Category → Family
MELANIA movie is great!
If you had told me before this afternoon that I would willingly go see a movie about a pretty lady and her courtiers, and actually really enjoy it, I would have told you that you are nuts. This is because I am an unapologetically toxically masculine Alpha male who likes old firearms, leather boots (Danner Canadians are my fav), custom hunting knives, heavy packs, and rugged landscapes far from humanity that challenge my physical stamina.
My favorite thing to do is a solo wilderness camping hunt in wilderness areas, where if something badly goes wrong, there is only me to deal with it. A man should regularly spend time living on the edge, and challenging himself, smelling badly and getting dirt and maybe blood under his fingernails.
So, girl stuff, girl clothing, high heels (lots and lots of high high heels in this film), fabric, pretty hair, makeup, etc are not really in my bailiwick let alone my universe, OTHER THAN enjoying a beautiful woman who can put it all together in a nice package that makes my head turn and makes me let out an involuntary whistle. And if you are a manly man lucky enough to find one like that who will share your man cave with you, you have hit the jackpot.
President Donald J. Trump hit the jackpot with Melania, and this movie about her shows us why. She is gracious and graceful, gentle and kind yet quietly tough, stoic, better-than-Vogue stylish and stone cold to those who say they are her enemies, while openly loving to her family and allies. World class beautiful. What a woman.
Lucky you, Mister President. Lucky America, to have a First Lady (FLOTUS) with all this class and refined poise.
Apparently Amazon owner Jeff Bezos underwrote this film, and in it we catch a brief glimpse of Bezos sitting next to VP Vance at one of the main 2025 gala Inauguration dinners. Money buys you political access, right? Smart guy, Bezos, right? Everything about this film is A+ professionally done. Everything. Every tiny detail. The music choices, the editing, the filming, the scenes, every. single. thing. in this film is 100% perfectly done. And if Melania were a Democrat, this whole movie would have been done free of charge a hundred times over by the mainstream media, NPR, PBS, etc. in a hundred different articles and documinis.
One of the other perfect things that comes through is the enormous role of gay men, behind the scenes, in Melania’s life. Which is the life of chic lifestyle the world over. From the clothing that Melania wears to the Inaguration invitations to the table settings and arrangements, gay guys are running the show.
Now, if a hulking, hairy, smelly, straight Alpha guy with the artistic sense of a brick like me is telling you the following, you can put it in the bank: Our world would be a much much poorer, much less pretty, much less enjoyable, much less beautiful place without gay men. Strange though they may be from a biological perspective, gay men are a work of hybridized biological art that combines the best that men and women do separately, in one package, only better. Just have to say it, because though I have known that the fashion world is rife with them, this movie revealed it like nothing else could. Serious talent, gentlemen. Wow.
No, I am not an “ally.” Nor am I “pro gay.” Rather, I am pro human. I want everyone on this planet to be treated fairly and equally and to have the same opportunities. I also like giving credit where it is due to people who have earned it.
President Trump obviously makes some appearances in this behind-the-scenes filming done after the 2024 election and through all of the White House prep and resulting balls and dances and Inauguration speeches. Some funny quips and comments on and off the camera. His kids make brief appearances, while young Barron Trump gets the most attention out of all of them. I would not underestimate Barron Trump. Whatever this young man sets out to do, he is going to do it perfectly.
And why not? His mother is the most impressive Melania.
Go see this neat film. Sharing the movie theater with us were 85 other people. I have not counted anywhere close to 85 people in a movie theater since Top Gun: Maverick four years ago, and before that I cannot recall being in another movie pulling in so many people at one showing. After the lights went on, I spoke with some of the audience members still standing around, and they all liked it for different reasons.
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
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!
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
Hunting season is always glorious
To a lot of American hunters, including me, hunting season is a unique and special combination of extended holiday, camping trip, hiking trip, family gathering with the family members you like being with, nature viewing, rest and relaxation in pretty places, occasional deep naps way out in the woods, and opportunities to talk with God in remote spots that probably only see humans once every year or two when some hunter clambors his way out there for an hour.
Even for the urbanites who will be joining me over the coming weeks, simply hanging around “hunting camp” has a special role in re-charging personal batteries long depleted in bumper-to-bumper traffic and urban clutter with endless noise. Some urban guys are real go-getter hunters, while others enjoy sleeping in, drinking coffee and catching up with old friends, and having a cigar inside. Yes, this is a guys-only, cigars-permitted environment. People also say naughty things and tell politically incorrect jokes.
Comparing hunting knives, blade sharpening techniques, and new rifles is of course de rigeur.
After all, where else can a guy go and hang about with a bunch of other guys and talk about guns and knives all damned day and night long, while eating way too much food that their wives would never approve of: Only at hunting camp.
