Saturday, November 21, 2020

There I Was All Happy With Myself...

 ...because I scored six (6) boxes of 38 Special +P this morning, then went to the dog park with Skye and had a nice time playing a bit of fetch where she gets the ball but does not bring it back, and because I stopped at a local second hand junk store antique store where I found tree heavy duty, large and very inexpensive beer mugs. Only $1.00 apiece. Put a smile on my face because Brendan & I will use them on Thanksgiving.

As I was saying, I was happy. Then suddenly, I received a text from Brendan and I was no longer happy. My happiness meter went from high all the way to breaking and going boing! I should mention it went up - not down and I was ecstatic! Here is why:

Not sure but I think it's a 6 pointer. Sent him a text asking but no reply yet, lousy service up there

After many years of deer hunting with me, he had never gotten a deer. Then last year, he bagged a doe - one shot while hunting in AR with his boss. Single shot to get tat one. I don't know the details yet about the buck he got today but it was also one shot. I do know a little from a couple of texts he sent to me. He did not have the best angle from which to shoot - it was facing him head on. Here is how he described it in a text to me: 

"Got a buck"

"Was not broadside. Was looking straight at me. Flopped over and died. Quick and clean."

His whole face is glowing in that picture and so it should be! By the way, that rifle - it's a Savage - don't recall the exact model - I think one of the various model 10 or 100 rifles, 308 caliber (he chose from a selection of 5 or 6 rifles and chose wisely). Whatever - it's gotta be good luck. We were at a gun show last month and I shelled out $20 apiece for a couple of raffle tickets. Later on in the show, a guy working the show and a gal asked if I was Glenn B. I said yeah and asked why, she was smiling and then it hit me. I had bought the winning ticket. I let them transfer it to Brendan as an early Christmas gift. I love it when things truly come together and they certainly did with that rifle, the ammo I gave him for it, and the skills I helped teach him shooting and out in the woods. He may be a middle aged man now but I still say: 'That's my boy and I'm quite proud of him!'

I don't even know if ecstatic explains how I feel. He has been hunting with me for big game since he was 16. We went on a trip to Maine back then and he bagged a young boar black bear. That was also a one shot kill - it went through the heart & lungs. He is a good shot, takes after me shooting and may surpass me someday (but not quite yet😉). The only thing that could have made me feel better about this, well it's if I would have been there with him. That's okay though, maybe next year, who knows. As I said though, the happy meter got busted when I saw the photo. I suppose, the only guy happier than me about this is Brendan.

As for me, I have not bothered to go hunting this year. Too much pain in my hips. Seems to be getting better though, wouldn't you know 2 weeks into the season! There is a late season in December and truth be told, it's been so warm around here that I'd rather go then. Somewhere in between now and then, I hope to be eating some venison, from the buck he shot today. 

I should add, I told him to have the head mounted.I know it's not even close to a trophy buck but as a taxidermist told me maybe 35 years or so ago when I got my first buck, an 8 pointer on my uncle's farm, you may never see another like this. I've seen them alright, quite a few and two with 12 or 14 points - but I never got another as big as that first one. I offered Brendan $250 toward mounting it; I hope he takes me up on it.

All the best,
Glenn B

Some Hoard Toilet Paper - Not Me

Me, I have a decent stock of ammo built up. If the dems take control of all three houses - The Senate, The House of Representatives & The White House - there most assuredly will be a huge tax implemented on guns & ammunition. How huge, try 35% or higher; I am pretty certain that was the figure they tried in their last attempt to  tax the people out of being able to purchase ammunition. The dems, led by the raving lunatic Schumer have tried to legislate such a tax for decades. We pay enough, actually more than enough, taxes right now. They may also try to legislate what types of ammo and how much of it someone can buy. Thus I have a  abundant amount of ammo built up and keep adding to it. 

