Commentary

Welcome to the commentary page. I hope you find something here from time to time that you enjoy. First, a word of explanation: This is a commentary page, not a blog. I won’t be updating on a short-term schedule common to blogs. The content of each commentary will have a longer life and won’t be updated until something else stimulates the need to write and pass along information and opinion. But I do hope you find this material interesting and want to return to this page regularly to see what is new or to go over the old once again. I will do my best to keep it fresh. With that said, let’s see what is rolling around in my often cluttered mind now.

Lonesome Journey: A Properly Conducted Method Hunt

The journey is often a lonesome one. Seems there are few who choose to follow those sometimes anxious, difficult steps toward success in the hunting fields when the very outset is plagued by obstacles, obstacles that are perhaps only perceived because of a marked absence of modernity in equipment. These who are reticent to join in are victims of the high-tech, are convinced that every trinket and anything new is essential. If that success mentioned above is judged fully by game taken, there is some validity in such thinking as that exhibited...

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Tents: Structures Good for the Spirit

I always sleep best in a tent. Few there are, or so it seems, who share this possibly misplaced enthusiasm, but for me there has never been any question. I always sleep best in a tent. Why that is so I cannot say. In fact, I am not completely sure. Perhaps the reason trails back to some Bedouin spirit of being mobile or some Bohemian propensity to be something or someone who shuns conformity. Could be, but these traits appear a bit radical for me. You see, I am fully domesticated in most of life. But there remains a strong urging that places...

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Aging and the Complexities of Life

Life is often complex. We all experience that need for a little smoothing of the edges from time to time. That is what archery has done for me practically all my life. It never removed the complexities, but it did definitely smooth those rough edges each time it was employed. For the better part of this past year, I have found myself gradually growing deeper into primary caregiving for parents, ages 88 and 90. That is ongoing. The future is uncertain, but a logical conclusion is that none of this will end soon. The chores will become even more...

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Ramblings of an Antique

Call me an antique. To that designation I nod in deference and plead guilty. For I am an antique – both in practice and sentiment. My bows are bamboo and Osage; my arrows cedar. My muzzleloader is a Lancaster-style flintlock. My modern center fire is an 1874 Sharps, its thumb-sized brass cases stuffed with black powder and topped with lead slugs. And to add credence to this reference of antiquity, I began regular treks into the hunting woods in the late 1950s. Seems everything I am and know and possess and use is old. But save age, over...

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Make Mine Old!

I have long been intrigued by the old – old rifles/cartridges, old photos, old tools, old wooden waterfowl decoys. All this could be a function of my being old as well, but the lure of old things captured me long before I became an old thing. So, simply being old as I now am can’t be the entire reason for the absolute absorption I experience when looking at or handling something old. It goes deeper. Isolating and describing what and why is basically impossible, for it is something that touches the very core of my being. Perhaps you know it...

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