Vaporware. It was an internal project from a S.A.R. heavy agency that got fragged for some generic thing that covered other environments and dripped negativity but was already published and available. My dad scored a case and handed a few out. The world can't have nice things as long as bureaucrats are involved.Originally Posted by Poconnor
Sounds like something that should be scanned and put on the net if only to say fuck the bureaucrats
Damn good stuff in this thread.
I owe my dad my life. I needed him and he was there.
We wish to thank the United Network Command for Law and Enforcement, without whose assistance this program would not have been possible.
Short films have been made from lesser stories than yours! Enjoyed the read!
Got out with the oldest, today. And tested the poor bugger every step along the way. It started with loading the Mossy 510 from empty in the cold with gloves. Learned to be mindful of the shell stop.
Given the conditions and terrain, a safety brief was in order. Falling with a longarm is completely different than when hiking, biking, skateboarding, or skiing. Used positive verbalization that the finger must remain straight and outside the trigger guard. The safety must remain engaged. The muzzle must remain both under positive control and pointed in a safe direction. The gun is more important than any body part. Had it iron sights beyond beads, they would need to be protected at all costs and checked once back up. Given the snow bridging voids and slippery stuff, he got practice and comported himself very well. Pass.
Gun/gear hand-offs at obstacle crossings also went smoothly. Identifying which call for it and which don't getting better.
Then on to walking point. Focus is inproving when something catches attention and it's time to plant and scan for a while. Picked decent routes, as well.
Made a one-match fire with gathered deadwood and birch bark. I demonstrated a tinder bundle using half a paper match, stamped it out, and immediately had him do it himself. Needed some correction in form to properly support the match head before striking. Fine otherwise. In a deadspot from an already gentle breeze and using a storm match but still. I selected, cut, trimmed, barked, and sharpened the hotdog sticks to have busywork while youg'un moved up the kindling chain into fuel wood. Hotdogs really do only taste right when cooked outside on a proper wood fire.
"Should I toss the exra birch bark in from my pocket before we leave?"
"No, and you asked because you already knew the answer or you would have just done it. If I break a leg and have to lie in the snow waiting for you to get to town, find help, and guide it here, I'd appreciate a fire and stock of wood beside me. You can make it faster with dry tinder already at hand."
"What if I break a leg?"
"I carry you out since this terrain doesn't favor a travois. By the time we hit the hospital, you'll wish I'd left you next to a fire to wait for a smoother toboggan drag."
"...Thanks?"
"You'll deal with it, I'm not leaving anyone behind that I can self-extract."
We got stumped but it was a good scout and, on egress via alternate route, the youth noted another trail to try on Christmas Eve. To provide a consolation prize, had a shotgun competition since I'd issued us both ear plugs at home. We each got one wax slug* for my single barrel 16 gauge. Seven yards from a dead tree with distinct green mold spot, we each took a shot and closest won. I got lucky and centerpunched it. First place loser was just a hair left.
Then back to the remaining fire to warm.up before heading out. Kicked snow over and packed it down tonextinguish. Close to the trailhead, had him properly and fully unload in gloves while fatigued. Did launch the chambered shell into the snow with note to catch it with a palm preemptively placed, next time.
Fieldcraft, route planning, spatial awareness, situational awareness, focus, gunhandling, gunstacking afield, living with longarms, footwork, fire lay, knowing and recalling boundaries for area, gunhandling, making a first and only shot count for all the marbles while afield on demand, and more were experienced.
One can never gurantee that a prodigé will plant and do their best when the time comes. But I'll be doing my best to leave my kids with a solid foundation of experience and earned confidence to maximize their chances. His pump versus my taped-together break-action didn't matter. Everything is a single-shot with mountainside ruffed grouse and he could land a respectable hit with the "lesser" gun, anyway. Modern lighters and mishmetal strikers in my pockets didn't matter when he could use a trusty match. Purchased or homemade firestarters didn't matter when he could identify, select, gather, and use naturally foraged tinder. Electronic comms weren't a crutch when we had a plan for medical extraction, were properly dressed, and could trust each other's capabilities.
We did do some gear chat. I explained why he needed quieter material for his pant shell layer, next season. That was a proper selection issue, not specific brands and models. Also explained why gaiters were indicated when dressing. But that was correctly layering for the environment to properly perform without hindrance, not some asinine distraction about his spiffy thrift shop find Outdoor Research versus my cheap and dependable woolen Swiss milsurp.
