May 4th
On my way to a meeting yesterday, I stopped at Wawa to fuel up and get a drink. As I was walking from the pump to the building, I hear a man loudly say, "Excuse me?" I turned toward his direction I saw a gentleman sitting in the drivers seat of a red van. The next words out of his mouth were, "Thank you, sir, for Open Carrying!" I nodded and told him I wished everyone would take their safety more seriously. He told me that he and his wife were heading into MD to shop so he was not happy that he had to disarm. We chatted briefly until his wife came out of the store. He told me that he had recently separated from the military so I thanked him for his service. In our brief conversation I did not catch his name or even mention Deloc. I didn't realize it until after the fact and was kicking myself the rest of the day. Hopefully we'll run into each other again or he's on this forum and will see this message.
Once I got into the store, I went directly to the drink cooler to get a couple bottles of water. I passed a lady with 2 young children. The boy said, "Look! that man has a gun." ...and he was not using his indoor voice (like kids really have that anyways). I turned around and smiled at them and said hello. The boy repeated himself a couple more times as they walked across toward the deli. I'm not sure if they were heading there already or just putting distance between us. Either way, it wasn't in a rushed or hurried manner so I don't think the lady was too alarmed or even cared. I didn't notice anyone else react to the boy but it wouldn't have bothered me anyways. Had this happened last year I probably would've been red in the face trying to control my embarrassment and trying waaaaay too hard to act normal yet obviously looking awkward while doing so.
Your life is made up of 2 dates and a dash... make the most of the dash!