When I was growing up, my father got involved with a group of men who had some land in south Georgia. He bought in with this group because he had a fondness for quail hunting and I had a passion for the outdoors. I think the selling point was him pulling into the lodge (note- double wide) the first time, the guys telling him to grab his gun, and they went and shot a couple of wild birds right behind the house. It was straight out of Grey’s Sporting Journal. It was a place I grew up going to with him, where we hunted quail and deer and ducks and boar, and I got to witness men verbally sparring and laughing until all hours around a fire. What’s not to love?

About half of our group were quail hunters and half were deer hunters. We fell into the quail hunter category, which seemed to be much less serious than the other group. I have fit in with that group ever since. They would hang out around the campfire deep into the night, drinking whiskey and shucking oysters and telling stories about their misspent youth. I was too young for the whiskey and stories part, but I developed a fondness for fresh oysters, conversation and campfires. It was wonderful.

This group was aging. Turns out they were all a little older than I am now. They all got to the point where they didn’t want to walk all day and hunt. They preferred to ride around in jeeps and follow the dogs. One of these venerable men managed to procure a 1954 Korean War era Willys Jeep. It was awesome. Looking back, this may be where my penchant for old vehicles may have started.

This particular jeep had been retrofitted with dog boxes and a bench seat on top, along with gun racks, a water system built into the bumper (a hole drilled to fill it with a hose and a hole drilled to drain and fill dog bowls), and a four wheel drive system that would climb a tree. It topped out somewhere in the neighborhood of 12 miles an hour, but it was impossible to tell because the only gauges that worked were the oil pressure and engine temperature. Everything else was close enough. It had all original parts except for the windshield which we broke and just removed. No two wheels were ever pointed in the same direction at the same time, yet I don’t recall it ever getting stuck.

Later on when I was dating the lovely lady who would become my wife, I brought her down one weekend to experience this bastion of masculinity. This is how I knew she was the one. She showed up with some old leather chaps from her horse riding days out west, and hopped right in with us. At one point we walked up on a point that turned out to be a herd of pigs. One of the men grabbed her and hauled her up on a stump with him to keep her from getting gored. That may have been a top 10 moment for him, and something he reminded her of every time he saw her. Later still, after we were married, I continued to bring her down and they would set us up in the “catbird” seat on top and drive us around like she was Ms. Daisy.

Those were great days. I miss them. After we sold the property, I was down there cleaning out all of our old hunting gear, looking in barns and around corners for anything that might be mine or provide a memory or wasn’t nailed down. The man who owned that old Willys offered it to me for a pittance. The dog boxes probably cost more than what he asked me to pay. I turned him down. With four little kids, a mortgage, and no place to store it, what was I going to do with a

Jeep that was already 50 years old? I would love to have that thing on Lookout today. It would be the ultimate mountain vehicle. I like to think it would be almost as happy up here as it had been down there.

Sadly, I don’t have many pictures from those days because it was before we had cell phones and thousands of pictures. You’ll have to take my word for it, and trust me that it was a great vehicle, and those were tremendous days.

Ever heard of a Sika Deer? Didn’t think so. Unless you are deep into the hunting world or have sons who are always watching hunting shows on tv, chances are you have no clue what I’m talking about. Well, sit down for a couple of minutes while I update you on our latest adventure….

Young Win’s school has a thing called T Term at the beginning of spring semester where the boys can sign up for some epic adventure abroad or participate in local projects. He did not win the lottery for the abroad trips and was not thrilled with the local options. He approached the school with his own idea. He was looking for a great adventure with his brother that they could talk about for the next 30 years, and he came up with a Sika deer hunt in Maryland (the only place in the US where they live in any real density). He roped me into it, along with a cousin, and the school gave him the green light.

A Sika deer is an import from Japan about a hundred and fifty years ago that thrives in the marsh land of Maryland. There is tons of public land up there where they can do their invasive thing and they have thrived. I don’t know if there is any ecological issues with them, but the herd does need to be managed, hence this small rifle season. We felt obligated to do our part. Here to serve, people. They are a diminutive animal, with large stags topping out around 90-100 pounds and the hinds (females to the layperson) about 80. And, they are known for being delicious. Supposedly the tastiest game in North America.

We launched our trip at the heels of a gigantic family trip that was extended by the skirmish in Venezuela. Frankly, we were tired and ready to stay home for a little while, but we made a commitment, so began our 11 hour drive.

We were completely unprepared. We used a harness and ladder system so we could climb up into trees without falling out and killing ourselves, but had not had the opportunity to try them out before we departed. We probably knew about 5% of what we needed to know before disappearing into the woods.

BUT, it was incredible and truly lived up to the hype. We finally saw a couple of deer at the literal last minute and were able to harvest one. The legalities of whether or not there was enough daylight are purely subjective at this point. But, we did manage to shoot a nice little hind, get her dressed and put in the cooler, and head back to the Holiday Inn Express.

And, I can tell you that they are indeed delicious. We did a big roast night one after our victorious return, fried up little medallions from the back strap and tenderloins on night two, and are turning the shoulders into jerky. The lovely wife was tired of cooking up wild game, and the boys liked this idea. We’ll see how it turns out.

So, all in all, it was a resounding success. Win got the adventure he was hoping for, as did the rest of us. I got to reconnect with an old college buddy from the area. We did our part to rid the planet of an invasive species, and got to eat it too.

We are already planning our return trip next year, hopefully a little wiser.

