woods stretch in the mountains northeast of San Francisco, about an hour and a half away. Winding up the road to the woods you can see the land break off into the ocean. As you move higher and higher into the mountain the trees begin to become larger and larger. Eventually we are hiking into a crevice between two mountains. These magnificent trees surround you. They are so tall you cannot hear the wind passing by. It is one of the most peaceful places I have ever been. The trails are man made from constant visitation constantly intertwining itself between these giant trees. As I gazed upon my surroundings I felt the presence of life that has been here since the age of time began. The forest floor contained little vegetation because of the spider wed of trees branches above. The trunks of these trees stretched as wide as 4 men side to side. The branches did not begin to break off until these trees were 50 or 60 feet above ground. Looking straight ahead you could only see the legs of these plants, like columns supporting a dome, as if this was its own world. It was as though these trees will be here until the end of time. 

Venturing further into the forest we began to hike the side of one of the mountains. As we elevated ourselves, we began to come in line with the branches of the trees. As I was looking at the branches I noticed one particular branch. This branch at one time had crossed over the path we were hiking; obviously obstructing the path of the onlookers it was cut down. But just above the stub of this branch, there was another branch. Growing straight up. This puzzled me, and I captured it in the picture above. I have thought about it from time to time. Now tree branches grow for one reason, in two directions. They grow vertically and horizontally allowing them to capture more sunlight. In theory, if you cut a branch growing horizontally, it would grow back in the same direction to recapture the sunlight it had lost. But this one did not. Did the tree learn from that event? It led me to question other things I had been facing in life. 

This tree had been growing for some time, the severed branch was at least six inches in diameter. Here this tree was living life, photosynthesis was happening, and things couldn't be better. Then one day the limb was hacked off and everything changed. Something bad had happened. The tree didn't get what it wanted. This is how life in all aspects acts and I see this same thing in my own life.

One day everything is going well and something happens that you didn't want to happen. Some people get pissed off, others cry "why me?" And still others blindly try again. This is where I learned from that tree. That tree could have grown in the same direction and the same thing would have happened. Instead, the tree took a new route. Whether the tree lost the branch due to man's interference or an act of God, this same mentality can be applied to our own lives.

When something doesn't go right in your life due to factors you cannot control, don't think that the world, or whatever caused the intervention, is out to get you. Maybe that action was there to tell you something. Instead, learn from it and plan accordingly. Find your new direction and keep pursuing that dream that you had in the first place. The tree certainly did, there are leaves sprouting from the new branch. Everything happens for a reason, and the people that can adjust themselves to continue their pursuit of whatever it may be will eventually get there. The road to success is not a straight line but road full of ups and downs, just like the trails in Muir Woods. I guess those ancient trees had learned something in all the years of their lives.

Identity

You can lose yourself as quickly as you lose your interest in something. At what costs will we perform to be accepted by our society? Our identity.  Society has become one giant mind that adopts anything from the style of clothes to the catch phrases quoted horrendously.  No one who stood out in history was regarded by his peers as favorable to assimilation. 

If you're struggling with who you are sit down and write an about you.  If you can't write who you are, then you have no idea what you want. 

If you struggle writing, pick three things you love and write about those.  Write about your goals in three years, write about your goals in 5 years, write about your goals in 15 years.

Next write about what you want in your significant other.  Write about what things have happened in your life to make you, you. Write about things you want to do. Then read it. I promise you will see the you, you want to be.  And you will know what to do when you need to make choices about who you are and who you want to be.  I know after doing this it has helped me make better decisions in my job and what I do outside of my job.