Posts Tagged → Pennsylvania
What is hunting?
With hunting seasons drawing to a close here in Pennsylvania, it is worth the time to revisit an old question, which is What is hunting?
We ask because, without question, non-hunters overwhelmingly support hunting that is fair chase and purposeful. That is, hunters who are seen by the public to be respectful of our prey are recognized as a positive force, and worthy of continuing their pastime.
Every scientific opinion survey asking Americans their opinion about this subject for the past several decades has yielded the same result: Hunters who actually hunt get respect and support from non-hunters. On the other hand, people who are perceived by the general public to be casually killing animals just for pleasure or for “trophies” usually do not garner much support.
While there is a lot for us to talk about with even just the survey question itself, like how America has become so urbanized and thus our people so distant from the natural resources and processes that feed and clothe us and wipe our butts (toilet paper from trees harvested in forests) etc, this particular question, and its answer, is most important because hunters are a minority of a minority in America.
Positive public opinion about hunters and hunting is necessary to the continuation of regulated hunting as we know it and as it has been practiced for the past 100 years.
Given that American hunters are lamentably awash in a sea of soulless plastic and stainless steel rifles these days, whereupon the Hubble Telescope-equivalent scope is mounted, many owners of these contraptions are regularly and quite naturally tempted to attempt military-grade long distance sniper assassinations of far-off big game animals.
Though fleet of foot, strong of heart, and equipped with majestically sensitive noses, ears, and eyes, these animals cannot compete with humans who are so far removed from the natural zone of awareness these animals’ senses otherwise provide them. This begs the question of whether or not long-long-distance shots at these clueless animals are actual fair chase hunting, or are they incautious and disrespectful maltreatment of animals we otherwise admire.
Honestly, this stark question brings to my mind the images of charismatic megafauna hand-painted on cave walls by our spear-wielding ancestors: Rhinos, gigantic cave bears, massive aurochs, lions, zebras and wild horses, bison, etc. dangerous animals all, taken at great personal risk and at bad breath distance, contrasted with today’s ego-driven high-fence “trophies” mounted on manicured man cave walls around America, animals snuffed out without a chance at fight or flight. The cave paintings were the Sistine Chapel experience for paleolithic humans, and today’s manicured egocentric faux trophy rooms are very sorry substitutes. Authentic versus fake, they couldn’t be more different from one another.
So, a bear or deer taken with a bow, a crossbow, a spear, an atlatl, a blowgun, a shotgun, a flintlock or percussion muzzleloader, or a modern muzzleloader or rifle with open sights seems like a pretty natural example of fair chase. The 400-yard Hubble Telescope plus “500 Magnum Killem” caliber assassination of the unknowing and unsuspecting beast is just that, an assassination. Is there anything fair or chase about it?
Just as political America now requires a return to our simple and beautiful founding principles, so will our hunters benefit from returning to mastering the basics of early American woodcraft, the ability to sneakily slither and glide into the wind across a landscape to get within the animal’s sensory zone and make an honest and competitive kill. This kind of field craft is the essence of fair chase.
Artificial reliance by hunters on high tech is embarrassing, to tell you the truth of how I feel. Repent and return to the basics, brothers and sisters! Our fellow Americans who do not hunt will not only support us, they will admire us, and as a result of their admiration our outdoor lifestyle will have a much greater chance of surviving beyond the high tech culture that is otherwise crushing everything natural and alive in its unwholesome path.
Wild animals have understandably inspired humans since our beginning
Hanging this stag’s magnificent rack on your lodge wall would be earned with the bow and arrow
An honest kill. This is hunting
Kellyanne Conway’s figurehead on Jake Corman’s dead pirate ship
Kellyanne Conway, Trump advisor and advocate extraordinaire, has hired her political gun out to the Jake Corman for Governor campaign. What an odd couple, this highly principled, positive, and well spoken woman with this unprincipled, mean-spirited, spoiled, corrupt product of nepotism, Jake Corman.
It is easy for Pennsylvania conservatives to smack their foreheads and cry out “Why Kellyanne, WHY?” Because her action here is at a right-angle inconsistent with what she said and did when she was in the Trump Administration, where she fought daily against RINOs just like Jake Corman. You can’t find two more different people in politics than Conway and Corman…and yet, politics makes strange bedfellows.
