5th anniversary of J6th
Today marks the fifth anniversary of the January 6th, 2021 mostly peaceful protest at the US Capitol, and the resulting FedSurrection, whereby hundreds of known undercover federal agents and their civilian allies committed egregious violence, vandalism, mayhem etc and then tried to blame it on supporters of President Trump.
Lots of J6 hyperventilating going on today in the mainstream media, but it is curious how their articles do not even address what has been learned to date about the violence by federal employees, the initiation of violence and destruction by uniformed police that day. It is almost as if a false narrative about J6 and President Trump must be kept on CPR and life support, or something…
I was there on J6. My friends and I stood out in front of our Capitol and sang patriotic songs, like God Bless America and the National Anthem. We just stood there, shocked by the police violence on peaceful Americans. We did nothing illegal, nothing destructive, committed no violence. And yet I was gassed three times and shot dozens of times by rubber bullets and aerial explosives, despite being distantly on the correct side of the barricades. There was no reason for me to experience that illegal deprivation of my civil rights, and yet… there must have been a plan involving the Capitol Police, DC Police, FBI, DHS etc agents and their political allies like Rep. Nancy Pelosi.
It happened that way for a reason. An evil, destructive reason, meant to illegally besmirch President Trump and his supporters. Despite doing nothing wrong, 18 months later I nonetheless had FBI agents come to my house to “talk” about what I saw on J6. They then interviewed me in a lawyer’s office, which cost me thousands of dollars and turned out to be a BS effort to get me to badmouth President Trump. A witch hunt, a lawless use of coercive political power, against a law abiding citizen who dared peacefully protest against blatant voter fraud.
Meanwhile, no one has located the 10,000,000 missing votes from the 2020 election that then failed to materialize in 2024’s election. That is, an invented and fake ten million votes that never existed. The mainstream Democrat Party run media has not talked about this anomaly, which falsely got Joe Biden declared the winner and which was the reason a million of us had to go protest in DC in the first place.
A week ago, Fulton County, Georgia, admitted that in November 2020 they had approved some 315,000 illegal ballots as votes. In just that one county, this incredible amount of voter fraud was enough to not only make Joe Biden the false winner of Georgia, but also make two far left candidates for US Senate become US senators, and who today still illegally occupy those two seats. The now known voter fraud in just Fulton County alone has resulted in far more Democrat Party political power than it has legitimately earned.
J6 showed us that we Americans have a nose for bullshit, and we are not afraid to call it as we see it. I would go peacefully protest again, if I have to. America is worth fighting for, and if we citizens do not fight for what is ours, it will be ripped out of our hands by very very bad people bent on absolute control of everything and everybody.
Happy J6 Day, America and my fellow patriots.
Far-Left YouTube/ Google uses far left Wikipedia to promote a long disproven claim and narrative about J6
January 6th, US Capitol, our eyes watering from being illegally gassed by uniformed police
Confused…Real Damned Confused
If you are a person who lives your life by simple logic, by a set of basic logical values and related actions that result in your life achieving its maximal happiness or success, then you are joining me in being real. damned. confused. right now.
America has been in nonstop turmoil since 2015, because one group of people who live here, dare we call them Americans, are so desperate for all-controlling power, that they will do anything, say anything, contradict themselves a hundred times, just to sow chaos and conflict, if only to prevent someone else from exercising their power and decision making.
Over the past year we have seen our president stop the outrageous illegal invasion of America by tens of millions of economic vagrants, by sealing our borders. Our president has justifiably and most legally confronted the nonstop flow of illegal killer drugs, like fentanyl, into our nation, by giving the killers a dose of their own medicine. Our president’s new administration has uncovered many, many billions of dollars of brazen government fraud, which is stealing from taxpayers like me and you.
And in response, a group of people, so-called Americans, have every single time taken the side of the illegal border crossers, taken the side of the the drug dealers, taken the side of the dealers in child prostitution, taken the side of the economic migrants committing massive taxpayer fraud within months of arriving here in America.
