Veritable Arsenal

This jaunt is not overly planned, but I suspect we're looking at about two or three thousand miles through the barren waste lands of the great American desert. My bestiaries report a land of vipers and sagebrush, grizzly bears and wolves; ethnographic studies reveal a populace quick to retaliate against violent provocation.

So I feel pretty good about things and don't really see a need to be armed to the extent necessary for an excursion down South Halstead Street in Chicago. And since guns get kicked around severely on my camping trips, the prettier ones stay home.

For what it is worth, here's one man's concept of a well-stocked arms locker for a few days on the great prairie and in the Rockies when no hunting is planned.

--For general pleasure and common pest control, the Smith 59, just because I'm comfortable with it, like having 28 rounds easily available in its two magazines, and a few more dings aren't going to set my tear ducts flowing. This will be a fine chance to shoot up all the remaining ancient reloads. I don't worry about the pipsqueak caliber because I figure the odds of trouble are slim.

--In case I'm wrong about that last point, the 20-inch Mossberg 500 with with five rounds of 12 gauge 00 buck in the magazine and five more in the stock band.

--A .22LR semi, maybe the Winchester 74, maybe one of the 10-22s. There is no place like the Wyoming/Montana plains for just plain plinking fun.

That arsenal should be veritable enough, though I'm beginning to flay myself for not planning on a Winchester 94 or a single six. How can a self-respecting man go to the shadow of the Big Horns without a cowboy gun?

The trip starts when you begin stocking the book locker with appropriate reading and research matter. So. for everyone who has been in my house in the past two years: Where are the rest of my Rocky Mountain fur trade books? I warn you that I can be a mean SOB when aroused.

Cash for Clunkers reckoning

This is about the time the first or second car payments are due from the citizens who bit on the cash for clunkers deal. Listen sharply for the first whinings that the gummint ought to step in and restructure the auto loans.

Well, Hildy Johnson would have understood

Someone on a military radio net says "bang, bang, bang" and CNN/Fox News defecate all over themselves trying to scoop the world on a "shots fired on the Potomac" drama.

Virtually every elevision " journalist " involved in this fubarathon holds a college degree in journalism. Among people with even the slightest sense of what reporting and editing should be, such a degree has come to command the same level of respect as a certificate of attendance at an Arkansas institute of cosmetology.