I am willing to bet that Kellyanne Conway suffered a lot after the stolen 2020 election. I will bet that her private life and her finances took serious beatings, and I will also bet that she has been very nearly canceled out of just about every aspect of her prior life. She probably went from international spotlight articulate presidential spokeswoman and advocate for America First principles in January 2021, to almost a political nobody in January 2022.
That has to be tough to take. If this same kind of crushing lifetime cancellation landed on you or me, like all negativity when we went to restaurants or the library or the food store, we would be desperate to get some aspects of our former life back. It would be too painful to ignore, unless a person is substantially independently wealthy. And even then those ultra wealthy people tend to live inside their own weather system, so that even small disruptions to their personal lives are artificially magnified and extraordinarily painful to them. And if you aren’t independently wealthy, and I do not believe Conway is, then all the more so does an opportunity like this political consulting job with Corman become attractive.
I think we can all understand her needs and what this job provides her. There is no need to judge Conway harshly. And there is no need to take her seriously, either.
Thus, even a corrupt RINO like Jake Corman has something to offer Conway: some redemption, a small opportunity to re-enter public life with some dignity and public standing; some recognition of her former importance. And some big, big bucks.
Because we just know that the GOPe is writing her a huge check, because so much RINO-ism and continued political corruption is riding on the success or failure of a corrupt man like Corman. The GOPe and their little pet Jake Corman need every swinging awesome woman on deck they can get. I would not be surprised if Conway is being paid a million dollars or more for her campaign role as symbolic figurehead until Primary Day this Spring.
And what does Jake Corman’s campaign get out of spending crazy money on a figurehead like Kellyanne Conway? He gets some of that Donald Trump aura, some of that gen-u-ine all-America-First patriot that Jake Corman himself cannot produce and does not himself represent and can never have. Corman is too well known in Pennsylvania, and especially in his own senate district (where he was about to get primaried), as a corrupt phony and backstabber, to ever stand on his own two feet. After all, his entire career is due to his daddy being a state senator before him. Jake has literally never had a real job!
And oh, the irony of an anti-America RINO like Jake Corman trying to bathe himself in the stars-n-bars Trump glow, transmuted by Conway, because Corman is the primary reason why Trump’s voters never got an election recount in Pennsylvania. Corman not only did all he could to block a recount or an audit of the stolen 2020 election, but he then fired all of PA Senator Doug Mastriano’s senate staff when Mastriano got too close to starting an actual election audit.
Corman’s campaign is like an evil, rotting, dead pirate ship slipping through dark waters, trying desperately to attach a new figurehead to the bowsprit to fool voters from afar. Many people are sad to see Kellyanne Conway in this figurehead role for someone as gross as Jake Corman. I hope it is worth it, honey, because the Pirate Corman stench will never really rub off.
Welcome to PA.
Former President Trump advisor and spokeswoman, Kellyanne Conway
If political pirate Jake Corman had a ship, this evil, demonic skeleton would be its figurehead
What RINO Jake Corman is hoping his evil pirate ship’s figurehead will turn into with his hiring of Kellyanne Conway
Steve Bannon: Good, bad, or ugly?
Steve Bannon has been a hero to so many of us in the conservative/ patriot/ constitutionalist movement. In 2016 he fought like hell to get President Trump a win that exposed what is really happening in America (federal bureaucrats, the bipartisan Uniparty, and globalist billionaires tearing America away from the citizens who own it), and even after he was booted from the White House for covering Trump’s back (and neither Trump nor anyone else but Bannon understood the game that was going on there until too late) he continued to be an advocate for America First and President Trump.
And for the past several years he has maintained a radio/TV show called Steve Bannon’s War Room that is like so many other political radio/TV shows. Every day, Bannon discusses the zeitgeist of political issues and personalities from his political perspective. Which is a perspective I share.
That’s the “good” Steve Bannon.
Then there is the “bad” and even possibly “ugly” Steve Bannon. And we are not talking about looks here, folks. I don’t comment on people’s looks, because that is irrelevant, immaterial, and often just shallow cheap shots. Rather, we are analyzing one of Bannon’s public activities and statements, and wondering WHISKY TANGO FOXTROT is going on in that War Room of his.
Below is a screen shot from Bannon’s War Room show as it appears on Rumble a week ago or so. As you can see from this screen shot, Bannon is actually lauding Pennsylvania GOPe careerist-political weasel-hack Jake Corman. This makes no sense, because it isn’t warranted because it’s not true.
