Ah, spring has sprung and I was all set here to share the life renewal celebration of this wonderful time of year by focusing on shed hunting, mushroom hunting, fishing fun, double gobble turkey excitement, the thrills of bear hunting and the spiritual and olfactory joys of breaking ground for another life-giving planting season.
So let us start with a Happy Happy Springtime America!
But alas! Just since my NUGEBLOG#347 one scant week ago, the world has taken an ugly, disruptive and dangerous turn as we face the global pandemic of COVID-19, and for all practical considerations, we are in a brave, new, unprecedented and uncharted world.
I will leave it to the experts to provide the gory details of what, how, when, where and the what-ifs of this global health threat, but here in the world of hands-on conservation and rugged individualism, there are much more important details to be spotlighted and shared.
Namely — survival!
As the more dependent and therefore ill-prepared amongst us scrambles to hoard toilet paper, I feel confident in saying that our hunting lifestyle will continue to be the most important life-saving lifestyle available to mankind.
In the timeless culture of self-sufficiency and preparedness, hunting families have always been mostly immune to the otherwise self-inflicted, sheep-like curse of helplessness and dependency.
I was beyond fortunate to be born and raised in the greatest city on earth in 1948, Detroit, Michigan, the mighty Arsenal of Democracy!
Though no place on earth screamed city quite as loud and proud as my beloved MotorCity, within the concrete jungle hellzone of this industrial revolution epicenter, coursed the equally mighty Rouge River, and all of its soul-cleansing wildlife and wildlife habitat that lured me mind, body, heart, soul and spirit from the time I was born.
With one foot solidly planted in the city of cities, and the other foot running unleashed in the wilds of my forests and marshes, I went on to live, what in my mind, is the ultimate balanced life ultra-post-modern, and nature’s timelessness and the resultant awareness of the very best of both worlds.
After graduating/escaping high school in 1967, I couldn’t imagine going to college, as I was much too busy learning important stuff. Pragmatic lessons of cause and effect, prodded by my natural and well-exercised predator instincts, guided and nurtured by my bowhunting father and family, prepared me well for pretty much anything this crazy world could toss in my face.
These powerful, raw instincts, the same ones that fortified me to turn down the insanity of substance abuse all around me in the rock-n-roll world, drove me to live in such a way as to not be dependent on anyone or anything other than my own constantly honed, hands-on capabilities.
I have always lived on land with a natural source of water, wood, fish and meat. I also naturally took into consideration simple, pragmatic survival realities — such as adequate firepower and the training to implement it, and a smart, strong position of self-defense.
I bought a quality generator as soon as I could and a fuel source to last my family a minimum of six months.
Oh, and by the way, we have always had many months’ worth of food and toilet paper too!
So, in March 2020, I wish all of my fellow Americans and all people around the world the very best of luck. Since we hunting families are so much better prepared than any other element of society, we should reach out to our neighbors and friends to offer assistance and support during these trying times.
We should follow the directions of our health officials and emphasize to others the Boy Scout Battlecry to always be prepared!
We’re Americans. Severely outnumbered, our forefathers pledged their lives, fortunes and sacred honor to fight and give birth to this sacred experiment in self-government.
Surrounded by 5,000 Mexicans, 180 Texans in the Alamo held them off for 13 days, providing precious time to give birth to Texas.
Brother against brother, we waged a bloody Civil War for four years that claimed hundreds of thousands of lives.
Our forefathers’ blood freed the world in WWI, survived a Great Depression, a Dust Bowl, and then were thrown back into WWII where they freed the world again from tyranny.
We marched with Dr. King during the Civil Rights movement, saw Americans taken captive in Iran, and heard a president proclaim “tear down that wall.”
We watched as the spaceship Challenger and Columbia disintegrated before our eyes and then bowed our heads.
On 9-11 we heard New York firefighters charging up the stairs of the Twin Towers as we watched the towers collapse.
We heard a brave American on board a hijacked airliner say, “Let’s roll.”
Among all of these costly and bloody trials, Americans are always the first to provide aid to others. That’s who our forefathers were, and who we are to this day.
The coronavirus is now our challenge. With the memory of those brave Americans who rose to the challenge of their time coursing through our veins, let’s put a boot in the ass of the coronavirus. Now is our time, our challenge. We’re Americans. Let’s roll.
The two most powerful lessons at hand here are: 1—intelligent preparedness, and even more importantly, 2—increase the pressure on our elected employees in government to quit with the abuse of power and criminal corruption that allowed America’s life-and-death medicines and antibiotics to be controlled by tyrannical, genocidal, evil communists like the Chinese ever again.
Multi-platinum guitar legend TED NUGENT has a new full-length album THE MUSIC MADE ME DO IT, on Round Hill Records. The album is available now for order everywhere, and the title track “The Music Made Me Do It” is available to download and stream wherever music is sold.
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