Category → Family
Irv’s summertime camping gear recommendations
Summertime Camping Equipment Review
The good, the bad, and the ugly….maybe
by
Irving Krasnoshtayn, Special Guest at joshfirst.com
When I was a kid, my family did not go camping. There was nowhere to go. The “open space” in Brooklyn, New York, was the little crack between the concrete slabs on every sidewalk where small sprouts of grass grow. Football, hockey, even baseball games were played in the street or in a crowded public park if one was near enough. People in tents were known as homeless. The first time I went camping was with a bunch of college friends over 20 years ago. It was a poorly planned and ragtag experiment, by guys with more spirit than knowledge. We brought an axe and chopped our own firewood, and then thought we were real outdoorsmen. More than anything we all got giant blisters on our soft city hands. Lots of things have changed since then, but my enjoyment of camping only grew from that one fun misadventure.
Fast forward just a few years and now I am the dad with little kids who excitedly ask me about camping over summer vacation. But unlike my childhood, society today is a lot more mobile, and outdoor recreation is a lot more widespread, common, and much more easily accessible. When you have a couple kids and a wife, you have to think not only about the easy, happy family coziness, fresh air, and the sunshine aspects of camping, but also about everyone being comfortable, repelling bugs, people going potty in the middle of the night, and having decent food. Meeting all of those goals with a family means that we get to try out a lot of camping gear, albeit mostly car camping and not always wilderness treks. Our destinations are usually commercial campgrounds and state and county parks. So here’s my honest review of some things I rely on when family camping. I know there are plenty of dads and moms out there who are hungry for this kind of information. Links to many of these items are below.
Tents: I have two tents, each costing around $100. One a six-person and the other an eight-person, both made by Coleman. But those sizes are a lie because each tent fits two people fewer than advertised, especially with all their gear. You have to think about keeping your stuff dry inside the tent in bad weather, so a backpack takes up the space of a person.
These Coleman tents are relatively easy to set up and they have been reliable. But buy a bigger tent than you think you need, unless you will be backpacking it on a mountain. In which case you will want the absolute lightest gear, which is a whole other story. Use strong steel stakes, they don’t bend as easily as aluminum and last longer. I also put down a cheap tarp on the ground slightly larger than the tent, to take off shoes before we get into the tent and to protect the bottom and keep it from tearing.
Sleeping bags: I have owned more sleeping bags than I can count on both hands. This key part of camping has been a long process for me, and I hope you can learn from my mistakes. In the course of learning sleeping lessons while camping the hard way, I have discovered I really don’t like mummy bags. Mummy bags are sold as a common camping cure-all, but they best fit small framed and narrowly proportioned people, while I want room for my tree trunk legs and wide shoulders. Don’t buy a bag from an unheard of company, like I have, while trying to save money; you will end up paying the real price in comfort and enjoyment, which is worth more than money. At the lower end of the price range, say around $40, Coleman makes decent sleeping bags. Some have cotton lining, some nylon, some acrylic, some flannel, but either way make sure you like the particular material against your skin before you walk out of the store with the bag. I have used everything from 20 degree bags to 50 degree bags, and absolutely none are as warm or breathable as they claim. Until you test your bag and understand its real limits, make sure you bring extra base clothing to keep warm at night. A drinking bottle filed with hot water can help overnight. Coleman’s Brazos is a decent model. A stuff sack for storing the sleeping bag short term is great to have too. To preserve their fill loft, sleeping bags must be stored long term either hung up hanging freely, or in large sacks that do not compress them.
Sleeping pads: One of the most important things I have bought for camping is a sleeping pad. I like a comfy sleep, what can I say. Once you sleep somewhere rocky you will understand why a good sleeping pad is important. Besides, I’m getting old and want to be comfortable. Walmart sells a cheap roll up pad like the military uses that is about a half an inch thick, and that is the minimum I would recommend. I highly recommend the best pad you can afford, either closed cell foam or inflatable. I have one for each family member of different types and thicknesses. The egg crate type is not bad but I prefer a firm type made of open/closed cell foam.
I own a few self-inflating pads but I’m afraid they might develop a hole and deflate like happened to me once. I like reliability, which the closed cell foam has.
Pillow: When camping with our car, we bring our pillows from home. When backpacking I take one of two inflatable pillows, but some people just bring a pillow case and stuff it with their clothing. That works.
Fire: Although I own many axes, such as the decent Cold Steel axe, I now rarely use one while camping. Instead I use a few different saws to get my firewood. Silky saws of Japan makes the best saws money can buy. The Silky Gomboy with medium teeth is the most comfortable and fastest cutting saw I know of besides using a chainsaw. Their teeth are wider than the spine so they cut very well and don’t bind. They are a pleasure to use but have been known to snap if used forcefully. Take your time and let the saw do the work. They can be found on sale for around $40 and like all good kit, are well worth it. Get the largest one you can afford. “Project Farm” of youtube fame recommended another couple of saws. I will be “real world” testing them soon.
Fire Starting: This is something I have practiced extensively and have found campers need to carry more than one way to start a fire, and know how to use each one. Yes, Bic lighters are a go-to but when it is freezing, snowing, or raining they may not work. Always carry your Bic/gas lighters on your person in a pocket, and NOT in your pack. The reason is your body will keep the lighter warm and the contents in a fluid and flammable state. If the lighter is really cold, the butane will not turn into a gas when you try to light it and it won’t work. Zippo lighters are okay as long as they don’t get wet or leak.
Wind is another reason I don’t rely on gas lighters or survival matches. If you do buy survival matches, make sure the container is waterproof and they are the type that can stay lit underwater. Yes they make those. I used a waterproof pill container filled with LIFEBOAT matches and cotton balls for my kids.
I have made videos throwing every type of lighter or match into a half foot of snow or a bucket of water, and the only thing that was reliable was a Ferrocerium rod. Known as a Ferro rod, I now buy them in bulk and make handles for them out of spent rifle cases. Use the spine of your knife and you will make all the sparks you need to start a fire.