Corman is a catastrophe for Pennsylvania, for the Republican Party, and for America in every single way. Corman’s many flaws are well known (directly associated with deep corruption, nepotism, RINOism, failing his constituents in favor of big money Democrat donations etc), and his opposition to a forensic audit of the stolen 2020 election is both public and subject to a behind the scenes battle. As leader of the PA senate, Corman stripped PA state senator Doug Mastriano of his senate staff. Because Mastriano has been working hard to fix the blatant election fraud that occurred here in Pennsylvania in 2020.
All of this and much much more (like Hey Jake, do you know what happened to Centre County DA Ray Gricar? Do you know what happened to his body? How did his mysterious disappearance help you? What criminality were you at risk of having Gricar expose?) makes Corman someone that a “good” Steve Bannon would naturally oppose.
Like, fiercely oppose, call out, expose, and challenge when Corman appears on his radio show and engages in totally obvious dodges and solipses. After all, we are all in the fight of America’s life right now. There is zero room for anyone like Jake Corman to be anywhere near politics or anything else that is important. Bannon is a political gate keeper and should be acting like one.
But instead, we get Steve Bannon actually heaping unearned and laughably incorrect plaudits on Corman on his show, and pitching him bizarre softball questions.
It is difficult to know if Bannon is just kind of playing along with Corman, so he can spring on him later, or if Bannon is bamboozled, or, in the worst and ugliest case, if thirty pieces of silver changed hands to buy Bannon’s fire. And it is this last possibility that strikes both fear into the hearts of constitutional warriors, and also deep resentment and anger. If Bannon has been bought by the enormous and enormously corrupt constellation of bad actors orbiting around their investment Jake Corman, then Bannon is not just “bad,” he is “ugly.”
So which is it, Steve Bannon? Are you good, bad, or ugly? If you are truly good, then you will side on the right side with the good people who are resisting the evil bipartisan takeover of America by the likes of Jake Corman and George Soros. You won’t post ridiculous headlines like this on your show. You will push back against bad people, phony people, dangerous people like Jake Corman.
Whose side are you on, Steve Bannon? Jake Corman’s side, or We, The People‘s side?
Steve Bannon actually wrote this laughably false headline.
Anatomy of a deer season
It doesn’t matter if you archery hunt for deer religiously, from October 1 to mid-November; the archery season is always over way too fast.
It doesn’t matter if you archery hunt a bit for bear and deer, hunt the week of early muzzleloader for bear and doe, do some small game hunting, have the men up to camp for bear season for four days, and then hunt every day of deer rifle season. The ending is always the same: It ended way too fast. We wait all year for this time, and before you can blink an eye, it is over.
For many hunters, this time is about being afield, hunting. The occasional actual killing part is a welcome indication that the hunting part was done well. Proof that the time spent outside was not wasted.
Oh, we still have some late deer season remaining, which is the late archery and flintlock hunt. But by now, deer everywhere in Pennsylvania are on high alert. A twig falling out of a tree and rustling a leaf on the ground will send a nearby deer herd into panicked stampede into the next county. So getting deeply enough into the sensory zone of these intelligent animals to take one with a bow or a flintlock at this stage takes real skill, not just the usual luck.
Although I will hunt the flintlock deer season, because I have some DMAP tags left, looking back even now with a sense of longing has me thinking about the anatomy of a good deer season. Some take-aways:
- Eat good food. Whether it is home-made jerky and dried fruit we make ourselves for our own time afield, or it is the extra thick gourmet steaks we bring to hunting camp, eat the best quality food you can afford. Hunting alone or with friends and family is a celebration, so eat like you are celebrating. And because Man does not live on bread alone, make sure your drinks are of a commensurate high quality.
- Practice, practice, practice with your gun. Archery hunters practice non-stop, but for some reasons many gun hunters leave it to one box of ammo and the days right before the season to “practice” shooting. Well do I recall sharing a range with a guy from Lancaster County at the bench next to me. Friendly enough, he enthusiastically, if spastically, launched his one box of “extra” shells down range as rapid fire as a bolt action can fire. I had offered him the use of my spotting scope and Caldwell shooting sled, and he declined. He did end up relying on my spotting and calling his hurried shots, however, because he didn’t quite have his scope figured out. The old random “spray n’ pray” is the approach he packed up and drove off to hunting camp with. Do any of us think he hit what he shot at?