I don’t think of myself as a fashionista, though I do feel like I know what looks good. You are probably thinking to yourself, “No way! How could someone who looks as sharp as you not consider yourself fashionable?” I know. Weird. I tend to stay away from golf fashion simply because there is too much that can go wrong. Too many decisions. It’s like going down the cereal aisle at Publix. I stay pretty basic in that arena. Plus, I see a lot of guys wearing pink, which troubles me.

But, in the outdoor world, I do feel like I know a thing of two, and one of my favorite things is belt buckles. They are cool, go with just about anything, and can make even the most strident democrat look like a badass. They are subtle yet noticeable, might have some sort of outdoor motif, and can dress up an outfit without having to get dressed up.

I have a bunch of older belt buckles that I inherited from my dad, two grandfathers, and one great grandfather. They are way cool. I typically wear them to church or similar more civilized functions with narrower belts that I also inherited. They are sharp, and have an ancestor’s initials on them. But, those don’t really fit in as well when I am in Montana, Islamorada, or Patagonia. I want to look like I belong even if I don’t. Hence, my Las Truchas buckles.

Let me lead this next part with “I know this sounds strange”, but I have befriended a social media influencer. We have never met in person, so don’t worry about my marriage. But, we have talked a couple of times on the Gram so I could buy some of the buckles she has created. Maddie Brennamen lives in Colorado and is a designer-creative-fashion-person of sorts who runs Las Truchas Outfitters. Tie that in with the fact that she is an avid fly fisherman and outdoorswoman and you have a great combination. She teamed up with a blacksmith and together they have come up with some of the coolest buckles you have ever seen.

They are not big and obnoxious like you just won the rodeo, but they are also not small like the silver ones you wear to the yacht club convention either. They came up with a variety of belt buckles, at least one of which should be a part of your uniform. I used to wear a tarpon buckle every day until someone bought it off me on a recent trip. I had to go through the airport looking like an idiot holding my pants up. I just replaced it with a trout buckle and I have enjoyed the change. I’ll probably sell it off my body at some point in the near future and call them for another one. That’s how good these things look.

You can find said buckles on the Las Truchas Outfitters site. Google it. No, Maddie is not paying me for this review or to send you to her site. I’m just trying to help you out because you clearly need it. And if I can make just one person look better, even if just for an evening, then I feel like I’ve done my part.

If this has your mind drifting to your closet in search of the perfect adventure belt buckle, fear not. You can bring a piece of the adventure home with our handcrafted belt buckle, available in our adventure storefront.

I was recently asked to submit a story to my Alma Mater for a book they are working on. The first thing that came to mind was not the parties or concerts we attended or the things we did so much as one of my professors who made an impact in my life.

When I matriculated into Hampden Sydney College, I made the rookie mistake of signing up for an 8 am French course that met Monday, Wednesday, and Friday. For some reason that hour of the day was a difficult one for me to make. Today, I’ve already run 4 miles, saved an orphan, and volunteered at the local fire station by that time. But, as an 18 year old, I was not the sharpest knife in the drawer. Enter Madame Kline. She may be the toughest person the school has ever known.

Madame Kline taught French to the poor, hapless souls who wanted a couple of foreign language credits. She was diminutive in stature, standing maybe 5 feet tall with a back like Quasimodo, and might have been 75 pounds. She always wore old lady shoes, a cardigan sweater in August, and smelled like formaldehyde. She had a little yippie dog named Cookie that she was not afraid to slap across her office if you tried to pet it during a tutoring session. There is a chance it was as old as she was.

Madame Kline decided that I would be her special project. My mother spoke fluent French, so when my parents came to visit on parent’s weekend, they made a special effort to see one another and speak. I could never follow the conversation, but I’m pretty sure my mother said, “Pay special attention to this one.” Madame Kline kindly obliged. 

I spent countless afternoons holed up in her office, where the thermometer was set to a balmy 85. It was a sweat box. At some point during my illustrious education, I made the poor decision to go to a party on a Thursday night. I followed that with a second poor decision to skip her class the following morning. Madame Kline, always aware of my presence, or lack thereof, stopped class. She then proceeded to walk across campus to my dorm, climb to the 4th floor, let herself into my room, climb into my loft, and drag me out of bed. I had to suffer the indignity of dressing in front of an octogenarian. She then walked me back to her class with my ear in hand, berating me in a foreign tongue the entire way. Can you imagine a professor doing that today?! They’d be strung up! But that was a different day. By the time we made it back to her classroom, class was almost over, and she dismissed the other students., I was stuck in her office, sweating profusely, trying to ignore her dog while I learned how to conjugate verbs.

It was during that office visit that I noticed the faded tattoos on her arm and some of the memorabilia scattered around the room. When I said she was tough, she was tough. Turns out she had survived the concentration camps of World War Two. The Nazis put those tattoos there. And she had a lot of old black and white photographs standing on various surfaces.  I wish I had the gumption to ask her about her story. She had seen a thing or two and been through a lot. I was a joke as far as she was concerned. 

When I look back on my college career, it is often with a wince. I squandered a great education nestled in some of the greatest Civil War history our country has to offer. I drank too much beer, chased too many girls, didn’t open enough books or attend enough classes. If I had it to do over again I would. And I would start with Madam Kline. Here is a lady who had been through a world war, suffered through a concentration camp, and immigrated to the United States. I know nothing more about her than that. I am drawn to memories of her like a moth to a flame. She holds a prominent position in the lexicon of my memory. 

Today, her story lives on in the oral tradition of stories that float around our house. I use her memory to stir my children on to greater things. Though she was diminutive in stature, she is not in my thoughts. She is a giant. I wish I knew more of her story, because it is one worth telling.