And whether you actually get something big and hairy, or not, the time spent there is always glorious. Believe it or not, there is plenty of Bible study, too.
I am looking forward to this hunting season, as I always do, and perhaps more so now that I am in my early sixties. Decades have flown by, some friends have died along the way, some have moved too far away to join me, and some of them were never really into the hunting anyhow, while others have jobs and businesses that absorb every waking moment of their lives. Which is a way of saying that I am appreciating this special time even more so this year.
We have not killed a bear here since 2006, not that our guys have not tried, and missed, since then. Nor have I killed a big buck here in years, despite having many opportunities. Seeing a big trophy buck in the woods gives me great pleasure, and 9.9 times out of ten, I will sit and let him walk by. Does, almost never.
Hunting season is not really about the killing; it is more about the hunting. Our hunting camp tee shirts this year say “One hunts not in order to kill; rather, ones kills in order to have hunted.”
Just being here, and being afield in the Big Woods with friends, is a deeply satisfying feeling. I hope the hunters who read this have a successful and safe season. And to the as-yet non-hunters reading this, get with it. We can mentor you, and show you the way of being a complete and whole human being.
Hunting season is also about running into old friends. Pam Mould was our township tax collector for decades, and our neighbor until about five years ago. Ran into her at Wolfe’s General Store in Slate Run today, while getting milk etc
Who is MAGA? What is MAGA?
Quite a bit of debate going on about the Make America Great Again movement started by candidate Donald Trump in 2015. Now that the movement to get Donald Trump elected succeeded a third time, and his policy goals are being implemented, the next question becomes “Whither MAGA?”
The question of why any American opposes the mere concept of Make America Great Again is beyond me. Why an entire political party has defined itself as opposing everything that a president does, including pledging to demolish the privately funded ballroom addition he is overseeing on the White House, is a question more for psychiatrists than political scientists. Trump Derangement Syndrome is real, it is measureable, it is quantifiable, and it is probably operationally definable, if some enterprising PhD student wants to contribute something useful to an otherwise useless, politicized, and anti-ideas moribund academia.
Americans suffering from TDS have a real problem, and I hope they get it treated professionally. On the flip side, conservative patriots like moi viscerally despised impostor Barack Hussein Obama, but not to the point of irrationally opposing even the occasional good things he did. You know, throwing out the baby with the bath water. Not that I can recall good things that Obama did, but probably there were some, like adding new acreage to a national park somewhere.
More to the moment are the questions of who is MAGA and who runs MAGA and what will become of this political movement when Preisdent Trump terms out of office. Who in the world of politics will pick up Trump’s mantle, his movement, and reassemble the successful team for future campaigns?
Right now a bunch of professional pundits have claimed the MAGA gatekeeper role for themselves. Steve Bannon, Tucker Carlson, Roger Stone, maybe Alex Jones, and a few other public opinion figures who make their living from speaking into a microphone and to a camera continue to make strident statements about MAGA, as if they own it, define it, speak for it. Other political pundits, like Dinesh D’Souza, Ben Shapiro, Matt Walsh, et al, certainly speak to and about MAGA principles, but they make no open claims to actually own or represent MAGA.
I reject all of these people, and anyone, frankly, from claiming this role. Even President Trump no longer really “owns” this movement that he created ten years ago.
This whole question, raging though it may be, reminds me of the whole predecessor Tea Party movement that began in 2008-2009 in Central Pennsylvania. No sooner had someone, and I won’t bother to research who it was who dubbed this grass roots voters backlash against the woeful Republican Party establishment and its hand-holding big brother Democrat Party, but immediately, anyone involved in conservative politics, conservative political activism, issue activism, or donating to conservative or GOP political campaigns, was awash in Tea Party related emails, appeals, mailers, brochures.
Quite a few so-named “Tea Party” 501(c)(4) groups were formed in 2008-2012. Even more related LLCs were formed. All were run by aggressive business people who sensed an opportunity to make money from politics yet again, and who appealed to voters and activists as being leaders who best captured and represented Tea Party ideals and principles. Many of these people claimed to be moral leaders, leaders of morality and ideological purity. Most of these people and their groups and organizations were shams, frauds, fakes, and did not stand the test of time. They are found few and far between today as part of the MAGA movement or cause, having been exposed as simple opportunists.
On the opposite end of this spectrum sits people like yours truly, my past political campaigns, and this blog, who have never made a net gain penny from politics, but who instead continue to hemorrhage personal money in the cause of political dialogue, policy debate, individual freedom, small government, accountable government, constitutional principles, our nation’s founding principles, etc.
