This is Day 333 of 15 Days to Flatten the Curve. Deb and I are just ducky.
Okay, so I’m not the first person to use the term “budget bushcraft.” It’s still a worthy pursuit — doing more in the woods with less on your belt, and spending as little as possible to do it well. That Mora fixed-blade knife I talked about on Day 330, gettable for under fifteen bucks, definitely fills the bill.
When considering a companion folder to the Swedish-made Morakniv, something likewise simple, inexpensive and sturdy, the obvious choice seems (to me) to be the Opinel. This classic French slipjoint almost looks like a toy, what with its beechwood handle, single clip blade and quaint locking ring. But despite its unsophisticated form, and maybe even because of it, the Opinel turns out to be extraordinarily useful and durable.
A simple slipjoint like this forces one to slow down, be deliberate and focus on the task at hand. Most of the time that’s a good thing. In my experience it’s not that the Opinel is incapable or in any way fragile — it is the knife it is, and staying within its capabilities is, quite frankly, what we should do with every tool we pick up and put to work.
Opinel offers its classic folding knives in both acier au carbone (carbon steel) and Inox (stainless steel), and in a range of sizes. The No08 is the most popular, I’m told. Pictured in today’s header image is my No07, the next size smaller, which is what I prefer.
Price? Fifteen bucks.
There are better knives out there — much better knives — than the Mora or the Opinel. I own, carry and use a lot of those better knives. But here’s a suggestion — take $30 of your own money, buy these two and get out in the woods with them. The experience, I predict, will bring back memories, reawaken a love of basic skills and pay big dividends when you eventually go back to your (much) better tools.
Americans — and by that I mean true Americans — have had a rough few months. We’re dealing with a pair of conspicuous losses. Trump is no longer President of the United States, and now Rush is gone. That one-two punch, landed four weeks apart, has staggered some folks. I get it.
Trump presided over a remarkable national turnaround. The day his successor was installed in the Oval Office I called the Trump administration “the most pro-America and pro-American four-year period of my lifetime.” And it absolutely was.
Hysterical public reaction and autocratic government response to a “public-health crisis,” along with a corrupted election, were the injury. That Trump’s been replaced by an anti-American pirate ship, with Cap’n Daffy propped-up at the helm, is the insult piled on top.
Rush was “The Big Voice on The Right” for over three decades. His influence was considerable and indisputable. When true Americans couldn’t find the right words to oppose or to advocate, he was able to articulate what we wished we could.
His enemies couldn’t silence him. Yesterday, cancer did.
Big men, big roles, big contributions, and now absent from the scene. That can’t help but have an effect — but it’s no reason for anyone to slump. If anything, we have every reason to step up our game.
During its retrospectives the last two days, several times The Rush Limbaugh Show has played a clip from a speech he gave in Sacramento in the ’90s. He told the appreciative crowd, “The difference between you and me is that I’m up here and you’re out there.” After the laughter faded, he continued: “And the reason I’m up here is because you’re out there.”
Leaders are indispensable — but we, the People, are irreplaceable.
Now is not the time for us to stop and wait for the next Rush or the next Trump. We’re the ones charged with doing the work, after all, and we know the work that needs doing. If we want to save America from Doctor Dementia and his leftist cabal, we need to quit sulking, get off our asses and fight like hell.
Leadership will emerge in due course.
Take care of yourselves, Patriots. Stay calm. Stay sharp. Stay free.
#WiseUp #LibertyOrDeath