I can't buy my kids the best of anything. But I can and will do my damndest to give them supervised life experience in the outside world. Prefer it that way, to be honest. I've met the parents who just by their cherubs a replacement pair of Hestra after one tumbles off a chairlift without a second thought. So, so very many of them, God help us all. My runts can and will safely mark the spot to hump their butts down the liftline and retreive their used bargain bin mitt. I think one of those is doing greater service to the youth. One certainly leaves what should ostensibly be outdoorsmen in the making better prepared for adversity than the other. Beyond being a skinflint, I also can't afford to hear that one of my kids was lost to a mountain when they are older because I failed to properly drill and prepare them.
* Why did I have waxers? Because they are fun. Also there is a bit of an ammo shortage on a product or two at the moment. Slugs are a valuable commodity where #6 shot culled from field loadout for iffy factory crimps and repurposed are dirt cheap. Knowing how to improvise a substitute standard is good. Popping them off enough when woods bumming to know that ten yards is my personal limit for minute-of-rabid-critter in the shortened single is experiential learning and impossible in sterile discussion of ideal gear. Also because they generally tend a wee titch left of the bead at the outside of my range bracket. It was my ace-in-the-hole for a competition that wasn't spur of the moment like I'd led the offspring to believe.
One day they will look back on that and be thankful. I don't remember a whole lot of what I got for Christmas and birthdays growing up but I can head up Jackman Creek and show you the exact spot I killed my first deer with my Dad and I can tell you what I was wearing and what kind of sandwiches we ate for lunch that day. My Dad gave me a lifetime of memories from experiences and I wouldn't trade it for anything.
Kid and I had been in an area I know fairly well, yesterday. My grandfather had spent a lot of time with me, out there. Probably because he knew it like the back of his hand. For years, he had felled trees with a double-bitted axe, cut logs to length with a one-man crosscut saw, hitched the load to his draft horse, and skidded them to the ttailhead to the nearest road where my grandmother would finish tending the load while he went straight back out. Some of the old, grown skidder tracks we'd passed were his, packed in under hoof and boot rather than tire and track.
He grew up poor during the war. Dropped out of middle school to buy his first draft horse, set of tools, and left home to cast his lot with a Canadian lumber company. A boy living in a backwoods camp, one of two English speakers in a crowd of haggard Francophones. This continued for years before he left for a bigger town in the motor age to cut his teeth as a mechanic and ultimately heavy construction. Which he worked until he died.
A quiet man, you could go an hour more in his company without a word spoken. But, if he was working a job nearby, he'd call my parents. They'd have me out in the yard with a thermos, lunchbox, and pair of work boots. He'd pick me up and I'd spend most of his shift at his side. Just there. If a question was asked, an answer was never expected for some time until he found the correct explanation and wording for it. That may be a half hour later, breaking the ever comfortable silence.
He didn't teach me any woodcraft. No mountaineering. Nor how to shoot. He taught me how to love God's green Earth to the very core of my soul. To carry a burning passion for nature and to possess the quiet introspection to soak it in. To keep my head down, ignore drama, and get the boss' work done. To have personal integrity, internal standards, and hold to them even when no one is looking. Not to make a fire but to squat beside it, gaze into its very soul, and see primal truth and beauty in its abyssal depths. To sit in the dark, listening to the silence and all it has to say. Not to read but to enjoy it. Not how to follow codes and do handy work but to do it right and why it was an insult to one's very self to half-ass anything. Not to repair a rifle but how to maintain it in the first place.
He gave me my first hunting rifle. Not that I may go out on my own but that I may go out more with him. He also taught me that a sandwich is only woth toasting when pinched between sticks over an open fire, beside a cold brook, as snow falls. It would have to first be gently and gradually squished over miles. Not by hand but by the natural pressure of body and pocket as you weave about the woods. Gave me my first hunting knife, too. The Case off his own belt. Never replaced it. I'd be dressing the deer and he had his everpresent cheap jackknife from the hardware store counter in a pinch. From an age when they were worth buying.