At home I prepare a few cotton balls dipped into Vaseline, and store them in a small Ziploc bag. They have the added benefit of protecting your skin/hands. A Ferro rod will light one immediately and the Vaseline in it will burn for a good minute or two, if not longer. I will sometimes make feather sticks which a Ferro rod will also easily light if done correctly. I own magnesium fire starters, and they work, but they aren’t necessary. Again if it’s windy, the magnesium will often get blown away. Some people like to use military trioxane, but this extra expense is not necessary.
Camp chair: Bring a chair for each person if you can. This is advice that is easy when car camping and very difficult while backpacking. I have not yet found a lightweight folding chair that I like.
Cooking: I have spent hundreds of dollars on a titanium stove and the latest everything else for cooking, and have concluded just a few items are all I need to cook good food while camping. Stanley makes a $30-$40 frying pan kit which is worth it. Titanium frying pans which I own are lightweight but develop hotspots that then cook unevenly. The Stanley frying pan kit cooks everything evenly and comes with two plates, and a take-apart spatula that is almost priceless. Stanley also makes a few other kits including a pot kit and a mug/cup kit which are also very good. I have used them all extensively, and they develop a blackened bottom with open fires. Someone scientifically tested blackened pots and it will boil water approximately a minute faster because it absorbs the heat better. I have a lightweight folding stainless steel grate for chicken, hot dogs and burgers. Works great. I like a titanium cup for quickly boiling water for making tea or a ramen type meal. Lightweight Titanium spoons and forks are also worth buying. Better than any plastic.
Stoves: I like and own many packable wood stoves. The Solo stove is GOOD. It burns wood very efficiently and fast. Sometimes too fast, so you will need a lot of twigs on hand because it doesn’t hold much and you have to keep adding to keep the fire going. Esbit stoves don’t heat up enough for my liking and alcohol stoves might work, but I don’t want to carry alcohol that I can’t drink. Firebox makes quite possibly the best balance of reliability, compactness, yet high capacity wood burning stove on the market. It is amazing and I highly recommend it. The Firebox Nano model is tiny yet unfolds large enough to cook a morning meal without any fuss.
Cooler: I prefer hard sided coolers, because they keep their shape and hold ice overnight, even in the hottest summers. They also repel the sharp claws of raccoons.
Lighting: You will need to see when it gets dark. I prefer headlamps over flashlights because they keep both hands free. I bring one for each person, even the kids. I give out glow sticks just to see where other people are. Any headlamp over 200 lumens is good. Wide beams are more useful for close range. In my work as an electrician, I use headlamps every single day. The cheaper brands have always failed me because they use cheap circuitry and switches that eventually fail just when you need them most. Energizer makes many excellent headlamps.
Eveready makes a good model for $10. On the higher end, Petzl, Streamlight, Black Diamond, Fenix, Surefire and many others make very good lights. Don’t buy a crappy light, because you don’t need to. The good ones don’t cost much more than the really bad ones. I don’t use rechargeable batteries when camping, because unless you have solar panels how are you going to charge it? I’m not going to carry a battery power bank. I bring an extra set of fresh batteries. [Editor’s note: I have used two different Anker solar chargers on long distance ten-day backpacking trips and they work well when matched with the right battery – JF]
Rope: Buy some paracord and keep it in different places where you might need ten or twenty feet of it. Home Depot sells a decent paracord. The brighter colors are better, because your eye will see them and stop your feet before you trip over them when they are guyed out around a tent or a tarp shelter. Also useful for tying down your stuff in strong wind.
Duct Tape: I like gorilla tape. It sticks better than any duct tape I have ever used. Wrap a few feet around something like your lighter.
Multitool: I prefer Leatherman. The wingman model has scissors, a pocket clip, and is relatively light.
And finally, knives: Few outdoor items are more iconic or representative of camping than a fixed blade knife or one of the newfangled, robust, easy-open folding knives. Everyone has different sized hands and skin, so everyone prefers a different handle material and shape, and thicker or thinner, longer or shorter. There are so many knives on the market, I should begin by telling everyone to always carry a pocketknife. Preferably one with a locking mechanism so it doesn’t accidentally close on your fingers. Swiss army knives are OK for home use, but I don’t prefer them as a daily pocket carry.
Fixed blades are also necessary. I’ll start by recommending the least expensive of the bunch, Mora knives of Sweden. They are the best bang for your dollar at the moment. I recommend stainless steel over carbon steel so that your knife won’t rust, and if there is one thing you are guaranteed of on a camping trip, it is that your knife will get wet and it won’t get put away dry.
At around $20, the Mora companion model is a great knife for many reasons. It has a comfortable handle and an excellent sheath which clips onto your belt without you having to take it off. Mora uses a Scandinavian grind on their knives, which is excellent for “Bushcraft” type work, which is a variety of light to heavy utility work, plus food preparation. I prefer full flat grinds which are much more versatile, particularly for food preparation.
ESEE knives have an unconditional lifetime guarantee. They come in 1095 high carbon steel which may rust if not cared for. (Use vaseline from the cotton balls or plain mineral oil to prevent rust)
I used the ESEE 4HM model (~$120) for an entire camping trip and found it excelled at everything. GREAT knife.
In the Outdoors, the sheath is just as important as the knife.
First Aid Kit: Always carry some type of first aid kit and know how to use it. I was an EMT, and based on my experience I think everyone should at least learn the basics. Know how to stop bleeding with pressure or how to stabilize/support a sprained ankle. Accidents happen, be prepared, and having a good first aid kit is step one in being prepared. Car camping first aid kits can be almost like a mobile field hospital in size, and backpacking first aid kits must be streamlined and geared towards treating foot blisters, burns, and knife cuts.
I put together my own first aid kit in a one- gallon waterproof Ziploc bag, including everything from Band-Aids to gloves and gauze to common medications like ibuprofen and aspirin.
Have a great summer camping with your family!