Back in the Fall, I read a letter-to-the-editor by a candidate for office, which was representative of this bizarre approach to being an American. The letter whines about the supposed lack of “due process” for violent criminals illegally here in America, as they are captured and deported. Grave concern was also expressed by the author for the alleged “due process rights” of the dangerous drug runner terrorists being sunk at sea in their “fishing boats” that are laughably not fishing boats.
Nowhere in this letter does the author, then a candidate for elected office in America, express one molecule of concern for the due process rights (i.e. the implementation of the existing laws to protect Americans from illegal invaders and sadistic drug runners) of her fellow American citizens. American citizens have laws we passed to keep illegal invaders and drug runners from illegally entering America and committing illegal crimes here. That due process should be foremost in the mind of every American, you would expect. But it isn’t, strangely.
And now, now that our president has captured a lawless, election-stealing international drug dealer posing as a head of state who has been on an international WANTED list for years and who has the deaths of hundreds of thousands of young Americans on his hands, now that same confusing group of people, including that former candidate mentioned above, living right here in America, are angry about that. Never mind that many of these same “outraged” people have many times called for the ouster and capture of this same Nicolas Maduro of Venezuela.
Call me confused, because I am. I am really confused about an entire political party that is devoted to identifying with and helping illegal alien fraudsters and child dealers and drug dealers and foreign nations who are America’s sworn enemies. It makes no sense to live here in America, benefit from all of the incredible blessings that we enjoy here in America, and also simultaneously try to destroy America, hurt America, damage America. Especially when one occupies an elected position in government, at any level.
“Domestic enemies” is the term used by America’s founding documents to describe people like this, because clearly they are enemies of America. And a political party that engages in this most confoundingly illogical approach to participating in American politics as official business is a political party that looks a super lot like the same political party (of the same name) that lead an insurrection and secession in 1860 that resulted in our Civil War.
Basic logic dictates that we humans learn from history, and avoid the mistakes and bad things that happened in the human past. No one who is sane and logical should want to live in chaos and confrontation and violence. And yet, America has this, a whole group of people and a whole political party devoted to exactly this kind of chaotic mess.
It was bad enough when they tried to defend the taxpayer fraud committed through USAID programs, uncovered by DOGE. It was bad enough when they tried to defend violent illegal aliens, and treat them as victims when in fact they were repeat rapists, murderers, robbers, burglars. It was bad enough when they provided illegal aliens, who can neither read nor speak English, with commercial driver’s licenses, with the kind of resulting death and mayhem a logical person will expect to see. It was bad enough and super confusing when they objected to illegal drug runner boats, piloted by some of the most cruel, heavily armed, and violent people on our planet, being blown up on their way to America.
And now, all but a very small handful of elected Democrats are strenuously objecting to the capture and trial of Venezuela dictator Nicolas Maduro and the return of huge oil company assets that his predecessor dictator, Hugo Chavez, illegally seized from Americans.
This all seems terribly confusing to me. Especially because many of the most vociferous have previously supported the capture and trial of Maduro, and the return of American assets to their rightful owners. It is as if just raising hell and creating chaos is their way of running America. Which any sane and logical American rejects, because the entire purpose of living in America is to enjoy the stability and benefits of our shared nation.
Once upon a time, I was a registered Democrat Party member. I did not leave them, they left me. Today, I cannot understand how any American can still affiliate or identify with this lawless group of destructive people. Please feel free to explain yourself; I am all ears, and just real. damned. confused.
Screenshot
Happy New Year, America!
Happy New Year, America!
And yes, it sure is happy! The year 2026 marks America’s 250th anniversary, which is a big accomplishment.
Like many other people I know, I share in a general feeling of optimism about America’s future, both short term and long term. I am seeing prices of things that are important to me every day, like gasoline, come down significantly, while other things increase in value, not simply cost, like gold and silver, as a measure of anticipated American-based manufacturing.
