Category → Family
Why isn’t PA in the National Fair in DC?
Came as news to me that there even was a national state fair. Being held on the National Mall, in Washington, DC. Cotton candy, rides, Ferris Wheels, fried foods guaranteed to jump start your heart and then clog it, stuffed teddy bear prizes for your sweetheart, strong man competitions, rope-pulling contests, the usual fun stuff seen at most county and state fairs around America for the past 100 years or more.
Either I do not spend much time online, or the marketers for this big event were not aggressive about it. I just knew nothing about it, read nothing about it, heard nothing about it, had seen nothing about it until a week ago, when it was a couple days away from opening.
Turns out that this “National State Fair” is really big time. Almost a World’s Fair in some ways, with new technology and products being debuted. Pretty darned cool. It runs for a month, and covers America’s 250th birthday celebration on July 4th Independence Day. We are told the fireworks “will be like nothing you have ever seen, that Washington has ever seen.”
Yeah, OK, but is there a place and a role for one of my black powder cannons? Those things really go BOOM.
And so it came as a shock to see recent follow-up articles about how my home state of Pennsylvania is not (or was not) participating in this National State Fair on the National Mall in DC. Pennsylvania, the Keystone State, not participating in America’s 250th birthday celebration in Washington? Really?
Pennsylvania is called the Keystone State for some good reasons, some historic reasons. We were the keystone colony and then state that held together the northeastern and southern colonies and then states. Home of the Declaration of Independence. Pennsylvania’s natural resources literally built the America you experience today. Our own coal fueled the mills in Steelton and Pittsburgh that smelted our own iron ore into steel, that in turn became the railroad tracks laid on Pennsylvania oak railroad ties (of which I have sawed up many on my own sawmill).
The state of Wyoming is not some western name. It is an eastern name, from the Delaware Indian word for “great grassy plains.” The state of Wyoming is named after the Wyoming Valley in northeastern Pennsylvania, because it was the eastern railroads built entirely of Pennsylvania materials that deposited European settlers out on the Wyoming plains (after the Indians had been forced onto reservations). I do not know what the various Indian tribes called what is today Wyoming. But I do know that Pennsylvania had a big hand in making it so.
Pennsylvania coal, iron, and old growth hardwood timber drove the Industrial Revolution in America. Forty minutes due east of Harrisburg is the village of Cornwall, in Lebanon County. An enormous pit there is now filled with water, but it used to be filled with men mining heavy iron ore from the ground. In 1776, those pits were opened to produce the iron to make the cannons that Revolutionary War general George Washington needed to face off against the most hardcore British military, with much of the subsequent cannon blasting and men bleeding happening on Pennsylvania soil (and again at Gettysburg in the Civil War…hmmmmm… this Keystone State thing just keeps raising its head).
I could go on and on about Pennsylvania history in the founding and development of America, but you should get the point here. Pennsylvania got the nickname “Keystone State” for a lot of good reasons, worthy reasons, hard-won reasons.
So, Pennsylvania, having played such a huge role in the founding and early development of America, should naturally be well represented in America’s 250th birthday celebration in Washington, DC, right? Right? RIGHT?
Ummmm, nope. PA governor Josh Shapiro very recently stated to the press that his administration was unable to locate any PA businesses who wanted to participate in the National State Fair, or who could afford to participate in it.
Apparently, I was not alone in learning this new information, as both of our US senators, John Fetterman and Dave McCormick, have in the past 72 hours leapt to action, together, to find both interested businesses and the private funding to get them situated at the National State Fair.
Their bi-partisan action to save the day for Pennsylvania on the national stage is news in and of itself, because just finding a Democrat who wants to be caught dead anywhere near a Republican, much less work with one towards some common shared goal, like, say, a National State Fair in Washington, DC, is harder than raising Lazarus from the grave.
So bravo! to senators McCormick and Fetterman, who say that they have received an outpouring of interest from all of the associated and related and even distantly related associations, groups, and individuals and businesses. PA -based manufacturers and inventors are especially keen to showcase their wares at the event, and have now publicly said so.