Most things he ever gave his children were made with his own two hands or salvaged and rebuilt from the dump. He poached deer year round to feed his young family. A visit to the doctor was a rarity. Cheaper for Ma to scold the child to be quiet, have dignity, and fish the object out, dose it in mercurochrome or iodine, and send them back out. A dirty sock wrapped about the neck was cheaper than cold syrup. Pills and powders weren't for headaches, pain tolerance was. Yet, any time a coworker fell on hard times, they got a couch as a bed, pile of thick blankets, and my grandmother would cook their meals until they socked away enough laychecks to recover. No rent, no repayment.
His company let him build a camp on some of their land, accessible by boat. He'd move his family there for months at a stretch, rowing to shore every day for the drive to work. Light by gas lamp, rain on a tin roof, food cool by submersion off the boat slip, supper often whatever fish was hooked out of the water.
That land was long sold to another firm and the camps left to rot. But I did get to snowmobile with him quite a lot. I wasn't taught how to ride but how to stay safe. Not to do tricks but to dig it out of a bind if climbing the hill aggressively didn't work. That reverse gear is for the weak of spirit. That, more satisfying than speed, was knowing when to pull off, kill the motor, and listen to the snow fall of frosted boughs arching over the trail under their icy burden like a cathedral ceiling, day or night. The darkness broken by the sublte glow of snow a gift from the God he never believed in. That darkness broken only by the spark and glow of a match, pungent incense of sulphur, and fragrance of tobacco as the pipe took light. Packed in the dark, by feel, the briar more holy than any rosary rubbing about in his palm. He also taught me that reverent spirituality was never found in a book, dogma, organisation, or passed from the words of a shepard. That was artifice. Spirituality was sacred, found at the core of all things, and deeply personal. It was real, honest, and vital to existence.
My grandmother never inderstood how we could sit reading a book as the sun set. Lights off, keeping on until the page was a dark blankness. Then just set it upon the table and sit silent and alone in the last fading drops of dusk. Thinking, or not, to ourselves for some time in darkness before stirring to some other activity. She'd turn on a light if she went by, scolding about strained eyes. We'd just turn it back off after she'd passed.
He did teach me to load shoot a charcoal burner, though. No one else did it right so he had to get down to brass tacks and technicalities. Load development, loading sequence, marking the rod, firing, reloading, cleaning, maintaining, keeping a repair with the what/why/how, and why in-lines were heresy and an insult to both oneself and the animal. It's about challenge, understanding the past and where it came from, the process, keeping in touch with our roots. Inlines are just an extension of rifle season, they are vapidity materialized. To use one is a disservice to one's own development and an insult to our ancestors. It is unethical to the animal. Not just a clean death is owed. But respect, gratitude, and a holistic part in an ancient and powerful ritual.
Quiet, humble, "uneducated", poor, wearing threadbare clothes, and lanky. Yet he could put a grown laborer through a wall in the blink of an eye, he just rarely did. He was rich with integrity and a devoted wife. Blessed with some of the most steadfast and loyal dogs I've ever met. And the most passionately principled person I have ever had the honor to know. Sharply intelligent, a lightning fast learner, and the deepest philosopher one could hope to study under. Credentials aren't framed on a wall. They are found in the depths of the eyes, lines of the face, callouses on the hands, scars with stories to tell, and the looks on the faces of people who recall the name.
I've been over my head in a blizzard on the side of a mountain at 0300 before. We worked for the same outfit at the end of his life. He got to me, dug me out, showed me how to avoid the situation in the first place, sat for some hot chocolate from a thermos, and then went back to his own work. While coughing blood and dying of cancer.
My maternal grandmother was given a 14" Griswold cast iron skillet when she married. It was used hard for years. Sweating peppers, onions, and the meatballs they stuffed before cellar aging in homamade tomato sauce for days before service. Melting a few inches of Crisco for fried chicken. It was the centerpiece of her stove.
When my father was young, she managed to drop it on the handle, snapping the handle and sidewall of the skillet off in one large chunk. She was in tears as her son-in-law's father swung by. In his usual brusque styling, "stop the God damned waterworks, I can fix the fahken sonofabitch!" He spent the time and effort to clean the metal, do proper surface preparation, jig the piece in place, flux it up, and silver solder the repair. Then grind the bead flush on the inside of the skillet. Cheaper brass solder is the usual for iron repairs but for some reason, he opted for a precious metal.
The Griswold went to my father at her passing. He used it more sparingly, mostly for large family breakfasts and his mother's spaghetti and meatballs. Partly out of fear that he would wear out his mother's most precious belonging and partly because jeeping up with iron cookware wasn't his jam.
