I think that’s the assumption with the pride flag I hang at camp and the fact that I am a male in my forties who is never married without kids.
The truth is that if anything I’m a pyromaniac, I love burning things. Watching that log burn in the campfire, that plastic bottle shrivel up and disappear in the flames really makes me horney.
Give me a cabin up in the woods with a woodstove and a burn barrel out back for the burnable trash and I’d be happy as a pig in shit. I don’t need the government to tell me what I can and can not burn – I’m well aware there are places like rural Pennsylvania and Missouri with far fewer restrictions on open burning.
It’s not that I haven’t thought about settling down. Or that I didn’t try sessions with a licensed mental health therapist. But ultimately I am who I am and despite maybe a little black smoke from time to time in the wilderness, I doubt I’m hurting anyone much. I get that modern trash in full of chemicals and some of them are going to be released into the environment went burnt but so is the world we live in.
I’ve been told I would be happier if I settled down, got into a committed relationship with a man or a woman. I’ve been told that masturbation is fun but sex with a fellow human being is far more fun. I do like my pictures of burn barrels and reading about rednecks burning their trash when I can’t be up in the woods burning my own stuff.
Some day I will settle down, have that homestead and time for a committed relationship to a man or a woman – I don’t know I’ve never gaven it much thought. Somebody who shares my interests, wants to spend the rest of their life on my homestead. Join the local fire department when I live in a rural area, not just for the fun of participating in controlled burns but also so I can help my neighbors, develop fellowship and make sure they’re not on my back when I’m burning debris on my own land.
By no means am I anti-gay. I say live your life as you choose, I’ll do my thing, you do yours. I’m not ruling out someday a relationship with another man or woman but I enjoy my life as it is today – even if it is a redneck dumpster fire.
I think it’s a bit of a gut check to watch every day the horrors of the Trump administration knowing that I checked the box next to his name on the conservative line last October. I was annoyed that there was no alternative to Trump or Harris. Was it the right thing to do, looking back eight months ago?
I am a fairly liberal person, a Democrat but I do like my guns, the time I spend in the wilderness and my fires and freedom. With Biden it seemed like everything revolved around banning guns and whatever was the trendy, woke, wearing liberalism on your sleeve of the day. Everything was a meaningless slogan, a proclamation. Maybe Biden was a competent technocrat who got things running well in the background but it always seemed like he was just whining about the need to ban guns as inflation went upwards.
On the whole, I probably agreed with most of Biden’s policies more than Trump. Still I somehow thought Trump would be a bumbling conservative, push things a bit to the right and get us a nice little tax cut but it so far has seemed much different than what it appeared to be. I thought he would be much more likely to legalize pot federally without the conservative pushback Harris would get.
While I hardly embrace many of Trump’s policies, I do think the federal government was long overdue for a deep cleaning and some of the agencies which had grown and had mission creep and needed decades worth of pruning. Things like free roads for EVs, big tax credits for solar and cars not only en couraged sales but also fraud. Maybe it was time for these technologies to stand on their own. The immigration situation seemed to be boiling out of control with local hotels full of people from other countries living on the government dime. Lots needed to change.
In contrast, government does a lot of important things and I do worry Trump is pushing out a lot of talented people with diverse viewpoints that are needed to move our country forward. DEI might have gotten a bit absurd to the end but an all white, all elderly male workforce is hardly one with the creative, diverse backgrounds needing to move society forward. The tarrifs are just idiotic. I am less disturbed about his tax cut – who doesn’t like a tax cut – even if it’s pretty minor this time around, unless of course you work overtime or for tips. I’m unfortunately management now.
Heading to Goldmine Stream Falls, you have to cross three creeks. This ladder, turned bridge helps you cross this tiny but sure to wet one's foot. The entire trail is unblazed, it's an easy to follow herd path.