Which brings me back to the lurking elephant in the room (it is more of a big donkey than an elephant): Why is Governor Shapiro not out in front of this, leading the charge down to the National Mall? Why did he just kind of low-T diss this event and downplay it, as if it is no big deal for PA to be AWOL on something so important as the national celebration of America’s 250th birthday?
Does Governor Shapiro really, truly, sadly suffer from an affliction of TDS so terribly fatal that he became grossly partisan and petty about something so important?
What a big missed opportunity this is for a man who has represented himself as a political centrist, a uniter and not a divider. Governor Shapiro has aspirations of being re-elected this Fall, and of possibly running for President of America in 2028. As a former Democrat myself, I find myself shaking meself’s old head, once again, at the sad turn the Democrat Party has not just taken once or twice, but which now continues to take even farther off and over a steep cliff.
That someone of Governor Shapiro’s caliber is sulking and boycotting America’s national 250th birthday celebration is a baaaaaad sign. Bad for our body politic and bad for Governor Shapiro’s larger political aspirations.
Past PA governor Ed Rendell was as partisan a politician as you could find anywhere. Rendell was a huge and tireless champion for the Democrat Party. And yet, Rendell also took every opportunity to work cooperatively with his political opponents when those opportunities were given. Rendell understood that it is better to bask in the spotlight of national appreciation with political opponents, than it is to sulk alone in some partisan silo, holding one’s ball close to the body and vowing to never play with those kids ever again. That behavior is bad for everyone.
Pennsylvania’s Governor Shapiro likely has better things to do than read this blog, but if he does, I would (and do) ask that he hightail it down to the National Mall, and share the spotlight with the two US senators from Pennsylvania, McCormick (R) and Fetterman (D).
Promoting Pennsylvania is Job #1 for elected officials from Pennsylvania, and doing that with a smile on one’s face makes everyone involved look like emotionally healthy adults. And it makes all Americans feel like there are still some sane, normal people involved in retail politics. People we can look to for leadership. People who care about all of America, and not just about their own little slice of the electorate, off in some corner, away from everyone else American.
Now, please excuse me while I go hang my Happy 250th America flag on my front porch.
Happy Solstice Father’s Day
Father’s Day 2026 coincides with the longest day of the year, the Summer Solstice. In traditional societies, both winter and summer solstices are central to religion and culture, often gathering people together for initial crop harvests, or for winter-time prayers for a successful coming-year crop yield.
Is it not meaningful or symbolic that celebrating Fatherhood got the longest day of the year in 2026? After all, fatherhood, which is also stewardship, careful management, husbandry, a pile of other synonyms and principles for judicious oversight and watchfulness, is central to any successful family and enterprise?
Fathers have always been central to healthy families, and there is no reason to artificially exclude dads now from healthy families.
About twenty years ago, a dear old friend from Penn State emailed a photo of a single mom, tattooed and pierced, holding her young child. An early form of meme, the photo’s caption said something about how women don’t need no stinkin’ men in their lives and can do everything just fine themselves. It was an angry feminist attack on men in general, and on fatherhood specifically, summing up the then-spiraling and now-spiraled-and-disintegrated state of American society and family alike.
Boy, or man, did that meme age poorly! Nowadays, even the most ardently leftwing sociology professor is acknowledging the necessity of two-parent homes for having children grow up into healthy, adjusted, functioning adults. The data today is simply overwhelming: Men and women together build the soundest, most resilient families. Everything else is somewhere on a Bell Curve’s downhill slope toward failure.
Historically, Dad was both provider and defender. In a world of fang, claw, and tooth, the mighty arm of Dad could wield a spear, a knife, a sword, and keep hairy death at bay. And because both hunter-gatherer and agrarian societies are based on human muscle, Dad’s brawn was central to family survival.