As of today, it is mine. It can nest with the 10" Griswold my wife's grandmother passed down to me when we moved into our first house. The Lodge I saved and restored from a yard sale for myself. And the no-name inexpensive ones from my maternal granmother. If you want to know the joy of glass-snooth iron, old Griswold will spoil you. Or hand smooth the rough surface of cheap stuff like my grandmother did to hers. We have company coming, tomorrow. I will be using this silvered skillet to cook our meal.
And it will live on my stove, and I will do my best to season ut all the better for my own grandchildren. It is on its fourth generation, made in an age of American manifacturing pride. A dependable necessity crafted by one prideful mill worker to feed the family of another. Repaired right by a gruff but caring man. Not only because it was financially irreplacable, nor sentimentally, but because it was the right thing to do.
I've commandeered oxy-fuel torches at work to repair clock parts for coworkers' parents, samovar valves for escapees of the U.S.S.R., stuff for my own kids, and Hail Mary attempts at keeping equioment online for our mechanic. A skill I wanted to develop and refine thanks to this very pan. The front sight on the eldest's Henry lever-action .22 is tipped in brass, soldered in place because why buy one when I can make something from scrap? "That? Dad worked overtime, which he could instead have spent with me, to buy it. Hardly knew him but this gun hits to the sights." Versus "That? Dad knew the problem, saw the potential in a sliver of scrap, made it one-of-a-kind for me, cleaned and shaped with hand tools, and spent his off time taking me to the woods to sight it in and roll some cans. Got a firm pat on the back after a particularly well placed shot. Talked about anything on my mind hiking back home."
Daughter also received a gift from my father. The very same 6" Hi-Standard R-101 with which I had learned revolver shooting and the Hunter holster with which it had come. Used when he bought them from an acquaintance, of course. I was not allowed to thumb-cock the gun, no matter what protestations I made. Until I could perform to his satisfaction, cold, on demand, on multiple separate occasions to prove luck was not a factor. When the day came that I could finally fire a single-action shot, I was dismayed. It was forever ruined for me as my absolute love of double-action was cemented. My annoyance at the time is now an enduring gratitude.
I don't know how many tens of thousands of rounds have gone through that wonderful wheelgun. But the finish is absolutely beat, lock-up tight as a bank vault, hammer spring tuckered out and in need of replacement, and single-action glitchy. Now to guide her through cleaning it up and learning double-action herself.
A buddy grew up riding bicycles to the city dump in his hometown with rifles strapped to the handlebars. Spending afternoons with friends perforating tin cans and culling rats. Those days are sadly gone forever. But hopefully my kids can keep part of the spirit alive, walking the state forest with rimfires at hand. Plinking the occasional pinecone to look at them funny, knock over the odd rock, bounce littered beer cans, and learn lessons. How to safely live with a gun, hit varied targets at unknown range in field conditions, feel the ember of freedom, independence, confidence, and self-reliance smolder ever stronger. My parents entrusted me with that experience and I won't let one last stand ofindividualism die on my watch. Dad didn't pass that little tackdriver on for me to let his granddaughter down.
She'll learn to appreciate the aluminum frame come our summer and fall backcountry camping trips. Know the simple pleasure of plinking wet cast-offs from the firewood as I buck and split the rest. Having nine shots rolled up in her kit, near to hand as she sleeps beneath the stars. Passing spare time between camp chores reconnoitering the area and capping the occasional likely target.
Shame she's no interest in hunting. That 6" tube has always been great for bagging tree rats and partridge when out walking during the season. Punching large tin cans at fifty yards is still an honorable and pleasurable pastime.
Anyway, off to pull out a proper leather treatment to keep that holster in lively condition. It's provided stalwart service this long and they don't make them like they used to so replacement is no option. Then on to stuff our crown roast and get it in the oven.
I don't know how I missed this thread before. I am honored to have the opportunity to read it. Thank you.
I try very hard to make sure my son will have important life skills and a love for the world around him. He's named after my uncle who died when I was 6 and did the same for me.
So far at 2 he can identify deer, moose, and bear tracks. Tell the difference in coyote and dog tracks. He knows a bunch of leaves, amphibians, etc.
He cant build a fire yet but he knows not to get to close
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