Letter From Milo: Alas, Poor Tommy

Every year toward the end of summer, I raise a glass and toast the memory of Tommy Granger. It was 367 years ago that Tommy became one of the first people executed in the American Colonies. He was also the first juvenile to suffer capital punishment. Tommy Granger was just 17-years-old when the Pilgrim Fathers of the Plymouth Colony sent him to the gallows.

Now, you might wonder why anyone would execute a teenager. Was Tommy a murderer? Was he America's first serial killer? Did he commit treason? Was he a kidnapper, a thief, an arsonist?

No. Poor Tommy Granger was hanged because he got caught fucking a sheep.

I contend that Tommy's execution was an egregious miscarriage of justice. You see, I am of the unshakeable opinion that it was not Tommy's fault. He simply could not help himself.

The instinct to copulate, the urge to enjoy life's most basic pleasure, won't be denied. Men and women will risk everything - their reputations, their fortunes, even their lives - in pursuit of the sexual act. In certain nations and cultures where God's name is used to condemn the very instinct that God has given us, adulterers are routinely sent to the stoning field. Despite the risk of gruesome death and public humiliation, there is never a shortage of adulterers. I suspect they'll run out of stones before they run out of fornicators.

In the absence of members of the opposite sex, heterosexual men will turn to other men and women will seek pleasure with their own kind. Other humans aren't even necessary to satisfy the sex drive. Farm boys, like poor Tommy Granger, have been known to dally with their livestock and shepherds sometimes grow overly fond of their flocks.

Warm flesh isn't even a requirement to achieve sexual release. Inanimate objects - plastic, wooden, natural and manmade, electrified and manually operated - have all been used to simulate the sex act. If there is any possibility for sexual pleasure, no matter how remote or inconceivable, no matter how perverse or disgusting, you can be sure that someone has tried it.

The uncontrollable urge to copulate is not restricted to the young. Older folks have their needs, too, although certain delicate problems arise when the urge strikes someone of advanced years. As the great writer, Jim Harrison, once wrote, "The older a man gets the more weird things he has to do to get his dick hard." That's why Viagra is one of the most prescribed medications in this country. That's why ads for erectile disfunction remedies and male enhancement nostrums are all over the TV, radio, newspapers, and magazines. When it comes time for older men to act on their fevered fantasies, they want to be able to rise to the occasion.

The lower orders are not exempt from the most basic of instincts. Animals will fight to the death for the privilege of mating. Once in rut, some animals will copulate themselves into states of total exhaustion, becoming easy prey for opportunistic predators. Certain insects live for just a few frenzied days, long enough to mate, if they're lucky, and create more single-minded insects. Salmon make epic journeys, swimming across thousand of miles of ocean to reach their spawning grounds, the only places on earth they can breed - and then they die.

So, this September, join me in raising a glass to the memory of Tommy Granger, a martyr to the cause of uncontrollable lust. He was a true pioneer in his field, a man who, by all rights, should be as well known as the Marquis de Sade, Caligula and the Mitchell Brothers.

And when you toss down that drink in Tommy's memory, say to yourselves, as I always do, "There, but for the grace of God, go I."

Note from the author

If you agree that a terrible injustice was done to Tommy Granger, please join me in a letter writing campaign to our Senators and Congressmen. It's high time that Tommy Granger's good name and reputation are restored.

Big Mike: Aiming For Freedom

Startling fact: I'd never held a gun in my hand until I moved to Kentucky.

When The Loved One and I came down to Louisville two years ago, I found a massive outdoors store across the Ohio River in Clarksville. It bills itself as the largest of its kind east of the Mississippi.

What struck me first about the place, after I'd noted that it's only slightly smaller than NASA's Vertical Assembly Building, were the homey, ye-olde-shoppe-type signs on the front door directing customers to check in their weapons at the information desk. This policy, I'd learn after a few weeks in town, is rather liberal compared to those of grocery and liquor stores as well as government buildings here, all of which post prominent signs prohibiting people from carrying concealed firearms inside - period. Their policies regarding shotguns and rifles are left to the imagination.

Anyway, the outdoors store had a firearms department that would do for an NRA member what Viagra does for me. I'd never imagined that so many guns could be in one place outside of al Qaeda headquarters or the office of a hip-hop record producer.

I spent an hour and a half just looking at the guns. When I came to a case full of Glocks, the clerk asked me if I wanted to hold one.

"Oh, I don't know," I said nervously. "I've never held a gun before." The clerk's knees buckled. Once the shock wore off, he repeated his offer.

"In that case, you have to feel this," he said, pulling one out of the case. Gun aficionados seem to have a sensual relationship with their weapons. They talk about the feel of a gun in a way that makes it seem more like a sweetheart than a hunk of metal and polymer.

"Naw, that's alright," I said. "I don't have a license. I'm not a gun guy. I'd feel funny."

"C'mon."

"Really? Should I? You think it'd be OK?"

"Here."

He brought the Glock closer to me, like a pet shop clerk offering me a kitten. I tentatively grasped it. I actually curled my finger around the trigger and aimed the gun at a mannequin dressed in the latest camouflage.

"Isn't it beautiful?" he asked.

"Oh sure, " I replied, although I was lying. It wasn't beautiful. It wasn't anything at all other than a hunk of metal and polymer in my hand.

It took me moving to Kentucky to truly understand how deeply people in this great nation feel about their guns.

I listened in on a conversation between Printer Bob and All-American Allen at Dick's Pizza the other night. Barack Obama's face had appeared on the big screens and the two of them commenced lamenting the crumbling of our great nation. The talk got around to guns.

"I'll tell ya,"All-American Allen said, "when I went to the gun show in December, I never saw so much traffic in my life. You couldn't move."

"Oh yeah," said Printer Bob, who'd also attended.

"These people," All-American Allen continued, jerking a thumb toward the big screen, "they just don't get it. They don't realize that every time they say they're going to do something about guns, everybody goes out and buys more guns!"

"That's right," Printer Bob said. "Guaranteed. If they say the words gun control, the gun shows are packed for the next six months."

"Don't get me wrong," All-American Allen said, "I'm not like some of them. You see guys at the shows that have guns and ammunition buried in their backyards. I like guns but I'm not a nut."

"Same here. I only have the one gun," said Printer Bob.

"But look, if they come after my guns, they're never gonna get them. All I have to do is say I sold 'em to my friend. What are they gonna do about it?"

"You can never get rid of all the guns in this country."

"It's impossible! How are they gonna do it? The cow's out of the barn."

"This isn't France or Germany where they can just take 'em away."

"Whenever a country wants to take away your liberties, the first thing they do is take away your guns."

"We want our freedom," said Printer Bob.

"That's all," said All-American Allen. "That doesn't make us bad people. Believe me, I've never met a nicer, more caring group of people than gun owners. I mean it! If I had to take my wife to the hospital and I needed someone to take care of my kids, I'd call one of my friends - and they're all gun owners. All good people."

It's ironic that this exchange came a day after 26 people were killed in shooting sprees in Alabama and Germany.

"It sounds old but it's true," Printer Bob said. "Guns don't kill people; people kill people."

"I've never shot a person in my my life," All-American Allen said. "And I hope I don't have to."