Today, in the West, Dad has been re-invented, mostly against his will and against his interest, against the interest of happy and healthy families. Part class clown and all goof, Dad’s role in popular culture has taken a steady beating from the far-left anarchists running American academia and media. But nature has not changed, and human nature has not changed, and despite heavily promoted fuzzy notions of utopian lifestyles, do-it-all moms and super-women, Dad is still just as needed today as he was a thousand years ago, or a hundred thousand years ago.
If nothing else, a hundred thousand years of human evolution still wants, needs, the comfort of Dad’s words, his encouragement, his bravery, leadership, risk-taking, his steadfast commitment to his family. Not every Dad is up to the job at 100% all the time, but just showing up every day is about 75% of the job. And like in baseball, batting 75% is pretty damned good. Most kids will cut their own Dad some slack, if they believe that he has tried to do his best to be the father they needed.
Thanks, Dad and Dads everywhere. We all love you and we all appreciate you. You are the longest day in our lives, because you have the heaviest influence on us. Hopefully, Dad uses his influence for the good and health of his family. After all, that is being a Dad…
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Make the most of your summer!
Summer is really in full swing now. Outside temperatures are warm to hot, plenty of sunshine, school is out, beaches and picnics and state parks beckon. Fresh air, some vitamin D sunshine on the skin. Summer really is our best time to relax with family and friends, take a breather from non-stop work, take family vacations, go play with our kids or grandkids. Work never ends, and there are few opportunities to stop working and just focus on family, except for the summer.
Man, I love summer time.
I myself enjoy summer gardening. We grow the basics: Various tomatoes, zucchini, cucumbers for canned pickles, butternut squash, and a bunch of herbs and spices like basil, sage, rosemary, and dill. We also grow peaches and apples; our cherries were marauded to death by the grackles and squirrels this year. All of our home grown food is pesticide free, chemical free, which normally costs more when you buy it.
I get a big enjoyment from growing our own food, and whatever is extra, is frozen in ziploc bags. Zucchini is cut up and frozen, tomatoes are washed off and frozen whole. We eat a lot of ratatouille in the summer, because zucchini and tomatoes are so abundant. Throw in a few eggs, and you have shakshuka. Very nutritious, healthy, low fat food.
Whatever it is that you enjoy doing in the summer, make sure you do it to the max. Miss no opportunities, because these long hours and sunny days will not be coming back. Take them not for granted! Your kids will remember every moment at the beach with you, fishing with you, picnicking with you, for the rest of their lives. These are special and meaningful days.
I hope you have a great summer. Make every minute of it count.
Does your happiness determine your politics?
Having grown up with leftists, and been surrounded by leftists, and worked primarily if not almost exclusively with leftists for the first 2/3 of my career, I have developed a loose theory of political orientation: Our happiness determines our politics.
Americans holding leftist political views tend to be less happy, dis-satisfied, or just generally unhappy.
“If you are not angry, you are not paying attention” went one popular leftist bumper sticker in the 1990s. Anger seems to be a self-recognized trait among leftists, a bond uniting them.
Given that what seems like 98% of political violence or culturally-based violence in America is committed by Democrats or leftists, it would follow that anger and unhappiness are driving traits in the left. Anger and hate are precursors to violence.
Karl Marx, the 1850s father of Marxism/ socialism/communism and the ends-justify-the-means political tyranny, was a notoriously dis-satisfied guy. One famous letter from his father to him excoriates Marx for never being happy and always looking to blame others for his own failures. To think that Karl Marx’s political descendants would fall far from his ideological tree is really stretching the truth of natural human character.
I could go on and on and really develop this theory, like Ten Commandments level envy is the core of evil “equity”/ thieving redistributive politics, but if you doubt this, look around yourself. Look at the people around you, and ask yourself, Who is angry, and who is optimistic and positive?
And then figure out the politics of the angry, dis-satisfied people and the politics of the happy, optimistic people. In my experience, with a few exceptions, the unhappy people are almost always on the political left. And the optimistic people are almost always on the political center-right. The few exceptions to this rule have all been rural Democrats from around Central PA. Maxine, Robb, a few others I know from rural backgrounds, all seem to be happy people and also liberal-left.