The idea of having American manufacturing jobs again is thrilling. Manufacturing jobs once sustained whole American families, and communities. And then busy-body know-it-alls decided it was better for China to have unfettered pollution and also unfettered economic growth. I have never figured out how anyone who cares about America or a clean environment promoted that outcome as a solution to water and air quality challenges here.
All 1970s environmentalism did was shift the pollution from being scientifically managed here in America to being completely unmanaged and unmitigated and unmeasured in China. Sure looks like the environmentalists just wanted to undermine America, at any cost. Which means the environmemtal movement wasn’t about environmental quality; rather, it was about economic warfare against America.
And I got to see that personally as an EPA policy staffer in Washington, DC. Not good. This is being corrected as I write these words.
Anyhow, while there is a lot of political unhappiness and fraudulent crookery going on in the news, my spirits remain high. America is on a good trajectory, and hopefully I get to ride along on that successful arc, along with everyone else who wants to earn their money honestly.
Wishing everyone a Happy New Year, a successful New Year, a healthy New Year. See you in 2026!
Merry Christmas, America
Merry Christmas, America!
Christmas is our national holiday. Wishing everyone we meet a Merry Christmas all week is a core part of our culture. If this offends you, you are probably living in the wrong country. If this offends you, you are probably the proverbial “Grinch” crabby personality who doesn’t like being happy, or cheerful.
I like taking every opportunity to be happy I can find. So, Merry Christmas, have a wonderful 2026!
Classic 1930s Christmas image, with Santa indulging in raw sugar and cocaine. Forget cookies and milk!
Anglophiles unite. Here is an 1880s British Dragoon cutting leaves to make a holiday wreath for his barracks.
Another holiday posting, far from home and hearth.
The 1880s-1890s holiday images, especially by Currier & Ives, are the most evocative
Hanuka’s meaning for America
Tonight is the last night of Hanuka, and it is important to say that this holiday is still important for America, even if 99% of Americans don’t observe it, don’t know what the Menorah stands for. Those who do not want to be consigned to the dustbin of history can learn lessons from history, apply those lessons, and win. Hanuka presents modern freedom-loving Americans with a history lesson in never giving up, sticking to your principles, and always pursuing freedom, no matter what it takes to persevere.
Often called the “festival of the lights” in an effort to make it sound all cheery n’ stuff, Hanuka is in fact a commemmoration of a long, hard-fought, quite bloody civil war military campaign in Israel 2,400 years ago. That conflict restored Jewish control over Jerusalem and with it, the traditional (Biblical) service in the Great Temple there.
Christians take note of two things: Without the Jews winning the war, there would have been no Jesus/ Yeshua 400 years later, and note also that Christmas, which is America’s national holiday, is marked on the 25th of December. Hanuka begins on the 25th day of Kislev, the Hebrew calendar’s winter month. Jesus was a Jew, the Apostles were all Jews, most of the early Christians were Jews, and when it came time to create a new holiday for Christians, Christmas was set on the same date as Hanuka. There are no coincidences here.
Another important thing to take note of here: While the war ending in the “miraculous” discovery of a bottle of kosher olive oil hidden away in the Great Temple is often described as Jew vs Greek, it was also very much Traditional/ Orthodox Jew vs Liberal Jew, allied with the Greeks. In other words, a bloody tension has always existed between the liberal Jews and the Orthodox Jews, and it is only suspended when both groups are being chased down the same street together by mindless mobs who hate all Jews.
During the civil war that Hanuka marks, the blood of all combatants flowed abundantly, as this was no simple “spiritual battle” as the holiday is often described. Hanuka was not won by those who engaged solely in “spiritual” type behavior, like praying really really hard. Mean “X” tweets were not met with spicy retorts, and the loser then shut up and hid in shame.