- Bring your best jokes, naughty or practical. Hunting camp is fun, and each of us must contribute to that festive atmosphere. Many years ago, I bent down to inspect a strange looking object hiding under the cabin’s kitchen counter. And just as quickly I jumped back and screamed like a little girl when the damned thing took off running. That it was merely a muskrat pelt attached to a fishing line being pulled by Bob and followed by uproarious laughter at my expense just made my revenge all the sweeter. As for naughty jokes and rhymes, the list is endless. Look them up and bring half a dozen. Maybe I am lowbrow, or maybe I have low expectations, but it sure seems that everyone present laughs at these men-only jokes.
- Get out into position early, like at least an hour before first light, and when you move play the wind (nose into the wind), go quietly and slowly, and carry your gun port-arms and not across your back. If you can get out into position at 4:30am, even better. Just bring a blanket and some Zippo hand warmers.
- Food sources matter for deer and bear, too. We humans are not the only ones who both enjoy and need food. In a year of abundant acorns, a stand of sweet tasting white oaks will draw more deer and bear, and you can sit down wind of that stand of trees. In a year of scarce acorns, like this year, any tree that had a decent crop will still draw animals pawing in the leaves for whatever may be left in early December. By this mid-November, almost all of the already scarce acorns were eaten up, and both bear and deer seemed to be moving widely across the landscape in search of any food. It makes for tough hunting, and so we have to team up with buddies and other camps to work together to scoop up what animals are out there. Be flexible and think outside the box of a permanent stand.
- Speak animal language. Last year I grunted in an Adirondacks wilderness buck after busting him out of his bed. He was a territorial and aggressive SOB. But the conditions were all wrong for playing around, and although his body was visible, I could not shoot through the beech brush to get him. This year I returned for Round Two with the same animal, which had probably never seen a human being, and after two days of tentative efforts, Day Three resulted in the furious huge buck storming right in to my position with leaves, twigs, snot and mouth foam flying. I shot him in the neck at five yards, five miles from my truck. Lot of work, totally worth it for that DIY hunt of a lifetime. My position was carefully chosen for what he could see or smell under a certain wind direction. I waited until it was all just right, and let fly. His response was immediate.
- Take pictures, send them in emails. While journaling is not dead, most people today do not write in a personal or camp journal. Instead, we take photos and email them around. The recipients always appreciate them. Especially when ten or twenty years has suddenly passed, our knees don’t seem capable of all those steep climbs and hard sidehilling drives any longer, and a lot of our best times at hunting camp are sitting around with dear friends and reminiscing together. So don’t forget to take pictures and share them.
Northern PA’s acorn crop largely failed in 2021, possibly due to a late frost that killed the acorn flowers. Acorns remaining on the ground looked OK from the outside, but were all rotten like this on the inside. Wildlife is hungry and moving widely to locate food.
My “Freedom Buck,” killed on Sunday November 28th at 7:45am, on private property in PA. The ban on Sunday hunting is an attack on freedom, and so I named this Sunday morning buck after my declaration of freedom.
The deer that got away, but shouldn’t have
Below is the buck after the second bullet, at about 140 yards, the hole of which is visible behind his shoulder; a classic behind-the-shoulder double lung/ top of heart hit. Usually it’s immediately fatal. Usually the animal is knocked down by the impact. But not that day. He absorbed the second soft point without moving, just standing there broadside, as if I had completely missed him. Even after he dropped he had a lot of life and fight left, as can be seen in his death spiral in the snow.
My challenge was that I did not see him fall, which happened while I was fumbling with my binoculars. Because I do not often use a rifle scope, I do not maintain a magnified field of view after my shot. Going back and forth between open sights and binoculars is my process.
As an aside, you may wonder why I use open sights, or you may be one of those people who deride open sights. Shooting instinctively with open sights is how I grew up and how I learned to hunt. Unlike a scope, open sights can take a lot more abuse in the field before they go out of whack. Unlike a scope, they cannot possibly lose their “zero” after spending eleven months in a closet. Open sights are absolutely reliable, and perfectly effective. Recall that American infantry are qualified on open sights out to 600 yards (or meters), so it is not like these things are relics from the past. Open sights are the best option, provided they are installed correctly and checked annually.