LINKS:
tents:
sleeping bags:
| Coleman Green Valley 30°F Cool-Weather … |
sleeping pads:
Foam Sleep Pad- Extra Thick Camping Mat for Cots, Tents, Sleeping Bags & Sleepovers
Saws:
Silky GomBoy Professional Folding Saw 240mm Medium Teeth (121-24)
| Silky GomBoy Professional Folding Saw 2… |
Samurai KISI FC-240-LH / 9 1/2″ (24cm) Folding Curved Blade Saw Made in Japan
| Samurai KISI FC-240-LH / 9 1/2″ (24cm) … |
Fire making:
Cooking: pots pans
Stoves:
| Lite Camp Stove | Solo Stove |
|
Headlamps:
Knives:
ESEE 4HM Fixed Blade Knife w/ Kydex Sheath & Micarta Handle
| ESEE 4HM Fixed Blade Knife w/ Kydex She… |
How’d that go? PA begins online hunting license & tag sales
Today at 8:00 AM marked the first day of the Pennsylvania Game Commission’s true entry into the modern world of home computers and the Internet. This probably sounds like an unnecessarily harsh or even a commonly outlandish criticism of the venerable PGC, but it is a technological fact that today marks the very first step by the 1895-founded-and-minded wildlife agency into directly integrating with its customer base.
And it has not gone well, although it could have gone a lot worse. Monday end-of-business hours analysis shows the PGC website processing about 7,090 license purchases per hour. That is about 118 per minute, which is a lot faster than the roughly 1,900 licenses per hour purchased in the early time frame I operated in. Given all of the little moving parts involved, especially that carefully measured doe tag purchase, I guess I can see why this is taking longer than the two to three minutes total that each person expected to spend on it. It still frustrated me and others who are not at war with PGC.
The process has been marred by exceptionally long waits, both in-person at brick and mortar retailers and online, with lots of “system crashes” and people standing in line for hours, spawning humorous memes like the old and now former pink doe tag envelope saying “Miss Me Yet?” I like the meme of the skeleton passed out over the desktop computer “Waiting for my 21st century Internet purchase from the PA Game Commission.”
The truth is that this day had to come, sooner or later. The old double-stamped pink envelope US Mail process was increasingly marred by the US Postal Service’s incredibly ever worse performance, to the point where people were photographing piles of time-sensitive pink envelopes sitting in heaps in some post office rooms, waiting for who knows what or who knows who. No one likes to be treated differently than everyone else, and the pink envelope lottery was an idea from 1945 that worked when postal employees did their jobs. These days, the Postal Service is notoriously unreliable. We can’t have a doe tag distribution process that relies on unreliable people and institutions. Even when the applying hunter does everything correctly, his or her pink doe tag envelope might take a wrong turn at Albuquerque and arrive days or weeks after the last doe tag was distributed. Which greatly impacts the hunter’s plans and prospects for that upcoming hunting season.
My own experience today had me first sleeping fitfully all night like it was hunting season, and finally dragging myself out of bed and hunkering down by the laptop well before the 8:00 AM beginning of the online purchase process at www.huntfishpa.gov. Almost like opening day of deer season and sitting down at an ambush site. Except this process revealed itself as having actually started well before the appointed 8:00 AM hour, as I was number 7,023 in line when I signed into my PGC huntfishpa account. With barely any coffee in my veins to buffer this unhappy revelation, an ice cold shock ran through me as I realized I was both early and yet already very late to the process. Thousands of hunters were ahead of me in an online process that was unknown, untested, and sure to have its ups and downs and delays.
The big ticket item for most of us early applicants is getting the doe tag of our first choice Wildlife Management Unit. It is why we stayed in the game til the very end. And the numbers tell the tale: My own first choice, WMU 2G, sold 17,000 doe tags by 5:00 PM today, about twice as many doe tags as any other WMU. There is a strong fear in a lot of guys that if you don’t get in line early either online or at a store, you won’t get your coveted doe tag in your primary hunt region. Fact is, with the ever popular northern “Big Woods” WMU 2G, that fear is well founded. There are many more hunters wanting WMU 2G doe tags than there are WMU 2G doe tags to hand out. The early bird gets this worm, every year.
[UPDATE: At 9:42PM I looked at the doe tag numbers and 23,502 WMU 2G doe tags out of the 35,000 total allocation for that WMU have been sold so far. A sale rate far beyond any other WMU. This means that 2G will be sold out by Tuesday early morning hours. The hunter demand for Big Woods 2G tags has always been high, we knew it, and now we get to see how that demand plays out when the hunters themselves are put in direct control of their tag orders]
Four hours and ten minutes later, having obsessively hovered over my laptop screen the entire time while emailing and bitchfest-texting with friends in both better and worse positions than I, I finally had ordered my general hunting license plus all of the additional license and permits I get, like furtaker (trapping), the annual elk application (I will take anything ya got anywhere ya got it), muzzleloader, archery, spear, atl-atl, sling, blowgun, black bear, fisher, bobcat, armadillo, hog, dog, rat, bat, and zinjanthropus tags. And yes, I got my WMU 2G doe tag, which enables me to hunt the way I enjoy most – solo pack and rifle and maybe an overnight and campfire somewhere way off the beaten path and far from roads and people, and the promise of a long and heavy pack-out of boned-out meat with a single doe’s ear and a completed tag attached. This kind of hunt is the most rewarding among big game hunters everywhere. Guys sitting in warmed box blinds overlooking fields and ravines have no idea.
So yeah, I waited and waited to ensure I got that 2G doe tag. A lot of my Big Woods hunting depends on it.
Anyone old enough to pick up on the Bugs Bunny theme above will understand where I am coming from; it was a loooong and kind of zany morning. In this day and age of Amazon and eBay and Gunbroker one-stop-shop badda bing badda bang badda boom go online and it’s yours two minutes later, Pennsylvania’s entry into the online hunting license world was practically Stone Age. New York has about as many hunters as Pennsylvania, and I have never encountered anything like this when I order my hunting license and tags from NY. It is usually immediate. Even Kentucky’s online hunting license and elk tag application process is faster than ours was today.