Nope, a lot of blood flowed, as a result of years of close quarters combat with edged weapons. The Greeks and the liberal Jews lost more blood, and more lives, than the traditional/ orthodox “Maccabee” Jews, who ended up taking back what had been taken from them, by force: Jerusalem (another related history lesson: Judaism is Zionism, which is the 3,500-year-old religious movement to keep Jews living in Zion/ Israel/ Judea. The Maccabees were Zionists).
Key word here being “force.” The fighting was not mere words contained within the walls of the Oxford Union Debate Club, or other academic classrooms. It was borne out in hand-to-hand physical contest, which the most determined will usually win.
Hanuka’s lesson for freedom-loving Americans today, right now, is (and somehow I just know that you have heard this phrase somewhere before in recent times)… Fight! Fight! Fight!
Be determined, strong, and of brave spirit, because President Trump is not going to be in office forever.
Menorah = Freedom everywhere, including in America
Sunday hunting in January, 2026?
Last summer, Pennsylvania was approved for as much Sunday hunting as the PA Game Commission would care to implement. After decades of wrangling, a simple law allowing the agency to set all hunting days was passed, and in fact, PA hunters got a whole bunch of Sundays to hunt on. It was glorious.
Nothing was simple about getting the simple law passed. It required the departure from the PA Farm Bureau board a whole host of people who for decades had publicly said “Sunday is for church, and if you don’t go to church on Sunday, you should go, even if your religion has you going on Friday or Saturday or not at all.”
They were that un-American, these supposedly all-American arbiters of all things religion on the Farm Bureau board. For decades the PA Farm Bureau had held up Sunday hunting in PA, even as Sunday hunting freedom was implemented across the USA. Out West, Sunday hunting was never in question. A citizen’s right to choose when to hunt was respected. But back East, the home territory of the Puritans and the Quakers…nope, Blue Laws all week long, for hundreds of years.
So now that we have Sunday hunting freedom on the books here, what will PGC do with it? We saw this past season greatly improved with something like ten or eleven additional days to be afield (legitimately). But now, as we enter into a very complicated extended rifle season for antlerless deer, mostly starting December 26th and ending January 24th, it appears that we don’t have any Sundays to hunt in January, 2026.
Tell me this is not the strangest thing…
This could well be an easy oversight by the PGC staff, who were probably giddy and overwhelmed with logistical considerations last summer, as they worked on implementing PA’s first-ever real Sunday hunting. Or it could have been a carefully considered gentle tap on the brake pedal, a desire to measure success or failure first, before going full bore ahead in Fall 2026.
It is easy to understand how policy officials can think that way. But now here we are. And now that we all saw how easy it was to implement Sunday hunting this past Fall, I have a request of the PGC staff: Quit being all responsible and anxious about Sunday hunting! Go full bore, baby!
See, PGC was not all anxious about another very complicated policy it is now implementing for the first time ever, this year into next: Extended rifle season for antlerless deer.
The purpose of extending rifle season for antlerless deer state-wide on some properties, and region-wide on others, is to allow the alpha hunters among us more time to help bring down the deer population. So that the kindly drivers on our highways and byways do not hit overpopulated deer with their cars.
Which begs the question: Why have an extended deer season if we don’t also have Sunday hunting during it?
For those readers who are hearing this extended deer season business for the first time, or even for the second or third time, yes, it is real and it is really complicated.
First, ALL DMAP properties state-wide are open to antlerless deer hunting with a rifle, from December 26th to January 24th, 2026. All private and public DMAP properties, including private properties that are not yet a designated DMAP property but which fall within one of the Chronic Wasting Disease DMAP areas. You do need to have a DMAP tag to hunt with a rifle in or on one of these DMAP areas.
I think CWD DMAP area #6396 here in southcentral PA still has DMAP tags available.
Second, extended rifle season in some WMUs, like 4C, runs January 2nd to January 19th.
This is all in addition to the regular flintlock and archery season that begins December 26th and runs through January 24th. If you want to hunt buck, you can only have a flintlock or archery tackle with you; no rifle.