My preference for open sights is about more than performance, however. It has to do with how I like to hunt: On foot, getting close to the animal, within its sensory zone, and trying to kill it on its own terms, up close. This is a true contest of skill, not an assassination. And I hardly think an open-sighted center fire rifle is a disadvantage; it is a huge advantage over a spear or a bow. Scoped rifles are just that much more of an advantage.
So, I did not see the buck fall, and he fell into a small swale where I could not see him. Not wanting to stink up the woods and ruin further hunting, I sat on my butt and scoured the woods for signs of a deer. In fact, I saw a large buck a couple hundred yards away sneak into a thick tree top blowdown. It made me think the buck I had shot at was gut-shot and sneaking away to lie down, and so I did not push him. Only when the crows showed up over an hour later was it evident that the buck was in fact dead right where I had last seen him.
Freedom Sunday
Aaaaahhhh, the swell feeling of freedom.
A few days ago, I sat up in a tree stand in Perry County with a loaded crossbow, waiting for a legal buck to walk by. A legal buck in this area of Pennsylvania has at least three points on one side of his antler rack.
The most distinguishing feature of this afternoon deer hunt was that it was occurring on a Sunday. Sunday hunting (beyond coyotes and foxes) is a new addition to Pennsylvania, and as of 2020 we have three Sundays to hunt deer or bear. People like me prevailed in obtaining these mere three Sundays to hunt only after a protracted 25-year battle with the Pennsylvania Farm Bureau, whose nonagenarian board members constantly shook their canes at freedom lovers.
We lovers of freedom are also by nature opponents of government overreach, and yet while the PA Farm Bureau is against all kinds of government overreach, they were all fall-on-their-sword supportive of a government ban on Sunday hunting. Even on private property, where land owners could make their own personal choice about how to spend their weekend. The PA Farm Bureau would not, and still will not, budge one inch in their opposition to any sort of Sunday hunting. And incredibly, Pennsylvania’s laundry list of career elected officials went along with the PA Farm Bureau’s twenty nonagenarians, and against the wishes of just about everyone else.
So while we await the day when the Liberty Bell shall yet ring again and proclaim liberty throughout the land, granting Sunday hunting from October 1st through February 15th, we must enjoy what crumbs we may glean from the grips of the power and control obsessed.
This present gridlock situation made my three hours of Sunday afternoon archery hunting bittersweet. On the one hand, I was in fact experiencing one Freedom Sunday. Better than nothing, right? On the other hand, sometimes a taste of honey is worse than none at all, and while I sat there my mind kept involuntarily counting the number of Sundays we were being unfairly excluded from enjoying.
If you are curious, the number of Sundays we hunters are being deprived in Pennsylvania is nineteen (19). That may seem like very few days to the person who gets to do whatever they want to do seven days a week, 365 days a year, and without false moralists looking over their shoulder in hypocritical judgment of whatever their choice of entertainment may be on any particular day. But to us hunters, whose season runs from early October to mid February, and again the month of May’s turkey season, those nineteen days are a huge deal. We can’t make up for them in the summer months. We can’t get them back once they have passed.
This means that we Pennsylvania hunters are missing a significant percentage of freedom in our lives as otherwise free citizens. This freedom is being unfairly deprived to us, stripped out of our hands, out of the lives of our children. It is a bizarre situation, when we look at the states around us that have unlimited Sunday hunting.
For example, a week ago I began an annual wilderness hunt out of state on a Sunday morning. The trail head parking lot I started out from was packed with the pickup trucks and SUVs of fellow hunters, many of whom I learned later are tradesmen and contractors, whose work loads are heavy all week long, and whose weekends are their real opportunity to pursue their hobbies and pastimes. Our presence as free hunters, free citizens, in the Sunday woods bothered no one, impacted no one. Pennsylvania needs a lot more of this same Freedom Sunday.
Freedom Sunday: Me deer hunting on private land last Sunday. Hurting no one, bothering no one. Why not more of this Sunday freedom?
PA’s Forester Jim Finley Enters the Forest Cathedral
Penn State forestry professor emeritus, department head, and all-things-forestry guru Jim Finley died yesterday. I was told that he was either felling a large tree on his property, or he was trying to dislodge a large tree that had been felled but was hung up on another tree. Whatever the actual facts are, Jim died from the tree falling on him. It is a reminder that even the best, most experienced forestry professionals are at grave risk.