I am not picking on Kentucky….but come on, we all know it, Kentucky is not known for being especially technologically advanced. And yet….!
On the one hand, we must must give PGC credit for taking the long step out of 1895 and into the computer and internet age. This step the agency took this morning was one small step for PGC and one giant leap for hunterkind, or maybe the reverse, or whatever….. something like this. It is a big deal and I send you guys three cheers. Three grouchy cheers. Let’s not do this again, OK?
Yes, today’s license purchase has been marred by delays that seem unacceptable, but we all know that the PGC’s public employees have way too much pride to let this situation continue. It is a fact that a lot of employees and contractors will be working all night on this new system, and that by the time 8:00 AM breaks tomorrow, a lot of the glitches and delays we experienced today will be a bad memory for some, and a non-experience for a million others.
Men – you need The Clothier in Williamsport
I am not a fancy clothes guy. Most of my time is spent in work boots, hiking boots, cargo pants, and a short sleeved button down shirt. Yeah yeah, I have some dress up clothes that are high quality, but as I age, they become less and less important. They were probably very high quality twenty or thirty years ago, anyhow. They also don’t really fit well now. Somehow those nice clothes shrank. So, my go-to dress-up kit now is a pair of khakis and a navy blue blazer, nice button down shirt, no tie. This informal-formal outfit has enabled me to properly and respectfully mix and mingle with all kinds of wonderful people at big birthday parties, religious events, weddings, etc you name it.
However, the onset of a pending family wedding prompted me to take another look at my fading wardrobe. What I saw I did not like, and no matter how many ways I tried to mix and match this and that, nothing looked right. For example, skinny pants flood jeans look good on gay millennials and straight millennials trying to look gay, but they made me look like New Jersey governor Chris Christie, which is not a look I want, either in office or on my carcass. So, when you are like me and nothing you own and wear passes muster for a serious, dressy event, you must turn to “The Experts.”
And who, you ask, is an expert in the field of dressing guys, including fifty-something guys with a tub o’ lard around the midsection and the shade of the former tough guy athletic build they had twenty years ago? After contemplating this question, it dawned on me that the billboards around Williamsport, PA, probably meant what they said: Experts in men’s clothing reside at The Clothier. And so, following up on this weeks-long deductive reasoning episode, I looked up the number and called The Clothier.
In a nutshell, what I experienced from the first phone call to them to the moment I walked out their door laden down with all kinds of beautiful high quality clothing was like taking a time warp machine back to 1950s Italy or America or London. Matthew and his dad Francis at The Clothier are serious about Best Quality clothing, shoes, belts, you name it, and they want you to look your very best. If a guy wants the absolute best clothing, the most beautiful clothing, the nicest of everything, trust me on this recommendation, you need to pay a visit to The Clothier on 4th Street in Williamsport, PA. They have an astronomical amount of gorgeous clothing from around the world, including Trask shoes, which unbelievably are not made in my duck foot XXXL Man 13 EE size, dammit. They also have the experienced men to help you arrive at your very best public persona.
Now, a word to the wise. Do not enter into this beautiful den of manliness, filled with its rare and beautiful items, enjoy the luxury of being fitted to a tee with the best clothing you can afford to wear, and then expect to have an Amazon price at the end. No way. The Clothier is at the very other end of the quality spectrum from Amazon. When you go to Matthew and Francis to be outfitted for your own wedding, your kid’s wedding, your nonbinary dog’s third official Los Angeles tripartate polyamorous affair wedding, a big party, whatever, you are receiving the very best service, knowledgeable care, and detailed personal attention to your appearance that a man can receive on Planet Earth. They measure every limb and foot and hip and chest with a tape measure, they ask how you want to look, how you want the fabric to fit your body. Yes, you can get good quality, nice looking clothes for a good price at The Clothier, but do not cheap out or try to hondle these good people if you ask for the best they have. They will make your fat, ugly ass look unbelievable; at least they made mine look presentable. And they deserve everything they charge for that service.
Women have makeovers, and some years ago there was that funny “Queer Eye for The Straight Guy” TV show. Well, father and son Matthew and Francis are not gay, but they have all of the skills that an old world tailor and the talented gay guys had up until Western Civilization took a plunge into everyone either wearing nothing at all or crappy Chinese plastic clothes. They can and will get you looking amazing, if you give them a chance.
I was incredulous, like slack jawed, as I looked around their enormous store. “What on earth are you doing here in Williamsport, Francis?” I asked.
“I mean, you have enough beautiful clothing here to outfit each person in Williamsport daily for a month.”
To which the kindly elder tailor responded “You know what? Seventy percent of my business comes from out of state. Not just out of town, but out of state. Ohio, New York, New Jersey, Maryland, West Virginia. Men who want the very best look they can afford come here. And then they come back for the rest of their lives.”
If you are a guy in search of Best Quality clothing, formal or informal, shoes, belt, hat, coat, suit, socks, boxers, and you want help assembling everything into an amazing presentation, then you are not helping yourself until you call The Clothier: (570) 322-5707.
They have parking in the rear of their store at 138 4th Street, Williamsport, PA. And yes, Williamsport has meter people running up and down the street issuing tickets for unpaid meters. The back door parking is a big plus, and believe me, you will need the extra time to really shop. There is almost nothing like this place left in America, anywhere. The visit alone is worth the drive.
What Father’s Day means to me
When I was nine, my dad gave me a set of small Norlund axes, which I still have today. One was single bit, the other was double bit. My specific job with those was to chop and stack firewood all summer, until Dick Fye’s lumber mill stopped sending us slab wood by twenty-ton dump truck loads dropped in our yard.
Dad also gave me use of the chainsaw, which I probably used as much as he did, or more. By twelve I was felling substantial trees. Probably not expertly, but I am still here today, unscathed from that, so I must have been really lucky or pretty good.