So clearly the PGC thinks PA has too many deer, and the agency wants us hunters to remove more does from the landscape, so they are giving us more time afield with the most effective hunting tool, the rifle. It then logically follows that the agency should want us hunters to have more time afield in pursuit of implementing their policy, too.
If you want Sunday hunting this coming January, which I do, then contact the PGC and let them know.
And while we are discussing hunting here, may we suggest that all archery and flintlock hunters wear an orange hat? Why not? With all the rifle hunters out with us in the late season, our camo-only ways are likely not as safe as they were when it was just us flintlock and archery hunters afield.
Happy hunting!
We want Sunday hunting in January!
Two Hollywood legends I will actually miss
Normally I am not a fan of Hollywood in any sense. In recent times, including just days ago, America lost two Hollywood legends, two actors who personified Hollywood at its best and maybe its worst, but also at its most colorful. I will miss them both, for very different reasons.
First up is Rob Reiner, apparently murdered two days ago by his own son. Both Rob and his wife Michelle were found deceased in their home by their daughter. Their throats had been slashed. Their son Nick has been arrested and charged with their murders. Apparently Nick has had a long history of drug abuse and all of the resulting relationship challenges that come with it. We now see the gruesome result, and can easily imagine the victims disbelievingly pleading with their own son not to harm them…
…their murders are a tragedy on its face, as well as a statement about the unworkable culture that is “inside Hollywood.” A mix of libertine excess and constant parental indulgence and allowance followed by inexorable failure. What a symbol of the whole place.
Rob Reiner really began his Hollywood career as “Meathead,” the abrasively sanctimonious know-it-all liberal son-in-law of appropriately named American workingman archetype, Archie Bunker, in All In The Family TV sitcom.
Relying on a well-scripted, well-played political and cultural tension between old guard Archie Bunker and Hippie “Meathead,” Rob Reiner gave effective voice to his generation’s anti-war, anti-tradition, anti-religion, anti-America liberalism.
The show captured the “generation gap” of my 1960s-1970s childhood, where older Americans held the traditional values that built a fully functioning nation, and the younger Americans were utopian meatheads with unrealistic, unsustainable expectations guaranteed to derail the nation.
Confusingly, Rob Reiner never grew up or let go of his Meathead persona, nor his destructive goofball political views. I suppose to his credit, in a way, neither have nearly all of his contemporary eldering-in-place fellow ever-child meathead Hippies. I will miss his entertaining online rants against Trump, MAGA, conservatives, Republicans, regular working Americans, essentially against everything outside of the tiny bizarro world Hollywood bubble that Rob Reiner inhabited.
Rob Reiner created the living liberal strawman that conservatives easily use to prove their points. In essence, Meathead grew up proving that Archie Bunker was right, decade after decade. And so, as much as he was strange, he also contributed well to the American political discourse. Rest in peace, Mr. Reiner. I am genuinely sorry you left us in this horrible way.
The other Hollywood person who recently left us is actor, producer, film maker Robert Redford. Easily the best looking man in American history, and also the one Hollywood actor least addicted to plastic surgery as he aged, Redford inhabited a very different cultural place than Reiner.
Famous for playing a variety of all-American hero and anti-hero roles, from gritty to suave, from cowboy to playboy, Robert Redford was a fixture in Hollywood for a really long time. He also fueled the Sundance Film Festival, an alternative to Hollywood, where low-budget art films and documentaries could gain audience and funding outside of Hollywood’s metrics and politics.
One of my favorite Redford movies is Spy Game, with Brad Pitt. Redford plays the role of a CIA spook and patriot, who in a former job as Cold War spy went so far as to unilaterally murder/ execute a known American traitor in Europe. This role alone sends a loud message about Redford’s politics: He was no leftist, no Hollywood commie, but rather he was a true American patriot in every conservative sense of the phrase.