I can also think of a few tireless, devoted political advocates here in Pennsylvania, who I will not name in full, who continue to donate their personal time and money to the cause of First Principles, without hope or expectation of remuneration. Dean, Ron, Jim, Jeff and others have all stood the test of time since our collective political arousal in 2008-2009. Yes, others have risen up to contribute their voice to the cause of freedom, and honest elections, but they also seek to make a living doing it. That is a business endeavor, not a selfless devotion.
Despite plenty of political activism in the 1980s, as a conservative Central PA Democrat, my own first personal try at elected office was in 2009-2010, when I ran as a Tea Party conservative Republican candidate for US Congress here in Central PA. I ran for state senate in 2012 and 2015, eventually removing myself from a great race for state senate in late 2015, due to a severely injured knee obtained while bear hunting. Back-to-back surgeries on what had been my “good” knee in January 2016 eliminated my ability to do what I enjoyed and did best, going door to door and meeting voters. It marked the end of my interest in elected office. But not the end of my interest in politics.
In 2015 I became full-blown MAGA, despite plenty of mockery from establishment Republicans serving on county GOP committees. Their 2016 “Dump Trump” slogan failed, as their shallow RINO candidates failed.
2016 marked the end of the Tea Party, as it morphed from a broad, ground-up, grass-roots-led freedom movement into the MAGA movement led by one Donald Trump. Trump used that movement of First Principle America lovers to get elected to office. Now that he succeeded, I do not think anyone can justifiably claim to lead it, or own it, or speak for it. Not even Trump.
I now look at people like Steve Bannon and Tucker Carlson the same way that I looked (sideways) at the people who came out of the shadows in 2008-2010 to claim un-earned leadership roles and money-making opportunities in the Tea Party. That populist movement may have finally found its footing under a new name, MAGA, and it may have elevated some people who spoke or occasionally speak our language, but it is wholly owned by you and me, citizen voters.
The strength of the Tea Party and its MAGA incarnation is that we Americans spoke to each other in town halls and municipal meeting rooms and at rallies. This was the most authentic voice and debate possible.
Each of us has an equal voice in this. People who make money and a living from this movement are automatically suspect in my eyes. They can’t possibly be in this for the right reason.
And like the big family we American citizens are, you and I can argue and bicker and sometimes disagree with one another about policy and candidates. But not one of us is a gate keeper for our collective movement, and no one we might want as a spokesman, would have the ridiculous arrogance to claim such a role.
Back hair, chest hair, belly hair…baby, I got it all and more
Confession time: I have a hell of a collection of back hair, belly hair, chest hair, even butt hair and ear hair. Fo’ real.
I know, I know, a man of my age does not age well, as “things” begin to grow from every orifice and heretofore unknown location, but so why then do we have to write about it…sorry, my apologies. There is an honest purpose here.
You, the lone, long-suffering sole reader of this blog, are probably already thinking to yourself “Good Lord, this guy has finally gone off the deep end with this TMI shock jock shtick. ” And were we actually talking about real body hair from my own voluptuous, idyllic form, you would be correct. However, as racy or as disgusting as this may sound, the fact is that I do have a pretty cool record-setting collection of all the aforementioned clumps of hair, but they are not from my own body.
Again and now even more so, whoever is left reading here at this point is gagging, and wondering what happened to the erudite intellectual who used to occupy this lonely outpost of fascination. Well, the bad news is I yet remain under the mal-influence of one Bill Heavey, the also-lonely humor writer of the once-wonderful magazine known as Field & Stream, now digitally un-dead and unknown to Americans under the age of sixty.
The good news is that I am not talking about human hair here, but rather the hair, or fur, of the many deer I have shot arrows at over the past five decades. This is true. I am not lying.
See, I fancied myself an archer at a young age, and so I got somewhere (probably at the kind of now-gone country auction that elderly collectors dream about and salivate over) a cheap recurve bow and a motley assortment of mis-matched arrows and dull broadheads, and set out to bag a deer.
Yes, I practiced, for years, as only the uninitiated and un-groomed and un-mentored can practice. Which meant that on Tuesdays and Fridays my archery “form” aligned well enough that I could hit the broad side of a barn, which were plenty, large, bright red, and quite broad where I grew up. And on all other days of the week my arrows sailed off into the wild blue yonder, to sit hidden in the fallow weeds and maybe puncture a neighbor’s tractor tire the following spring. Or maybe eventually catch my eye and be re-purposed as an arrow, more defunct stick than game-getter at that late point, but available and at-hand, and so useful nonetheless.
As a young man, I shot at deer from the ground and from neighbor’s hillbilly blinds, AKA rickety wooden death traps in today’s more refined hunting circles. My woodcraft was then and remains now unbeatable, and I am not lying or exaggerating when I tell you that I could stalk within feet of a dumbfounded deer, and let fly. Only to watch my arrow clip hair from the aforementioned areas and parts of the deer’s external anatomy, time and time again.
