A Day That Will Live in Infamy (for Me)
December 13, 1948, was also a day that will live in infamy. Well, at least for me it will. For on that sacred, special date in the blowing cold winter blizzard of Detroit, Michigan, early in the morning just about dark thirty, right on time to head into the post-rut deerwoods before dawn, young whippersnapper Nuge came charging out like a predator unleashed.
Well, in so many words that is how my beloved mother would often explain my birth to me, always rolling her eyes and grinning how only a loving mother can grin at such a memory.
That’s a lot of deerseasons my friends! And glory, glory hallelujah, I have never missed a fall in the wilds in 69 glorious years, movin’ and a groovin’ for the Big 7-0!
The way the story is told, I was on my dad’s back in October 1949, rompin’ and a stompin’ somewhere in the Northern big timber public land state forests of Fred Bear’s Michigan in those earliest days of modern bowhunting.Thank God for Fred Bear and mom and dad and the whitetail deer, huh!
The Not-So-Secret Secret to a Full, Happy Life
In my wild and crazy world of over-the-top, maniac gungho rock-n-roll, I absolutely attribute my American Dream happiness, health and longevity to the inescapable discipline that is the bowhunting lifestyle. As I head into my 70th outrageous year on this good earth, all bright-eyed and bushytailed, cocked, locked and more than ready to rock the Glock Doc, very little has changed for me when it comes to priorities and daily routine. Respect my sacred temple and God-given gift of life, make smart choices to remain in the asset column for family and friends, earn my own way, live within my means, save for a rainy day, aim small, miss small, keep my nose to the grindstone, put my heart and soul into everything I do, perform my we the people duties to demand Constitutional accountability from my elected employees in this sacred experiment in self-government, help those in need and always give back more than I take.
How radical of me.
As I hammer away on my trusty little high-tech laptop soaring along at 8,000 feet over the beautiful Hill Country of Texas, my two loving hunting dogs Happy and Sadie at my side, loaded to the gills with bows, arrows, broadheads, Mossy Oak ScentLok clothing, an array of Bushnell optics, rifles, handguns, ammo, knives, boots and my good luck Stormy Kromer hats, you would be hard pressed to find any difference at all between the 20-year-old Ted Nugent and this over the hill 69-year-old, rockin’ bowhunter!
It’s so beautiful I can hardly stand myself!
A Celebration
Back in 1998 when I turned the Big 5-0, I decided I would gather a gang of dedicated hunting BloodBrothers and celebrate my birthday party every year at a Texas deercamp. That first year we descended on the beautiful Rio Bonito Ranch near Junction, Texas, ate like kings, hunted like killers and laughed until it hurt around blazing bonfire campfires, raising hell, rockin’ out and celebrating life like we meant it.
In the ensuing years we all got together at the legendary YO Ranch in Mountain Home Texas, and the last few years at the spectacular Ox Ranch near Uvalde, which is where I am about to land.
The incredible friends we have made over the last 19 years at these annual Uncle Ted Hunt Party gitdowns (like pretty much every year for 69) certainly qualify as true-blue BloodBrothers.
It has been so much fun its nuts. I certainly wish to sincerely thank each and every one of you who decided to party with me on my birthday all these years. There is no doubt in my mind that I have been honored and privileged to share hunting campfires with the finest human beings ever to inhabit this planet.
My birthday month of December just so happens to be one of the best hunting months of the year, especially in Texas, and we are still at it hardcore and fulltime. Deerhunting rambles on through February, trapping never ends, ducks and doves and squirrels keep us very busy, and by March the band will join me in Texas to record my 40th-something record! Yikes! That’s a lot of killer music and a lot of killer recordings and a lot of insane fun years!
And BigFunDirtyGrooveNoize is guaranteed to be another roustabout sonic bombast celebration continuing the greatest soulmusic the world has ever known as created by the masters and my heroes Chuck Berry, Bo Diddly, Little Richard, James Brown, Wilson Picket, Sam and Dave, allthings Motown and all the founding fathers of American killer Rock-N-Roll.
So happy 69th Birthday to me, and may all your winter hunting dreams come true. God knows how many more years of this intensity I may have in store, but I can tell you one thing for damn certain: I am going to live them with all the intensity I can muster, and I hope you all do, too.
If you want to celebrate the ultimate Spirit of the Wild hunting party, maybe I will see you around a December 13th campfire somewhere, sometime, somehow.
To book Ted’s 70th Birthday Party HuntBash, contact paul@tednugent.com or call Sunrize Safaris at 517.750.9060.
With more than 40 million albums sold, rock legend Ted Nugent is equally well known as the nation’s most outspoken proponent of our 1st and 2nd Amendment rights, conducting thousands of pro-gun, pro-freedom, pro-American interviews in major media worldwide. Nugent is a New York Times best-selling author whose works include Ted, White & Blue —The Nugent Manifesto; God, Guns & Rock ‘n’ Roll and Kill It & Grill It.This year, his award-winning Ted Nugent Spirit of the Wild TV show celebrates its 500th episode! For all things Nuge, visit www.tednugent.com
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Maximize Your Deer Season With this 2018 Whitetails Calendar!
From Deer & Deer Hunting magazine, the 2018 Whitetails Calendar is your top deer hunting resource! Whether in print or digital format, use this deer moon phase calendar to find out which days the deer will be seeking and chasing, so you can time the rut for the best time to hunt.