Heck, the democrats, should they gain overwhelming control of the government, may even attempt to repeal the 2nd Amendment. I am sure it seems like an outrageous idea to some, the talk of an extremist (which I am not) but it does not seem all that far fetched to me. This is next to last month of 2020. Did you ever imagine, even for a moment, that things that happened in the United States this year would have ever happened - not just in your lifetime but ever? Had I made some predictions last year in 2019 and told you that a group of fascists, garbed in black, would take over and defiantly rule some of our cities or at least pars of them and that authorities would facilitate them doing so and even march with them - would you have believed me? Had I told you that hundreds of thousands of people would demand defunding the police - would you have believed that? What about elected officials assisting rioting crowds to tear down monuments, not only of confederate soldiers but also of Abraham Lincoln in the name of fighting racism? Lincoln of all presidents! Would you ever have imagined cities in flames as rioting and looting became commonplace and state & local elected officials would do nothing to stop and in some instances encourage such behavior then would attempt to to claim the president of the United States was responsible for causing or exasperating them, while at the same time turning down his offers for assistance at regaining the peace? You probably would have said I was nuts had I told you they were coming within the next year. Could you ever have imagined the response of governors of some states to a global pandemic was to blame our president for it while governors like the one in NY who allegedly forced elderly ill patients into nursing homes spreading the virus among the most vulnerable & where thousands died because of his orders; and even though NY had the highest death rate (up at least until I wrote this as far as I am aware) - the governor in essence would claim that his was the shining example of how to deal with such a crisis as he failed to utilize emergency hospitals and a hospital ship provided by the federal government? I culd not have imagined that even that bloviating buffoon Cuomo could have done so but apparently he did. 

Then somehow - crisis full speed ahead - it wound up that some folks felt a need to stockpile toilet paper! Would you ever have believed, even or a moment, that during a crisis, one of he first things stores ran out of, absolutely down to the bare shelves, would be toilet paper. Not me. That anticipated tax on ammo that I mentioned above, the one I think dems would be sure to legislate if they gain full control, I do not anticipate such a tax on toilet paper no matter what (but of course I could be wrong) so I am not running out with the droves of hockey mom preppers and stay-at-home daddies to buy reams of it. I see no need to build a stockpile of it; I do however have one or two spare package(s) of it any given time as I do with most things. I try to keep enough on hand, of anything, to be ready for what may come, in fact I have a need to do so that is ingrained into my psyche. It’s not that I am driven by the mentality of a hoarder – I do not hoard things except maybe ammunition but I usually have at least something extra of the things I use frequently so that I could use them in the event of an emergency. What kind of emergency, one that would ether cut off supply or prevent me from going out to get it. It could be as simple as me coming down with the flu or something more exotic like Rocky Mountain Spotted Fever (and I know first hand about how debilitating is that one) and being to ill to go out shopping with any regularity. 

Right now, should our supply line, of the necessities of life those we usually get at the supermarket and other stores, somehow be cut off, I  could survive for at least 1 if not 3 months on my current stocks and do so comfortably during shortages of just about anything. Well anything except maybe some of my medications because they are prescription meds but I do have a supply of the really important ones set aside to last at least a few extra weeks  – hopefully they will not be needed and hopefully I could survive without them if I ran out.

The fact is this: I have an actual psychological need to have some extra set aside for leaner times. That mindset, the one making me prepare for tough times is a healthy one not the mental illness of a true hoarder. It is due to a few very good things in my life that shaped who I am today: my great-grandmother telling & teaching my siblings and I about her poverty stricken life in Europe where her family was taxed to the point they enjoyed the luxury of eating meat only a few times per year (their animal protein was almost solely from eggs & dairy products and they had little of that as well) and how she came to America and gained wealth through sheer determination & very hard work; my mother suffering through the Great Depression and telling me & my siblings stories about it and thereby teaching us the valuable lesson that having a good work ethic could pull us through; my family was dirt poor when I was young and my mom worked extremely hard to provide for us; and finally - a cold war mind-set to be prepared for the end of the world as we knew it maybe even for the end times. They seemed near – those end times - as Krushchev & Kennedy brought the world ever so close to nuclear destruction. Tough times and the promise of the literal end of the world, at least as we knew it seemed to hover too close over our heads every day of my childhood into my teens and early adulthood. That was just the way of the world as it was back then but my family taught me how to prepare for it and survive to some good degree. I learned more on my own as an adult while I worked for a living.

Those things and the work ethic that I saw in my great-grandparents and in my mom, who worked hard for every penny they had (and my great grandparents amassed a good amount of wealth after they came to America pretty much penniless) were painstakingly passed onto me and shaped my life. It all prepared me for a lifestyle in which I'd work hard to achieve having something to always put aside for leaner times. Luckily for me and my generation, leaner times were mostly avoided but that dragon may have been disturbed in its slumbers and it looks have reared its ugly head on the near horizon. If you are not prepared for it, shame on you. If you want to prepare now, you're a little late but as is said - better than never. Toilet paper though should be just about the least of your concerns as to what to have on hand should that dragon come your way.

All the best,
Glenn B