Bill Heavey would tell you, had he been as cool as me as a kid himself, that the deer died of laughter from the ridiculousness of the experience. But no, my deer did not die of anything. Not from shock, not from surprise, not from overwhelming mockery of the incompetent human mere feet away, and not an arrow in the heart. No, my deer stood stock still, with grass or acorns or corn hanging out of their slack jaw, staring at me in disbelief. Some even provided me with two shots.
I could have died from the shame of it all.
This routine of Bad-Indian-Sucky-Bow went on for decades, even as I graduated to used but working Fred Bear Kodiak recurves and then to custom “stick” bows. My prize and pride is a beautiful reflex-deflex longbow made by none other than Mike Fedora, the dean of modern traditional archery in America. Back in 2000, Jack Keith and I traveled from Harrisburg to the Eastern Traditional Archery Rendezvous, then at Denton Hill in Potter County (home of many more bears than people), where we connected with Jack’s dear friend John Harding, and where I was introduced to Mike Fedora.
At ETAR, Fedora traced my bow-holding hand, did some phrenology-like measurements of my various body parts, and pronounced that the bow of my dreams would be ready within a few months. And no sh*t, Mike Fedora did produce a beautiful bow that was like an extension of my soul. I could then and still can shoot that thing into bullseyes all day long. At archery targets, me and that custom bow are deadly.
At deer, I still drop the ball. No can hit. Must be nerves, which are steely when I am hunting with a rifle. And so my arrows continue to clip bits of hair from all over deer bodies all over Upstate New York and Upstate Pennsylvania.
I am telling you, my collection of these bits and clumps of hair is large and legendary. If nothing else, no human being alive has missed so many deer at so short a distance for so long as I have. A living, walking, malfunctioning Guiness Book of World Records I may be in this regard, around these parts it is nothing to brag about. Rather, I inspire pity from even little kids dressed in camo who have already arrowed several Pope & Young bucks by the age of seven.
In the not too distant past, someone with my pathetic archery hunting skill would have perished from starvation long before amassing even the beginning of such a fine and rare collection.
And yet, I have discovered hope, salvation for my pathetic-ness and hopeless skill-less-ness. As much as I hate to admit it, I, a traditional archery snob who mocked bows with “training wheels” (compound bows) and belittled “bow-guns” (crossbows) as un-sporting arms that no worthy deer would allow itself to be taken by, I have finally fallen to the siren song of the modern crossbow. Or, to be honest, the cross-gun that shoots a short arrow like some kind of James Bond super-weapon.
Despairing of my ineffectiveness at archery hunting, and desiring to finally carve some notches in something to prove my prowess as a traditional hunter before I expire, I went and bought a Ravin R10X crossbow. It came highly recommended by contractor Ken Pick of Renovo, PA, whose son aced a very nice mountain ten point with one two weeks ago at the distance of 87 yards.
I can barely hit a deer with a modern centerfire rifle at 87 yards, so when I saw the photos of the young chap and his buck and his James Bond cross-bow-gun, I decided if I could not beat them, I had to join them. And join them I did, by buying said Ravin R10X at Baker’s Archery in Halifax, PA. Vindication and verification and all related cations came at me real fast as soon as I took that scary-ass contraption afield.
This is no lie and no exaggeration: Ten minutes after I took a little mosey to a spot where I had not hunted before, but where I thought deer had to be (this is the woodcrafty Josh), I had whacked an anterlessless deer. I had only put the scope reticle on the spot where I thought the arrow would hit the deer, and before I even pulled the trigger a loud THWACK resounded in the woods.
The deer ran twenty yards and died of fright, with a gigantic hole coursing through its body where I must have aimed but do not remember doing so, due to my own shock at having actually killed something with a stick and a string.
Life is full of surprises. Don’t deprive yourself of these dangerous-as-hell you’ll-shoot-yer-eye-out-kid bow-gun contraptions. Dude, they are cool and totally worth it.
Take my experienced word for it.
The trophy of my dreams: A yearling button buck taken with a James Bond super weapon on a ground stalk
A young man who was mentored in traditional archery, with good form, at ETAR 2020 at Ski Sawmill
People’s trail cameras are literally everywhere. This was sent to me as I was preparing to ask this kind young man to help me drag the deer fifty feet to the gravel road
No joke about it, my friend and archery and life mentor, Jack Keith, was the real deal in everything, and I miss him every day.
People who subsist on archery can’t afford to write silly essays about sucking at archery
Traditional archery legend Fred Asbell showing how to correctly hold the bow while hunting. Fred took all kinds of animals all around the world with traditional archery tackle
A young man with even better archery form at ETAR 2022