As trite and awkward as it sounds to write here, the fact is that Jim Finley died doing what he loved in the environment he considered sacred. I am quite sure that had he been asked about whether he would like to die from a tree falling on him, or some more peaceful and less traumatic way, he would have given us the look he is giving below. It is that knowing “Why are you saying that, you know it is wrong” look. In his mid-70s, Jim was nowhere ready to leave us, and we were nowhere ready to let go of him.
His death is a huge loss.
Jim was a remarkable man, who I admired, and who left a way outsized hand print on Pennsylvania conservation and the practice of forestry in eastern America. He was a force to be reckoned with, an institution in his own right, a political-cultural movement, a gentle soul with a will of iron, kind and easy but also passionate and unrelenting.
He did not suffer fools easily, though he accepted honest debate and earnest dissent exactly the way an academic ought to: His eyes took on this hard laser focus, and you could tell he was actively listening and processing, not always ready to give an answer, either. His response might come tomorrow or next year, and if your argument was good, you could tell it had moderated Jim’s perspective.
Jim Finley was an academic, and sometimes prone to the idealism that academics naturally grow into. However, he also had the ability to be hands-on practical, and even more important, he had the ability to support aggressive, hands-on, totally practical forestry practices. You know, the kinds of visual impacts that most urbanites recoil in horror from, and which many land conservation groups really did not want to see, either, no matter how scientifically they were needed or justified. It is an admirable and rare trait to be able to be honest about unpleasant things, and Jim could look at a heavily cut tract with tree tops lying all over the place, and cheerfully explain all of the wonderful things that were now going to follow on the heels of all that disturbance. Because of Jim, conservation easements in Pennsylvania are now a lot more forestry-friendly than they used to be. And a landowner who is able to manage his or her forest as aggressively as they need to under a conservation easement, is a landowner who is much more likely to sign that easement and protect their land in the first place.
Jim invited me to speak to his classes a couple of times, and we worked together when I was at DCNR and the Conservation Fund. I knew him when I was a kid in State College, I knew him as a professional forester and academic at Penn State, and I knew him as a colleague of land conservation legend and Penn State forester Joe Ibberson, whose PSU forestry department endowment Jim presided over at the end of his formal career. It is always a huge loss when someone of Jim’s high caliber leaves us, but it is even more so when he was just starting to become mature, as he would put it in the terms of a tree.
So long, old friend. Happy travels in your peaceful forest cathedral. We who are left behind mourn your untimely departure and we will miss you greatly. You were a hell of a guy, Jim.
Wooden bowls and a vase turned by Jim Finley. Photo kindly provided by forester Dale G.
Charlie Gerow is a good guy
Turns out long time lobbyist and current candidate for Pennsylvania governor Charlie Gerow experienced an odd vehicle accident earlier this year, which has just now come to light in a police report and semi-journalistic analysis by the ardently partisan PennLive.
As reported by the State Police, Charlie was driving home towards the Harrisburg area on the PA Turnpike in the stretch through Chester County, when his car was hit from the side and from behind by a motorcyclist.
The motorcyclist, Logan Abbott, aged 30, who from descriptions sounds like an awesome all-American kind of man, became deceased on the scene after he crashed his borrowed motorcycle, for which he was not licensed, into Gerow’s car at around 9:30 PM. Abbott was thrown from the bike, and then subsequently struck by multiple high-speed vehicles as he was in the Turnpike roadway; he died from one or all of those impacts. I don’t know of any good way to die other than in your sleep, and this death has to be one of the saddest ways to go. I am really sorry for Logan and for Logan’s family. I have kids; as a parent, this is about the worst thing I could hear in my life. Hugs to you from our family, Abbott family.
My friend Dan, a brain surgeon and psychiatrist, calls many young men driving motorcycles “motor donors,” because of their dangerous hot-dogging ways and the resulting high body count statistics. Young men on motorcycles make up a huge proportion of annual highway injuries and deaths. And then donating a lot of young, healthy organs.
From what witnesses saw, Gerow was driving in the right lane at regular highway speed, Abbott was passing Gerow, and then swerved into his car. The rest is sad history. The police report surmises that Abbott was inexperienced at driving the motorcycle and made a fatal error.
