Bonnie Hickling

[NOBUNAGA🇯🇵🏯_夏樹蒼依 @japan_nobunaga]

Stateside, a gas station. I drank a frozen blue beverage too quickly, and was struck down by a punishment this entire nation knows, and accepts, and has named.

The drink is called a slush. Ice, sweetness, and a blue that does not occur in nature. The day was hot. I was thirsty. I drank like a soldier at a river.

The pain arrived in my skull like a war horn.

Behind the eyes. Above everything. Total. I gripped the roof of my car. I may have made a sound.

"Brain freeze," said the cashier through the door, with no urgency whatsoever.

It has a NAME. The affliction is so common it has a household name, like a cousin.

"Tongue on the roof of your mouth," called a man at the pumps. He did not look over. He prescribed the remedy mid-pump, casually, the way one mentions weather.

I pressed my tongue to the roof of my mouth. The war horn faded. The healer nodded at his pump, finished, and was gone in a Chevrolet.

In my land, punishment follows crime by way of courts and seasons. Here, the sentence is instant. Drink with greed, and the ice strikes the mind directly. No trial. No appeal. Perfectly fair.

And here is what moves me. EVERYONE has felt it. The cashier. The healer. Children. Elders. An entire nation united by the same small lightning, all taught the same cure, all passing it on to strangers at gas stations, free of charge.

You cannot fully distrust a country once you know it shares one pain.

The freeze does not punish thirst. It punishes haste.

I finished the slush slowly, like a scholar. Blue tongue. Clear mind.

Then at the door I forgot everything, drank deeply, and was struck down again.

"Tongue, hon," said the cashier, without looking up.

Discipline is a journey.

[Vivek Ramaswamy @VivekGRamaswamy]

Charlie Kirk was more committed to peaceful, open dialogue with those who disagreed with him than anyone I know. God blessed him with immense gifts, and he used them boldly and without fear. He knew the risks he was taking, but he did it anyway because he loved his kids & felt a responsibility to the nation they would inhabit. I traveled the entire country with him last year, we spent 1x1 time together in Ohio two weeks ago, spoke to him again 2 days ago. He’s long warned of the rise of political violence & the growing culture of assassination, when few were willing to listen, with a clarity of vision unlike anyone I’ve known. Completely and utterly devastated.

[Justin J. Forman @JJForman1]

Bama fan flips off the camera. #bamavsfsu #espnonabc #rolltideroll

[Bonnie Hickling @dbhickling]

That’s my girl!

[Journal of Geophysical Research: Biogeosciences @JGRBiogeo]

✨New Research✨

Scientists find that climate-induced landscape alteration will lead to increased mobilization of terrestrial dissolved organic carbon (DOC) into #Arctic rivers.

🔗Learn more: https://t.co/yMeBh9tH25

#AGUPubs @NationalMagLab @UCDavisResearch @RPIScience

[Bonnie Hickling @dbhickling]

@iAnonPatriot So well put. Thank you for this.

[Bonnie Hickling @dbhickling]

@itselizabethbtw

[Bonnie Hickling @dbhickling]

@GoldretrieverUS Fletcher #TongueOutTuesday

[Bonnie Hickling @dbhickling]

@Thordermans @CowboysDubs As someone from central New York, me too.

[Bleacher Report @BleacherReport]

Serena Williams’ advice to Caitlin Clark 🗣️

(via @TIME)

[Bonnie Hickling @dbhickling]

@etnow

[Bonnie Hickling @dbhickling]

@IAmCaseStephens A Lesson Before Dying by Ernest Gaines. Jefferson’s diary at the end is so incredibly sad.

[All American @AllAmerican202]

How is this band NOT inducted into the rock n roll HOF?! What a sham….

[Bonnie Hickling @dbhickling]

@AuthorKimberley

[Bonnie Hickling @dbhickling]

@NateLull Yay Abby!!!

[Bonnie Hickling @dbhickling]

@DogLovers03 Dove

[Bonnie Hickling @dbhickling]

@epicciuto Joe Dirt

[Bonnie Hickling @dbhickling]

@Jeopardamy

[The Redheaded libertarian @TRHLofficial]

“Have you ever wondered what happened to the 56 men who signed the Declaration of Independence?

Five signers were captured by the British as traitors, and tortured before they died. Twelve had their homes ransacked and burned. Two lost their sons in the revolutionary army, another had two sons captured. Nine of the 56 fought and died from wounds or hardships of the revolutionary war.
They signed and they pledged their lives, their fortunes, and their sacred honor.
What kind of men were they? Twenty-four were lawyers and jurists. Eleven were merchants, nine were farmers and large plantation owners, men of means, well educated. But they signed the Declaration of Independence knowing full well that the penalty would be death if they were captured.
Carter Braxton of Virginia, a wealthy planter and trader, saw his ships swept from the seas by the British Navy. He sold his home and properties to pay his debts, and died in rags.
Thomas McKeam was so hounded by the British that he was forced to move his family almost constantly. He served in the Congress without pay, and his family was kept in hiding. His possessions were taken from him, and poverty was his reward.
Vandals or soldiers or both, looted the properties of Ellery, Clymer, Hall, Walton, Gwinnett, Heyward, Ruttledge, and Middleton.
At the battle of Yorktown, Thomas Nelson Jr., noted that the British General Cornwallis had taken over the Nelson home for his headquarters. The owner quietly urged General George Washington to open fire. The home was destroyed, and Nelson died bankrupt.
Francis Lewis had his home and properties destroyed. The enemy jailed his wife, and she died within a few months.
John Hart was driven from his wife’s bedside as she was dying. Their 13 children fled for their lives. His fields and his gristmill were laid to waste. For more than a year he lived in forests and caves, returning home to find his wife dead and his children vanished. A few weeks later he died from exhaustion and a broken heart. Norris and Livingston suffered similar fates.
Such were the stories and sacrifices of the American Revolution. These were not wild eyed, rabble-rousing ruffians. They were soft-spoken men of means and education. They had security, but they valued liberty more. Standing tall, straight, and unwavering, they pledged: ‘For the support of this declaration, with firm reliance on the protection of the divine providence, we mutually pledge to each other, our lives, our fortunes, and our sacred honor.’”

Michael W Smith

[Bonnie Hickling @dbhickling]

@GoldretrieverUS Fletcher and Chip happy to go for a walk #WeekendSmiles #CutenessOVERLOAD #dogsoftwitter

[Jared Carrabis @Jared_Carrabis]

Japan's strategy of loading the bases and then hitting the ball to Randy Arozarena is not optimal.