But Redford also promoted environmental quality, and public lands, two things that are close to my own heart and not always present in the conservative movement. Not that Redford followed the leftist doctrine of heavy regulation and anti capitalism, but rather, he simply said that these things are important. And of course, they are important. And there are other ways of achieving environmental quality and public lands conservation without following leftist doctrine. Such a moderate stance is unheard of among Hollywooders.
Redford played very well a famous, iconic role that still speaks to men of my generation, that of historic mountain man Jeremiah Johnson. Filmed right before the 1976 American Bicentennial, Jeremiah Johnson captured the spirit of the American frontier, Westward expansion, Manifest Destiny, rugged individualism, self reliance, urban vs rural, and the European-American conflicts with the western Indian tribes (Crow, Blackfoot, Cheyenne, Pawnee, Lakota and others) in the Rockies.
Many of these themes and character traits are still central to the American identity that us older Americans have. Including Archie Bunker.
Jeremiah Johnson promoted the now-underappreciated but still central role of undeveloped American open lands in forging the tough American frontier spirit and Yankee ingenuity that built our nation. That conservatives miss or ignore this link, or misunderstand it, is just as much a crime as leftist attempts to essentially shrinkwrap public lands and make them off-limits to humans.
Robert Redford represents an image and political philosophy almost at the other end of Rob Reiner’s place on the political bell curve. Both men played important parts in shaping American culture, and I appreciate them both. However, Robert Redford will forever be an aspirational icon, whereas Rob Reiner represents a dead end on the political evolutionary tree.
Robert Redford as Jeremiah Johnson, iconic American frontiersman
A thousand in hand, none in the bag
Several days ago, sitting on a stump on the edge of a brushy power line right of way, a rifle across my knees, looking for a fat doe to tag, my eyes kept involuntarily darting around, tracking small things flitting about. The warming rays of sunlight had apparently caused otherwise dormant insects to become active, and in came a thousand “LBBs”, Little Brown Birds, as Robb sardonically calls them.
I was surrounded by troops of bluebirds, hordes of nuthatches, chickadees, cardinals, a thrush, hairy woodpeckers, downy woodpeckers, woody woodpecker woodpeckers, tufted titmouseses, and a dozen other species of colorful songbirds I would not expect to encounter in December. Especially in such profusion. It was literally a bird riot, but without a murder of crows.
A golden wing warbler kept landing on the dead branch my right boot rested on, eyeing me curiously, closer and closer each visit.
Deerless, I nonetheless felt immensely richer for this baptism-by-bird experience. Deep Nature immersion is one of those common themes hunters talk about, probably the main side benefit of hunting. Hunters see stuff you people would never believe.
About twenty years ago I was spring turkey hunting, covered in camo and with a head net, motionless, my back to a white oak along an old woods trail. Morning had just broken, and before I could begin calling, an enormous hawk streaked right past my face and nailed a timber rattler maybe ten feet to my left, hidden in the leaves. Before I could fully register what had happened, the raptor was already energetically pumping its wings and lifting its heavy writhing meal off through the forest to some secluded snacking branch.
Reluctantly beginning my present hunt on foot, I stood up, stretched, and naturally spooked the whole carnival into flying in every direction. Like a fragmentation grenade made of feathers. A lifetime in the woods, and this was my first experience like this. A thousand beautiful little winged gems all around me, literally in the palm of my hand, all peacefully collected in my mind without hurting a soul.
Someday, like tears in rain, these dramatic images in my mind will be lost to me and to the rest of humanity. But, for now and for whomever I would later try to share it with, it was a huge, distinct, memorable event.
“Nothing in the bag on this hunt, but already as successful as it could ever be,” my mind said to itself.
Pennsylvania seasons…the one that really matters
The longstanding quip that Pennsylvania has two seasons, road construction season and hunting season, still stands.
Anyone living in PA can attest to the seemingly endless roadwork everywhere here that begins in May and ends in November. At one time, Pennsylvania had the greatest miles of roads to square miles of area of any state; but, according to a random 2018 chart on the Internet, eight years ago PA ranked #7 and was pretty much tied with Indiana, Maryland, and Delaware in this regard.