Gerow was eventually pulled over by State Police several miles down the road, because the motorcycle was lodged under the front of his car. Witnesses reported seeing the motorcycle stuck in the front of the car and throwing sparks. People are wondering what the hell happened after the impact, and why didn’t Charlie pull over immediately.
Here is my take on what happened:
- The impact came from behind and from the side of Charlie’s car, where he could not see, or at least he could not see very well. We drivers are always focused in front of us when we are driving, especially so on a turnpike with a 70 MPH speed zone. Charlie did not see and could not see what happened.
- The motorcycle driver never appeared in Charlie’s view.
- The motorcycle never appeared in Charlie’s view.
- The motorcycle was lodged under the hood of the car, and out of Charlie’s vision. It would be difficult to see any time, and especially at night, when you can’t see very far ahead and you are looking as far ahead as you can.
- Charlie probably thought he had hit some road debris, of which there is a TON on the Turnpike. Back in the early 1980s, I hit a dead deer lying flat in the middle of the PA Turnpike’s right lane, and it became lodged up under the car’s carriage. My Chrysler K Car rode up on top of the deer like a skateboard for a couple hundred feet before it became dislodged and the car regained its straight trajectory. That was a close call. Today there are lots of dead deer and tons of tractor trailer tires all over the Turnpike.
- When Charlie realized he was carrying the road debris under his car, he probably thought it would eventually break off or break free, so he kept driving.
- He may have realized it was not going to break free any time soon, and like any sane and experienced driver, Charlie was not going to pull over on the side of the Turnpike. No freaking way! That is the most dangerous area of any highway, and especially the PA Turnpike. If you get a flat tire on the PA Turnpike, you are best served by slowly limping to the next designated pull-off area and changing your flat there. If you pull off on the narrow roadside margin and try to operate there, you stand a good chance of being hit either by accident or ON PURPOSE by passing motorists.
- For example, back in 2003 I was driving south at night on a regional highway, when three deer suddenly stepped right in front of my truck. Going 60 MPH, there was no time to stop or avoid impact, and in one second all three deer were scattered across the highway and my truck was severely damaged (but not disabled…it was a Toyota Tacoma). The State Police were immediately on the scene, and as we tried to pull the dead and dying deer out of the roadway, so that other motorists did not strike them and have subsequent accidents, I twice had a trooper grab my belt and yank me backwards. Why? Because as the trooper grimly stated to me matter-of-factly, a surprising number of vehicle drivers actually try to hit people who are alongside the side of the road. I could feel the whoosh of air go right past my face both times, and I could see both vehicles swerve back into the middle of their lane after they had each swerved onto the side of the road to try and hit me. The cops took it in stride as part of the daily risks they face.
- Point being here, Charlie is a smart guy and he knows that the side of the PA Turnpike is the last place you go if you have some road debris stuck up under your car, if you can help it. You wait until you can pull into a well-lit, large, safe place where you aren’t going to be hit or carjacked.
- Troopers who pulled over Charlie’s car then checked him for driving under the influence of drugs and alcohol, and found none. Charlie was not impaired.
- In sum, the conditions of this lamentable accident are a dark night on a busy and fast highway, in a place where road debris is common, and there are few places to safely pull over if you do have an accident or get some debris lodged up under your vehicle. The car driver was not responsible for the impact, did not see what happened at the moment of impact, and he did not see what his car was carrying up front subsequent to the impact. The driver was waiting to find the right place to pull off in order to safely inspect his vehicle, when the State Police pulled him over and told him what had happened.
I am sorry for the Abbott family on the loss of Logan. And I hope that Charlie Gerow, who is a good guy, is not artificially targeted here because of his politically incorrect political beliefs, or because of the Abbott family’s understandable grief. Logan made a mistake (his obituary notes that Logan “had just finished 14 days straight of 12-hour shifts and was looking forward to his 14 days off and camping with his family“), probably due to being exhausted from hard work, and Charlie did nothing wrong. It’s just a damned crappy tragedy, and we should not want to see an injustice done to one party because we are feeling aggrieved over the loss of the other.
And for the record, I am not committed to any candidates for governor right now, not even to Charlie. I do think Lou Barletta has already been in politics long enough and that he should be championing someone younger for PA governor, not seeking it himself. I don’t know how Charlie will fare among grassroots conservatives, because though he is a good guy, he is also a political lobbyist long associated with a political establishment many grassroots voters and activists have come to distrust and even revile.
