Deer Camp

I am increasingly convinced that my Lovely Girlfriend is horrified by the thought of me eventually buying a rustic camp deep in the woods of Maine.  Since returning on Sunday from a buddy's (we'll call him The Mechanic like the awesome Charles Bronson movie by the same name only he's not a hitman he's a real mechanic and I'm not feeling terribly clever today) camp in the woods of Western Maine I have been looking online for my own little piece of remote, no plumbing or electric, heaven.  If pressed I think my Lovely Girlfriend would admit that at least a small part of her is somewhat turned on by a chance to live out a festering Paul Bunyan fantasy (would she be Babe the Blue Ox?  I don't know) but by in large she's terrified I'll pull a Montana Freemen and never want to return to civilization.

Trucks, woods, camp, what else do you need?

Who can blame me?  What kind of a man doesn't feel the need to throw on a wool hunting shirt, sling an axe over his shoulder and trudge out into the wilderness now and then?  To build a campfire?  To cook all of his meals from a cast-iron skillet that will outlive him if properly oiled?  To write vaguely threatening letters to your government in which you declare your independence and claim that you no longer need to pay taxes or register your car?  Maybe that last one is going a little too far but really, put on a Pendleton shirt and tell me it doesn't make you want to track and kill Bambi.  I dare you. 

Bambi's Mom.  Great loin cut.

You know the kind of man that wore a Pendleton?  Gregory Peck.  You know who won't?  Paul Walker, he claims his skin's too sensitive.  Clark Gable had a closet full of them.  Jesse Eisenberg won't touch them, he prefers gor-tex.  It's entirely possible Kirk Douglas and Burt Lancaster came out of their respective mothers wombs wearing Pendletons.  Justin Timberlake and Ryan Phillipe once tried to share a fleece blanket during a movie night at Ashton Kutchers house but they each complained that the other was hogging the covers.  They had to be separated before the three could re-start their Blu-ray Director's Cut of Ice Castles. 

For cookin' and heatin'

I know that last paragraph was a side trip into the absurd but my point is the woods is where a real man belongs.  Those two days spent out at The Mechanic's hunting camp was as close as I have come since I was hospitalized in September to a real respite in my cancer odyssey.  I felt like a man again and not a perpetual patient.  I'd say that everyone should have their own camps out in the willywags but that would ruin it.  So all you Josh Hartnett types out there please stick with your Diesel Jeans and your fancy indoor plumbing.  Leave the woods to us Lee Marvin types and our Lovely Girlfriends as yet unexplored lumberjack fantasies. 

The Matin' Shed