Point being, that one of the most important roles that a father can perform is to raise his son(s) to be not just men, but manly men. Masculine men, as defined by all of the masculine things manly men have done since the emergence of our species. Historically, men defended their families and communities, and hunted food that provided for their families. Those are still critically important roles for men to fill. Today, running a chainsaw, correctly using axes to split and shape wood, hauling firewood, supplying your family with sufficient firewood every day from an early age, these are all traditional manly things that can still be done in modern times. Or you can do the updated sedentary society equivalent.
Yes, I am sure that there are plenty of women who can run a chainsaw and split firewood, and who also enjoy doing these things, and although they are far in the minority of women, I say good for them. But today is Father’s Day and we are focused on the male species X chromosome humans right now, fathers and their sons (which of course applies to the masculine gay men I know). And so I say Thanks, Dad, for raising me to be a masculine man capable of doing traditionally masculine things. My family depends on it, and beyond that America depends on manly, masculine warrior men in the military to defend us from our enemies. Only dads can provide that upbringing.
Thanks, Dad!
(about the memes below: I am sick and tired of being falsely badmouthed and assaulted and coerced and demanded and forced and threatened over someone else’s sexual preference or identity or what-have-you. The truth is that I do not care, and it is my individual right not to care, and to be left alone to not care, and to say F*** off if someone keeps pushing something I don’t care about in my face and demanding that I care, and it is also my individual freedom and right and natural instinct to be repulsed by certain behaviors that other people do, and to be naturally phobic of those behaviors. And so I am just throwing up a few memes to provide my own pushback, even if I do not necessarily agree with 100% of each one. Go ahead and be offended, I do not care. I myself have been offended by this nonsense for years and no one seems to care, so back atcha).
Trans-conversation not allowed
“Trans” Definition: Across, beyond, through, changing thoroughly (Random House dictionary, 1987, the best printed book you can have in your home, because it represents the pinnacle of Western Civilization English language before it was thoroughly corrupted with non-definable nonsense which has resulted in the internal collapse of our nation).
To have a meaningful conversation and exchange of ideas (which results in increased understanding and personal growth) across, beyond, and through our natural personal and cultural differences and boundaries, all humans have historically talked to one another. Fifteen thousand years ago, the multitude of Mongolian tribes who had migrated across the climate change Bering land bridge into the Americas all ended up speaking different languages as a multitude of different Indian tribes, and yet interacting directly and honestly with one another across their differences.
In the 1400s, Chinese, Italian, Russian, Portuguese, and Dutch explorers sailed their ships across the planet to meet, communicate, and trade with other cultures with different skin colors and languages. In the 1600s, different European tribes (primarily Anglo-Saxons, Germans, Franks, and Celts) who migrated into the Americas all joined together and amalgamated across their cultural and linguistic boundaries to form a singular national and several regional identities.
All of these humans from the beginning of modern humanity crossed physical, cultural, and linguistic boundaries to exchange ideas and items with one another, often joining together, sometimes disagreeing, but always communicating. No artificial boundaries were allowed. If a boundary or difference between them was unnecessary or served no healthy purpose, then that boundary and difference was discarded. Albeit sometimes by force of arms, but discarded nonetheless.
So, knowing these demonstrable, measurable, definable facts about humans historically communicating with one another, let us ask this important question: What realistic, healthy purpose is served by the unnatural gag order and discriminatory bar on honest conversations about the sexual ideology movement and its resulting trans-sexual assault on women’s rights?
Why can’t the majority of Americans, Canadians, or Europeans presently ask questions and talk fully about this non-sensical, destructive, censorious movement that has taken over academia, medicine, law, and much of government services?
To not only stop Americans from having a conversation about “Trans” athletes destroying women’s sports, but for the pro-Trans movement to then also utterly destroy the personal and professional lives of those people who merely try to have these important conversations demonstrates that this is not a natural human experience we are having right now. Knowing that humans have historically crossed every sort of boundary to reach one another, how can it be said that this aggressive censorship and brutal blocking of communication about the subject is natural and thus healthy?
The simple and honest answer here is that the pro-censorship side is made up of evil, intolerant, discriminatory authoritarians relying on 100% subjective and unprovable nonsense (that has a lot of scientifically proven data contradicting it). People who cannot have an honest debate or discussion, and who try to destroy anyone who even questions much less challenges their orthodoxy, are by definition really bad people. Sure, they try to cloak themselves in righteousness, and they claim that honest discussions cause “harm” to some tiny fraction of humans somewhere. But they are the ones committing the greatest and most widespread harm to the greatest number of people.
These inhuman censorship people must be confronted, shamed, and stopped. As they have pulled out all of the stops to destroy us, so should we pull out all of the stops to fight back. They started this fight; they purposefully undermined every First Amendment right we citizens have enjoyed for 240 years, and so we have every right to fight fire with fire. We are waging a just war back against injustices imposed on us by violent authoritarians. I see our situation as eerily similar to World War Two, where the side representing human freedom and good waged a just war against evil Nazi Germany and Fascist Italy and Japan.
If you have a Woke university asking you for money, decline to contribute and instead support university board candidates who believe in the classical liberal idea of free speech. If you have a Woke township official making bizarre, un-American decisions about your property rights, or demanding that you accept their anti-English language pronouns while they reject your correct pronouns, then mount a strong effort to have them voted out or removed from office. If your kid has a Woke sports coach at school who makes scientifically indefensible decisions about sports competitions and shared locker rooms, then mount an aggressive effort to remove that coach (and similarly defend sports coaches who adhere to scientifically sound decisions). Same for school board members – Woke = bad = run for their seats.
Isn’t it ironic that the one crucial thing that the “Trans” movement does not tolerate is the full communication among all of us and across our different boundaries about the crushing slavery that the Trans movement truly represents and means for the vast majority of us? Even the gay and possibly Trans people in my own family, each of whom I love completely and welcome in my life absolutely and always, cannot tolerate an honest discussion about this subject. Such is the stuff of rigid religious ideologies!
This Trans movement – as it is currently structured and represented – is not a human thing. It is not an innately healthy or honest human experience. Rather, it is an anti-human artificial contrivance operating far outside historic human norms and much more aligned with Nazis, Fascists, and Stalinists.