Fake news doesn’t sleep. One of the reasons I wrote this essay is this kind of lie, from a website proclaiming itself, what else crooks and liars. Nowhere did anyone report a motorcyclist lodged in or stuck to Gerow’s car. Yet this 100% lie remains up on the website
Fake news headline…no one says a “motorcyclist was wedged to his car’s grill,” except on a website that deliberately tells lies like this. And the comments on the article show what gullible fools liberals are. No one stopped to question this outlandish claim or ask for facts.
Logan Abbott, great guy who made a small but costly mistake. Be careful on those motorcycles, folks
Charlie Gerow holding court in January 2015 with Governor Tom Corbett and PA movers and shakers. Note photo of JFK.
Cultural Warlord Wanted for PA Senate Candidate
While sitting on the North Face cabin porch with some Democrat Party friends on the Lycoming-Tioga county border last Sunday, I was politely asked “the only political question” of our time together:
“What do you think of (D) Lt. Governor John Fetterman’s chances at winning the US Senate seat being vacated by Patricia Toomey?”
And I responded: “John Fetterman may be an anti-democracy, anti-America, totalitarian communist with the face of a worn out prize fighter, but he has an honest charisma that is going to be tough for most Republican Party candidates to beat.”
This is because most Republican Party candidates everywhere, and in Pennsylvania in particular, are well groomed, boring, milquetoast moderates who really stand for nothing except getting a public pension and invitations to all the right cocktail parties. If Fetterman has the looks of a Neanderthal’s old shoe, he still is identifiable as a manly man, and a refreshingly plain-spoken one at that. In a different age and place, Fetterman could easily have been a warlord with a sword across his knee and a coat of chain mail over his shoulders, his beetle brow scouring his subjects with fierce determination to win and to dominate.
Contrast this kind of mindset and distinctive personal presence with the usual GOP spawn that has bubbled up from the top of the donor class to become a candidate for anything: Timid sounding, almost effeminate, tepid, moderate and clean-cut appearing; ruffle no feathers, offend no one, instantly forgettable. And historically speaking, which kind of personal presence wins the hearts and minds of the people, the fierce warlord, or the milquetoast fairy?
Easy answer: Warlords win.
And the American electorate is not just hungry for strong leaders, we are starving for them, because we know America is up for grabs. Leftists know that strong Democrat personalities will make their Marxist revolution succeed, and conservatives know that strong Republican personalities will push back against the Marxists and make America’s Constitution prevail, thereby saving the Republic.
President Donald J. Trump won both the 2016 and 2020 elections because of his fierce and unwavering determination to put The People ahead of the political donor class and the Washington, DC Swamp. The only people who did not understand this then and who not only still do not understand it now, but who also oppose it now are the same old GOP donor class and Chamber of Compromise who try like hell to elect wimpy wusses they can easily control. To the GOPe and its elite benefactors, the Republican and conservative voter is now and always has been barely an afterthought. They don’t give a fig about our views or needs. The GOPe just needs our votes every two to four years to get their milquetoast Gumby candidates over the finish line, and then they immediately kick us and our values to the curb until the next election.
And so looking at the current lineup of declared and possible Republican Party candidates who might be the nominee to face Fetterman, what qualities do we see?
- Feckless
- Hopelessly moderate and standing for nothing
- Money-oriented and ignoring basic values, culture, borders, language
- Afraid of going to war and braving battle to save America
I won’t name names, but outside of Joe Gale, the list of Republicans running for PA governor is pretty much the same thing.
Who Pennsylvania needs to beat Fetterman is a GOP cultural warlord. A candidate who listens to and cares about the electorate, all of whom are values-driven, culture-driven, America-first-driven. Someone who is unafraid at all times, especially unafraid to firmly and honestly speak her or his mind and to do battle to the last dying gasp, for the sake of everything most Americans hold dearest.
I don’t know if I have seen such a person yet, but if you do, please let me know. I’d like to make a small political donation and volunteer my valuable time to help that person beat Fetterman.
Typical Republican candidate
Democrat candidate John Fetterman
“If you don’t vote for me, you’ll get a Democrat,” says the GOPe candidate du jour
The kind of candidate the America-First voters actually want