And of course we all know some gruff, jaded, grumpy old conservative curmudgeons…
So it just made me wonder if our life experience, family background and upbringing, etc determine our happiness, and then our politics naturally follow that. It seems to be the case, much more often then not the case.
My two cents.
Your experience may differ, but I doubt it will by much.
Memorial Day, does it fit in America any more?
Does Memorial Day fit into American culture any more?
I ask because our national culture is changing so fast, and diverging so hard from the values and principles that founded America. We have foreign-born elected and appointed officials who openly despise America (Khanna, Prayapal, Ilhan Omar, plenty of others, tons of judges including Juan Merchan), and who call our military personnel sacrifices “war crimes” against the foreign countries who still hold their loyalty.
The idea that Americans would mourn the death of our military heroes, whose deaths ensured our own freedom here at home, is not just foreign to a lot of people living in America, it is anathema. Even our own native born youth are being told that the American military is immoral and bad and terrible etc, and because our young people live extravagantly comfortable lives, they don’t question such an outrageous claim.
Our American teachers and college educators are largely tools of our worst enemies – China, Iran, Cuba – and they fill our young people’s heads with exactly the kind of rotten crap a nation’s enemies would say. Globalist moral relativity does not help either, because it is easier to say “America is no different than Iran’s violent theocracy” (or is worse) than it is to actually weigh out and think out and talk out the enormous differences.
Thus does America have pampered middle income White kids giddily marching down our streets alongside White-hating genocidal maniacs waving the PLO Hitler flag, and wearing the ultimate anti-Western jihadi fashion statement, the keffiyeh. Our own pampered middle income White kids wouldn’t know a heroic battlefield military sacrifice from an hour without internet service, so why should they mark this Memorial Day as something significant?
Not only is our broader culture changing, but our young men are changing for the worse, too. As a small business guy who works in the woods, I see it a lot. For every hard working rural young guy, there are now five lazy rural young guys. This is an inversion of the old rural-urban culture break, which now shows that for every five lazy rural guys, there are five hundred lazy urban guys. American culture is suffering, yes, but most of the military-age young men who should be riding to our national culture rescue via military service, training, discipline, and sacrifice are now themselves in need of rescuing.
Nobody embodies the lazy bitchy whiner limp wristed weak-ass little wuss American boy better than Nick Fuentes. His entire life is devoted to breaking cultural taboos by saying naughty and mean spirited things about people. And Fuentes is dragging down a lot of American young men with him.
A serious public ass kicking would benefit both Fuentes and his young followers, and therefore American culture, but somewhere an overly anxious urban helicopter mom is reading this and figuring out how to get at me and any other hard ass dad figure, if only to “protect” her son from the hard comeuppance every boy needs to experience either at home from a loving Dad, at school from fistfighting other boys, or in the military from a tough drill sargeant.
Speaking of messed up young men culture, Jeremy Boreing provides a compelling monologue here.
Remember, young men, you must be able to ride hard and shoot straight. Frontier grit and military sacrifice are what gave you this incredible nation you now enjoy. Do not squander it or allow others to ruin it for you. For America to succeed as the citizen-run republic it was founded as, all of its citizens must be politically and culturally engaged. Hiding behind a video screen or serving only one’s own personal enjoyments is not only not contributing to our national success, it is ceding hard-won battleground to our enemies.
To your enemies.
So saddle up, young men, and dust off your hidden manliness. Show us what you are made of, that old fashioned American frontier true grit and self sacrifice. Show appreciation for those who gave you what you now have here in America.
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Musical “1776” Two Thumbs Up
Please do not tell anyone, but I saw a musical play the other day, and I liked it. Humiliating to admit, yes, but our three readers come here for honesty, if nothing else. Today you get five doses of honesty: The musical “1776” was excellent, timely, accurate, entertaining, and all the other positive stuff that my movie and theater critic mentors Siskel & Ebert would say about it.