Because the current Trans movement is an existential threat to you and your essential humanity, it is normal and justified for you to fear it and be phobic of it. It is just one more gruesome face of evil fascism that must be confronted and defeated to save our freedom of choice, freedom of conscience, and physical freedom.
Thanks to Mothers Everywhere
Today is Mother’s Day in America. It is a day in which we give thanks and show our appreciation to our mothers, most of whom have sacrificed their own interests to ensure that we, their children, get the care and support we need to reach our basic goals. Some have done more than others, some have been better at it than others, but almost all mothers have sacrificed so that their child/children can do OK.
Today, beautiful, wholesome, gentle motherhood and the mothers who do it are celebrated.
At odds with this ancient, simple, and universally acknowledged beauty is the modern Western sexual insurrection against all traditional human norms, including motherhood and mothers. For some odd reason, there are adult people in America who actually disclaim knowledge of how to define a woman, who is the mother of all life. Katanga or Kitanji Jackson, whatever, recently appointed to the US Supreme Court on the sole qualification that she is a black woman, is one such odd adult.
For those hard of understanding, let us provide some basic guidelines for today:
Mother: Definition 1, a woman who conceives, gestates, and then gives live birth to a human child through her uterus and vaginal canal. Definition 2, a woman who gives live birth to a human and then nurses it on naturally produced breast milk from her body lactated through her breasts.
Motherhood: Definition 1, the nursing, nurturing, caring for, raising, and general sacrifice of her own needs and desires by a mother for her child. Definition 2, general aphorism for unconditional love and nurture of young animals and humans by a female of the species. Definition 3, the source of all life; all that is good; wholesome; healthy.
In a world of deliberate confusion and outright lies and the damned liars who tell them, like Injustice Kitangy Jackson, let’s rally around absolute truths that can and always will withstand momentary cultural fetishes and weird blips on the radar of human existence. Motherhood and mothers are one such absolute truth, along with the womanhood that makes them possible. There is no substitute for motherhood and there is no faking it. You can’t simply put on lipstick and a pair of high heels and declare yourself a mother.
Thanks, Mom.
That curious Rural-Urban divide thing
That curious Rural-Urban divide thing is really bugging me, and I want to share some personal experiences and observations about it with you.
If we could just please get away for one minute from the Justice Sonia Sotomayor bribery scandal, please. Yes, far-left Justice Sonia Sotomayor took over THREE MILLION DOLLARS IN BRIBES from Penguin Random House to protect Penguin Random House when their critical lawsuit arrived before the US Supreme Court, and no, Sotomayor did not step aside and recuse herself or anything high-minded like that. She just blatantly ruled in favor of her three million dollar friends at Penguin Random House books, like nothing was the matter. Even though this is very much The Matter because bribes are a big no-no.
With all of the talk these days about ethics on that Most High and Illustrious Court, we would think that Justice Sotomayor’s blatant and impeachable criminality would be the main public subject of ridicule and hate these days. But we would be wrong, because evidently America’s urban people are really hating the rural people right now, instead, and they would rather discuss Naughty Rural People than that crooked, lying, cheating, impeachable Justice Sonia Sotomayor.
OK. So be it.
Seems like the general happiness, low crime, and high quality of life among rural residents is drawing the vengeful eye of the jaded urbanite. Rural people hunt, own lots of guns, commit almost no crimes with said guns, and yet are being told by the angry urbanites that they must nonetheless give them all up, and get in line for their creepy crawly bug breakfast.
Also bothering the Most High, Superior, Better Edumacated and Definitely Unhappy urbanites are things like “rural people smell bad”, “rural people drive large pickup trucks that expel a lot of carbon”, “rural people cut down trees and own chainsaws”, and a real big complaint is that rural people drive tractors and spread animal manure on fields. Pee-yew it stinks and is dirty! Stop it!
I know that in a rural bar a person could sit down over a cold Coors Lite or a delicious Yuengling Lager and have a reasonable, quiet conversation with a clueless-but-judgmental urbanite about how the rural people grow all the food and fiber and pretty wood that the urban people eat and use, and that rural people fill their stomachs with clean and cleanly killed wild game instead of mass-murdered industrial factory beef and chicken, and that rural guns hardly hurt anyone. But such a conversation is about as likely to happen as Justice Sotomayor is likely to resign her corrupt big ass from the US Supreme Court.
Liberal urban elites are similarly mysterious to rural hunters and their neighbors. For example, most American urban areas are crime ridden hellscapes with high taxes, high cost of living, low quality of life, poor public services, and yet…all the “educated” “knowledge jobs” are located in these sh*tholes. Supposedly these catastrophic urban areas are elite and nonetheless superior to rural places. They just are.
The real question I see is whether or not an urban person can overcome their prejudices, rise above their own fragile ego, and move to a healthy mental place (please do not move to my physical place, unless you become a NRA Life Member) that works for them and for rural people. The live-and-let-live nature of rural life tells us that rural people don’t sit in judgment of others, they are simply happy when left to themselves. It’s a pretty cool way to live, and mystified urban people could learn a thing or three from them.
Step one in your urban person learning process? Leave us the hell alone. Mind your own damned business, quit criticizing us, and stop telling us how to live while your own communities and people are in massive disarray and melt-down.
Step two, if you move to our rural communities because they are pretty, undeveloped, safe, and friendly, do not continue to vote and behave the way you did in the urban sh*thole place you just ran away from. Your former urban jackass lifestyle ruined your former hometown, and we don’t want any of it polluting our little slice of heaven out here in the sticks. So, if you move to a rural place, register as an Independent voter, buy some guns, learn to hunt, become self-reliant and less judgmental, and learn to hear what other people think. You might come around to thinking a US Supreme Court justice taking bribes is a bad thing.
Liberal Democrat mass murders children in Nashville
Another liberal Democrat mass murder has happened in America, this time in a Nashville, Tennessee, school.
