Light my fire

We have this election coming up on Tuesday, and one of the ballot initiatives has to do with mandatory pre-school, which I think is all well and good, but what about mandatory camping?

Seriously. I don't know how people make it through life who've never been through Campfire or Boy Scouts or something like that.

Me, I was in the Royal Rangers, and maybe their politics might have been a little right wing for most people's taste (This was the height of the Vietnam War, and there was kind of an unspoken understanding that we would one day apply the training and indoctrination received from our Troop Leaders to advance the cause of liberty through lethal force.), but, thanks to the Royal Rangers, you could have left me in the middle of the Sierras with a Bowie knife and a compass, and I could have fended for myself indefinitely.

And probably killed a few commies while I was at it.

And I can always spot a person who's never had any of that formal camping/survival/commie-killing training. You take Jeffrey, for instance. He couldn't even light the damn fire at his Memorial Day barbeque.

Burke went to Andronico's and got some of that Matchlight charcoal for him.

And what do you think Jeffrey did with the old coals that he'd been trying to light with Xerox paper and shredded cereal boxes?

Left 'em in a cardboard box next to a wooden shed. Damn near set the whole neighborhood on fire.

I'm starting to understand why the communists have had such an easy time taking over Berkeley.

Kurt "big daddy" True
3 june 2006