We saw it at the historic Walnut Street Theater in Philadelphia, America’s oldest longest-continuously running theater. Because the venue has a sane policy on weapons (have your carry permit available if anyone asks to see it), I was strapped. I was strapped because it is downtown Philly, where the Wild West can descend upon one in the blink of an eye.
The docents, volunteers, and paid staff were all nice and helpful. Before the show started, we could have raised Lazarus more readily than actually reaching a human being during operating hours. Weak spot, but probably a weak spot in all theaters. No one there answers the phones or the emails until after you have come and gone.
Look here, theater is not for me. Watching adults play dress-up and make-believe is usually overwhelmingly annoying for me. These are not mature people, and many of them have gratingly annoying personalities. It is impossible to take actors seriously, on stage or off. Now that TDS is ravaging Hollywood, I am reminded daily about how much I dislike actors. It seems that the kind of people drawn to acting all fall into the “Big Jerk” category of life.
One exception in my world exists for those live stage performances that are about meaningful, inspirational, true stories. Biblical stuff ranks “acceptable.” Political theater is almost always heavily slopped to the falling overboard-left, preachy, inaccurate, dumb, communist, and, thus, annoying. Best bets are on movies, where the nonsense and forgotten lines moments have been left on the editing room floor.
“1776” is about the writing of the Declaration of Independence over a one month period, however, and is, therefore, a ten out of ten in my book, any day. It involves the story of the delegates from 13 colonies, debating the break-up with Britain, in Independence Hall, in Philadelphia, in June and early July, 1776. The widely documented personal performances of Benjamin Franklin, John Adams, and our own (local to PA) John Dickinson are performed admirably by the capable actors. Thank you!
Real focus is put onto the debate about slavery, which did occur in the actual Continental Congress, and how that hot issue was taken out of Jefferson’s first version of the Declaration of Independence. Depicting this on stage is especially important these days, as it is bizarrely considered “cool” by some to incorrectly badmouth America about slavery.
Fact: In 1794 America just about had a civil war over slavery. We also almost had a full civil war over whisky and taxes, then, too. But abolishing slavery was an early goal in our nation’s founding, and white people were ready to fight and die to end it, even as slavery was a full blown enterprise in the rest of the world. Eventually American whites got around to that fighting and dying thing, in 1861, when the insurrectionist Democrat Party declared separation from the rest of America, over keeping their slaves.
By 1865, the Republicans took away the Democrats’ slaves, and as we see even today, the Democrats never forgave them for it.
I digress.
That this was a musical without much singing was God’s way of showing me that beauty can occasionally exist in the darnedest places, including on a stage full of … feh… actors. That most of the singing that did occur was bawdy or silly really took the sting out of the musical part.
The actors said their lines well, performed very well, and entertained us audience people well, about an important subject. The Walnut Street Theater was clean, had no stray odors, and was a pleasure to visit. All the audience members upon whom I threw myself were friendly and gracious.
In another couple of months America, us, our nation, will celebrate its 250th anniversary since our founding. It is a really big deal. This play was timed to synch with our national celebration, and it fits well. If you find yourself going anywhere near Philly in the coming weeks or months, go see “1776.”
And go strapped, because the venue has a Constitutionally-minded policy on 2A concealed carry. God bless ’em. That was the only reason I set foot inside the theater…they actually believe in FREEDOM.
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America’s 250th Anniversary approaches… how many people care?
America’s 250th anniversary arrives this July 4th Independence Day. A huge milestone, an enormous achievement, a remarkable record, two hundred and fifty years protecting indivdiual rights as a constitutional republic.
I am excited about this event. But is anyone else?
When I drive around, anywhere, do I see extra American flags, extra examples of patriotism or excitement? Nope. Nothing.
The silence is deafening.
It seems that very few Americans are excited enough about our nation’s 250th anniversary to do much about it, to show their extra enthusiasm, or appreciation. Don’t you think this is odd? I do.