No question about it, there is an ongoing dispute on how to categorize and describe violence committed with firearms. The longtime dodgy approach by the mainstream 
establishment corporate media and the Democrat Party is to describe it as “gun violence,” and so their message is always “guns are bad, guns are inherently violent, don’t own guns, take away guns from the citizens.”
But the beauty of using our innate critical thinking skills is that any clear headed person can easily look at the same set of facts in a violent crime scene and come to a totally different conclusion than the corporate Democrat Party media. It is easy to see that their “gun violence” narrative is actually the opposite of the factual truth.
Let us consider yesterday’s bloody mass murder in a Nashville, TN, school, by 28-year-old transexual Audrey Hale. Hale was a former student at a Presbyterian Christian school, The Covenant School, and she apparently bore a big grudge about what she had learned there. So big was her grudge that she heeded the recent public call by transexual activists in Tennessee for acts of violence against traditional Americans and their institutions there. Audrey Hale took several firearms into a school and had shot and killed three little children and three adult teachers until local police killed Hale.
The cause of Hale’s murderous depravity may be something personal, but I think we can squarely hang the responsibility for her mass murder on the shoulders of liberal Democrats everywhere. This is because the Democrat Party is a full-blown advocacy vehicle for transexual everything, without any cautions or any limitations, as well as being the main promoter of anti-Christian narratives and apologetics for transexual malfeasance against Christians. There is a huge pile of evidence for this in the way the Democrat Party is the official sponsor of and get-out-of-jail card for ANTIFA, whose most violent and destructive members are overwhelmingly transexual.
Child murderer Audrey Hale was transexual, yes, but even more than that, she was a liberal Democrat who heeded the recent call of other liberal Democrats to commit acts of violence against Christians, in the name of promoting transexual identity. Guns have almost nothing to do with this, because without the liberal Democrat impetus to murder vulnerable children and teachers, the guns do nothing by themselves. It is that recent transexual battle cry that convinced Hale to commit her savagery.
I have a soft spot in my heart for transexual people, and for gay people. Having grown up with people who were born differently than me, whether it is a chemical or hormonal imbalance who knows, I personally witnessed the painful and frustrated personal struggles of these individuals well into their adulthood. They always had my sympathy and empathy, because in and of themselves they offered no threat to anyone. They are simply different. Being validated as full humans like the majority around us is something we all crave, and it is something we all deserve to a great degree, regardless of our differences. My gay and transexual friends and family members deserved to be treated equally, and I always stood beside them. But that degree of validation and acceptance ends when your personal political movement is fundamentally about inciting and committing acts of violence, arson, murder, and destruction.
Especially against practicing Christians, whose gentle teachings are simply different than the angry violence of the transexual Antifa mob.
The transexual movement started out like the gay rights movement, a call for equal treatment. And in America, we should treat everyone equally. Equal opportunity for everyone, absolutely. Core American principle there. But both the transexual and the gay rights movements have been co-opted by the Democrat Party, which is historically one of Planet Earth’s most insurrectionist and violent political movements, responsible for enslaving Africans, for the 1860-1864 Civil War, the KKK, Jim Crow laws, and the impoverishment and destruction of modern Black communities in every major American city.
So now that the transexual and gay rights movements are fully embedded in this destructive political party, we must be honest about not only Audrey Hale’s Covenant School shooting, but the vast majority of murders nation-wide: Liberal Democrats are fully responsible for all of this misery. The transexuals tormented by and incentivized by the Democrat Party to commit violence and murder are simply their cannon fodder, and the inanimate guns they use are like any hammer or molotov cocktail Antifa uses to destroy cities, businesses, homes.
Every murderous bullet fired in Chicago or Nashville, Tennessee, has the name LIBERAL DEMOCRAT clearly imprinted on it.
New York City is dangerous and dirty
In the past three years I have had the unhappy necessity of visiting Manhattan a number of times for business and family. Last June was the last time I went, and hopefully the last time I have to be there until the place is cleaned up from top to bottom.
Last June I took the pickup to move our daughter out. She lived in New York City for eight years, from undergrad through dental school, and until the last couple of years she enjoyed her experience tremendously. But when we had loaded the last of her things into the bed of the truck, she got into the cab and said “I can’t wait to leave Manhattan. It’s so sad, because I used to love this place. But now it is dangerous and dirty and I want out. Let’s go.”
Manhattan is now looking like its worst days back in the 1970s and 1980s before Rudy Giuliani was elected mayor. Trash is blowing around everywhere, thugs hang out and loiter and saunter along every street and park bench, homeless bums are living in the parks and on building steps. People are being attacked on the sidewalks by demented mental patients prematurely released before their treatments are completed. People exit a restaurant and are immediately punched, kicked, and robbed by young people who laugh about it.
The police do nothing about this dangerous chaos because the Manhattan district attorney believes that holding criminals accountable for their violence and destruction is somehow mean, or wrong. And so the criminals now rule the streets, as an official policy.
The old Diamond District on 47th Street is a shell of its former self. A thousand years of jewelry making and watch making and world class talent all concentrated into one city block is now gone, because some communist in power decided that all this material excess violated some notion of “equity,” and so the jewelers and watchmakers were driven out. It is a sad ghost town now.
An old friend of mine who lives in Manhattan complained about how her own restaurants, which her architect husband had designed, and into which she had invested great amounts of time and money, were torched and looted in the riots of 2020. When I asked her if this destruction was a result of political failure, she went straight to blaming the Bad Orange Man. Who does not live in NYC, was not on city council or mayor of said city, and who had no control over the policing of Manhattan’s streets. It is impossible for me to understand the mental state of a person who appears sane but who reflexively blames their own mistakes on someone hundreds of miles away with no involvement in the matters that have made said person so unhappy.
So long as the citizens of New York City continue to believe they can vote for self-destructive policies and for the political candidates who promote them, and yet expect a different outcome than the mess we see, then Manhattan will continue to descend into madness and filth.