New Jersey now holds this dubious record of most linear road miles to square miles of area, which surprises no one, given how urbanized NJ is. But it seems that no state makes so many crappy roads and bridges quite like PA, and so we do have the endless road construction to fix them, and thus, the adorable quip.
It does seem that our highways and bridges are always failing, or about to fail. Whether this is because of bad contracting, corrupt payoffs like with the recent PA Turnpike scandal, or the high number of freeze-thaw cycles our roads go through, it is tough to know. But whateva… the quip strikes home, every time.
Our other season is worth about $1.5 Billion annually. Call it Elmer Fudd Season, Deer Season, or Red-Check-Plaid Pennsylvania Tuxedo Season, hunting season is still a huge part of Pennsylvania’s culture and economy. Thank God above. This is the Pennsylvania season that really matters, though it has been changing in the past twenty years and ten years, respectively, as more doe permits have been issued and as bear and deer season openers have moved from Mondays to Saturdays.
Despite all the seasonal scheduling changes, which have resulted in northern hunting camps losing their traditional gatherings for big bear and deer drives, the easily renewable economy of hunting chugs along. No broken bridges or defunct roads here; the money just happily flows and flows and flows.
Outdoors people, of which Pennsylvania has a lot, really like to have nice outdoors lifestyle stuff. Things like camouflage flatware, camouflage lingerie, camouflage radios (conveniently made to look exactly like forest floor leaf litter, so that when you inevitably drop your radio, it becomes invisible and forever at one with said forest floor, and you have to go buy a new one), camouflage tee shirts, ammunition, guns (no one ever has enough guns), boots (no one ever has enough hunting boots), fishing rods, fishing lures and hooks, ATVs, etc.
And so here we are, four days into the 2025 PA deer rifle season, and EVERYTHING SUCKS. As in, I have heard nothing but nonstop bitching from friends, acquaintances, and even people I do not know who I bump into at the gas pump, about the lack of deer. And for once, I have to agree with these grouchy complainers. Count me in as one of you guys this year.
Normally, I would scoff and deride these complainers as bad hunters, or unappreciative hunters, but the truth is, I am also having a Bad Hunter kind of rifle season myself. And this is on top of last week’s bear season, where my wonderful flatlander friends, whom I love and whose company I enjoy very much, continued to yet again miss gimme shots on huge trophy bears on tough bear drives, just so they can promise to come back and “git ’em next year.”
Trying to not disappoint me, they say.
Whether there is some kind of invisible solar flare activity that we humans are not privy to, but which is very important to the life of deer, or an alien space ship picked up and removed all the deer in PA, our deer hunting season is off to a weird start. Everywhere, as far as I can discern. It is certainly true without any doubt that most of the deer are having teenage human type life cycle inversion, where 2:00 AM is the time of most activity, and 2:00 PM is for sleeping. Exactly where all the deer are sleeping is a great mystery that a lot of us have sweated off a lot of calories trying to determine the past 72 hours.
Trail cameras report back legal bucks and bands of does traveling past places we normally guard with a rifle, but in the middle of the night, when we are sleeping off that 1,500 foot elevation climb to the mountain top that has zero acorns and zero deer sign. And then there is the descent at dark, the harder part.
So I am going to nominate a third season of sorts, maybe temporary, maybe only for the beginning of the 2025 deer rifle season here in PA: Bitching, Moaning, and Grumbling Season.
Right now and for the next ten days, it is the only season that matters. Good luck, fellow deer hunters!
How many Central PA deer hunters spend our time for two weeks, overlooking a deep wash or draw and picking out shooting lanes. Snow makes it perfect, But we still need deer to show up…
Who us? Yes, it is 11:24 PM in a location with little hunting pressure or human activity, and the deer have gone totally nocturnal.