It may be that Americans do not know how to celebrate the 25oth. I mean, will we set off more fireworks than ususal? Wave more flags and banners and patriotic bunting than ususal? Hang flags from our vehicles? Drink more, war whoop more, or shoot tracers into the night sky more than usual?
One thing for sure, most Americans seem to take America for granted, as if we are too big to fail. So, they think, why celebrate something that we take for granted, that we already believe is due and kind of boring and unremarkable…
This is how cultures and nations end.
When a nation’s citizens cease being excited about their nation, and about its longevity in a world hostile to individual freedom and liberty, they cease valuing that nation. And when they cease valuing it, they cease protecting it, safeguarding it. They give it away, like give its citizenship and taxpapyer money to illegal border jumpers; they throw it away, engage in all kinds of self-destructive virtue signaling, like calling America bad names and unfairly criticizing her for ridiculous things.
America is not too big to fail, folks. And while there are a lot of folks trying to make America fail, like Barack Hussein Obama, we do not see a commensurate backlash against them.
Mad Magazine’s longtime cover was Alfred E. Newman, saying “What me worry.” Because he was an idiot. Because only idiots do not worry about the future, and stability, and the strength of national currency, etc. Has America become populated by a bunch of Alfred E. Newmans?
The lack of American flags and patriotic fervor about our 250th sure seem to indicate it.
Is this the American citizen on the eve of America’s 250th birthday? Really?!
Great American Outdoor Show last days
This morning I received an email from a regional Yamaha dealer, offering me about a thousand bucks off the ATV I had looked at the other day, while at the Great American Outdoor Show here in Harrisburg, at the Farm Show complex.
And what a show this is, this GAOS. There is nothing else like it in the world. Something like twenty or thirty acres of floor space, covered in ATVs, UTVs, camping and RVing equipment, hunting gear, outdoor clothing and boots, firearms, gun parts, specialty ammunition, scopes, slings, binoculars, tents, roof-top tents with bike racks for your Toyota Tundra, kayaks, canoes, fishing boats (some Carolina Skiffs and some center consoles with twin Yamahas that make my mouth water), fishing rods and reels and lures, fishing and hunting guides from around the world, archery everything, tractors, farming attachments, seed dealers, etc
You, too, need to go to this show. Especially tomorrow, Saturday, or early Sunday, when many if not all of the vendors will be looking to make a deal on some of their wares, like ATVs, UTVs, forestry equipment, overlanding gear, etc. Nothing bugs a vendor more than having to lug back home all of the stuff they so carefully packed up and brought to the show a week ago. This weekend a lot of this stuff will be “priced to sell.”
And if you are a social butterfly, like I am, then you will have the added opportunity of seeing old friends here, like I did. In fact, one person I needed to see about important business just randomly sat down in a chair next to me, and kept looking at me out of the corner of her eye, while I made silly faces at her. Despite being friends for nearly thirty years, she did not recognize me, and I had to re-introduce myself. Yes, much of me is gone and what remains is unrecognizable, apparently, and that is all for the good. We ended up getting half of the business stuff done, while surrounded by all of the great energy of the Great American Outdoor Show, which included many of the people she needed to see, or expected to see, too.
See, when you are friends with a NRA national board member, and one of the better known ones at that, you have to accept taking second seat about half the time you are together anywhere in public, including at a small diner in East Succotash, PA, where such a person is really a celebrity.
I digress. Because the GAOS is really awesome, and filled with many wonders, and if you go you will make friends and see old friends and possibly empty your wallet and maybe empty your bank account, too. For all the right reasons.
Not every mountain house has to be luxurious. Maybe this is what most people can afford, and while it is small, it works just great
World class taxidermy. Imagine the trophy house this stuff goes in!
With a name like “BuckFinder” what could possibly go wrong with using a drone for hunting…er…they mean finding the deer AFTER it was shot
Old friends
Incredibly technical overlanding and cross country camping gear
Old friends
The Matthew Quigley rifle from the movie Quigley Down Under