Making matters worse, the prior administration of mayor “Bill DeBlasio” (this is his fictitious name), had embarked on one of those “It only makes sense on paper and in terms of vague feelings” massive landscape changes. Such as turning streetside parking all over the city into un-used bike-only lanes and on-street dining for restaurants. Even going so far as to fill in empty spaces where people used to park with gigantic flower pots and concrete containers. Anything to make NYC unfriendly to car drivers.
This makes no sense, because Americans in general and visitors to New York City in particular still drive cars. But such is the power of blind ideology: “Because all cars are bad, then places to park cars must also be bad.” This is crazy stuff, and it has resulted in a congested city being even more congested, even less user friendly and less accessible than it used to be. Which was difficult enough. If this gigantic failure is how you measure success, then further natural failures will continue to follow. As we see even right now today, failure is considered success in Manhattan.
I am glad I do not live there and don’t have to go there.
The concrete planters need a place to park where cars should be able to park. Because “cars are bad”
Median areas that used to offer car parking and delivery vehicle offloading are now clogged with concrete in order to stop “bad cars”
Rental bikes lined up in the most expensive and colorful virtue signal possible. No one uses these. But someone somewhere feels good about the symbolism
An empty and unused bike lane where cars used to park. Cars still need parking spaces, but don’t expect to find them in Manhattan, where virtue signaling is most important
Go ahead and make sense of NYC’s parking regulations. Try.
Restaurants have fully enclosed “outdoor” dining in the street, where cars used to drive and park. The cars still need to drive and park. Just more congestion and more exhaust fumes trying to navigate all the pointless virtue signaling
Life and Love of the Knife
Since God created us humans, either in one quick master stroke or through a series of evolutionary steps (I don’t know which one and I don’t really care, because God is all powerful and can do anything He wants, and all we puny humans can try to do is figure it out as we muddle along), we have had a love affair with sharp edges. Blades, that is, which give our amazing but soft and weak hands the ability to cut, slice, stab, and pierce dangerous foes and animals, and render them into delicious roasted brontosaurus steaks. As Mogli says in “A Jungle Story,” his antagonist, the massive male tiger Shere Khan, may have his big teeth, but “I have my own tooth,” a sizeable steel knife blade affixed to a sturdy and dependable handle, with which Mogli is indeed a significant foe to all who would eat him.
To humans, the knife in all its forms – skinning blade, meat slicing blade, spearing blade, or stabbing sword blade – is our tooth, claw, and fang. It is our defense, a lifeline, and third arm in a world where most of the critters we have hunted, eaten, and clothed ourselves with often have a mouth full of knives as well as heads and hooves adorned with sharp and pointy edges, any one of which is instant doom to us. As a brief visit to the dinosaur and modern reptile exhibits in any respectable museum will show, we humans inhabit a world where history has had most of our battles and warfare with men and beasts alike determined by who had the bigger, faster, longer, sharper knife blade.
The Pleistocene is where modern humanity and our knives and spear blades came into Yin and Yang fusion, resulting in the extermination of even the largest and most dangerous of wild animals. And well into the 20th century, men everywhere across the planet daily adorned themselves with blades both practical and beautiful. In a world that is still always dangerous, blades have always represented us humans, and men in particular, as both useful and dangerous.
So is it any surprise that even today, in our sickly society filled with Toxic Femininity, men, particularly men, still have a love affair and deep personal connection with knives and blades of all sorts? It’s almost spiritual. Knives and sharp blades have been our constant companions since our species gained consciousness, and knives have been all that stood between us and death for over a hundred thousand years. Often in a hunter-gatherer society, a good knife is all a man needed to live a comfortable life. Nowadays, we habitually carry small pocket knives by Case so that we can accomplish small home chores easily. Serious blade length reduction! How far we have fallen! Are we still men, armed only with our tiny folding pocket knives?
I say yes, we are.
Because like so many millions of others, I am a masculine man and a not a Low T feminized and pathetic freak of self-loathing nature, and because I am an outdoorsman, and because I am against being or feeling helpless and defenseless, I use sharp blades all the time. A sharp edge is always on me or near me, so that a threatening saber toothed cardboard box can be quickly broken down and put into the recycling bin. That always makes my woman feel like the tipi is properly sorted out. Like thousands of generations of men (M-E-N of nose, ear, and back hair variety) before me, my appreciation and love of the knife has resulted in a life of the knife, and I celebrate that. It keeps me thoroughly human.
If you are a guy (born a man with a penis) or a practical woman (a human born with a vagina and female reproductive parts), or even someone caught in between both genders and yet nonetheless afflicted with a strong streak of self preservation and practical ability, I strongly suggest carrying the largest and most robust blade you can legally and practically use every day. Or just get some CutCo knives for your kitchen. It will make you feel like a million bucks, at night your hands will naturally paint beautiful primitive cave art on the walls of your basement, and you won’t ask yourself where that innate skill suddenly came from….because you will be acting organically like a natural and properly kitted out human being. These things naturally flow from one to the next.
Just be careful not to get too carried away with this knife thing. Buying knives easily becomes a habit or even an addiction. All for the right reasons, of course. It is hardwired in us.
My buddy Irv has a knife problem. As an electrician, he has many opportunities to seriously test all kinds of pocket knives and knife steels. But he yearns to strap a dozen sheath knives on and prowl the woods. He has significant back hair, too, because he is a man.
Two original Stone Age tools. A flint hide scraper (top) and a chert butchering knife from Upstate New York
A very small slice of the hunting knives we have at our reach here, including a matched ivory micarta handled pair of Randall copies for my son and I by Perry County maker John Johnson each complete with over-the-shoulder baldrics and belt sheaths.
Pronged spears and sharp arrows (sharp blades on flying sticks) from about twenty thousand years ago. Still the best hunt around.
Super cheap WalMart special faux Damascus steel Japanese style kitchen knife is still very sharp and an an incredible tool
USA-made CutCo, definitely not a cheap kitchen knife, with excellent blade steel and bombproof handle material. Highly recommended.
Most of the knives in our kitchen. All CutCos except for two Old Hickory high carbon blades at either end. Old Hickory is an excellent USA-made kitchen knife at a very low cost that can easily be an outdoor knife