Maybe not an impressive rub, but the scrawny six point caught on camera that we derided two weeks ago would be most welcome right about now, as the monster 150 inch twelve point has not been seen for two weeks…
Much, much to be thankful for in America
Tomorrow is Thanksgiving, and there is so much to be thankful for here in America. Let’s start with the “small” things, which we take for granted:
-Surfeit of food, of all tastes, colors, varieties, amounts. At bear hunting camp this week (pictures below), people brought a wide variety and overwhelming amount of snack food, in addition to the high quality main course ingredients. Super rich, high-calorie, high fat, mostly sugar and corn syrup as the first or second ingredient, this “snack” stuff could feed an African village for a week. But it is practically poison here in America. We take it for granted, and often reach for it out of boredom, never out of need. It is killing our health, with way too many Americans obese and diabetic. The good stuff, like amazingly abundant and cheap fresh fruit and vegetables, does not blast our palates with artificial flavor, and is shunted aside.
-Paved roads, which are not common in much of the world. Americans like our paved highways and by-ways, everywhere. They are enjoyable to drive on, and are so smooth that we can eke every possible bit of gas mileage efficiency out of our personal vehicles as we shave minutes off of long distance trips. Importantly, our highways are made from quarried rock and oil pumped out of the ground.
-Personal vehicles are not a get-to-work or manage-the-farm necessity for half of America, but are rather the higher-end personal statement of appearance and perception, of how we want others to see us. Meanwhile, half the world still uses horses, donkeys, and cattle to transport food and goods. The next time our personal car gets a scratch, let’s remember that a vehicle is but a tool, and tools get used and scratched. Let’s not take these super expensive tools for granted.
-Shelter, like a home, has rapidly changed in concept in just a few decades. Our grandparents aspired to own a home of about 900 square feet in size. And while we mocked 1980s tyrant Imelda Marcos for her huge closets and psycho big shoe collections, a lot of car garages are now about 900 square feet, while the homes they are attached to are 3,500 square feet. Meanwhile, our own families have shrunk in size since the 1950s, compared to our grandparents’, but our homes are generally exploding in opulent size and personal service.
While I do not question or judge market forces like supply and demand, we must be thankful for what we have available to us, dammit. The tin shanty favelas surrounding Mexico City were filled with domesticated animals and pobrecitos human beings, all under one small leaky roof made of rusty corrugated metal; the things I saw then still haunt me even now.
I am not trying to be a scold or a downer, but man oh gees, do we as a nation need to be super duper thankful to each other and to the One Above for all the blessings this incredible America enjoys. If we take these myriad blessings for granted, then we will take anything and everything for granted, including each other. And when people take each other for granted, their relationships fail. American citizens need to have a close relationship with each other and with our self-representative government. It all goes together, hand in glove.
Tomorrow, we must all give deep thanks for what we have, and show appreciation for it all. Not the least of which is living in the wealthiest, freest nation ever created by humans.
Happy Thanksgiving, my fellow American citizens!
A 1970s Grohmann “skinner” knife gifted to me by a friend whose dad hunted with me. It was dull as dishwater until Irv worked his magic on it. It now shaves hair and has a heavy dose of home-made cutting board butter on the rosewood handle. It goes deer hunting this weekend.
The bear we caught up in our Monday drive, seen here back in July. Estimated at well over 7′ and 600-700 pounds, he escaped with but a scratch from an excited hunter who did not take his time and aim carefully. Photo by Bob G., thank you.
The Ruger Marlin 1895 45-70 in the mountaintop laurel jungle minutes before our drive made contact with the big bear.
When shot wild and excitedly, twelve gauge copper slugs will kill only trees, and not the bear-of-five-lifetimes
Light blood trail went for 1500 feet, and then disappeared. We determined his left front leg had been nicked, not hard. Lucky bear, sad hunter
Sad hunter makes the universal “I can’t believe I did that” gesture of frustration back at camp. Yeah, you will never see another 700 pound bear on a drive in PA, old friend