The American deer camp was, between approximately 1880 and 1990, the autumn ritual of every rural family in the upper Midwest, the Northeast, and the Appalachians.
A cabin in the woods. Three or four men, three generations sometimes, who got there on the Friday before opening day, lit the wood stove, drank coffee that had been on the burner since 4am, played cards, told the same stories they had told the year before, and went out at first light on Saturday with rifles their grandfathers had owned.
A buck taken cleanly with one shot. Field-dressed in the snow. Hung in the woodshed. Butchered the next weekend in the garage with the family. Forty pounds of venison in the chest freezer. Steaks for the winter. Sausage made by the grandfather with a recipe nobody had written down. A roast for Thanksgiving. The hide tanned and turned into mittens for the youngest grandson.
The deer was free. The freezer was full. The boys learned to shoot, to clean a rifle, to gut an animal, to butcher it, to thank the woods for the deer, to be quiet for hours at dawn in the cold and notice things.
Roughly 14 million Americans hunted in 1980. By 2020 that number was 11.5 million, and the average hunter age had risen from 35 to 51. The next generation is not coming up.
Suburbanization removed the woods from the back door. Liability fears closed private lands. Public hunting access shrank. Time pressure on working families killed the long weekend at camp. The cultural drift made hunting socially suspect, then unfashionable, then, in some quarters, taboo.
The number of American teenagers who have ever fired a rifle, gutted an animal, or watched their grandfather butcher a deer in the garage on a November Sunday afternoon is, in 2026, statistically vanishing.
The freezer that used to be full of free, lean, grass-fed wild protein is full of ground beef from a Smithfield CAFO in Iowa.
The skill is one generation deep. If the grandfather did not pass it to the father, and the father did not pass it to the son, the chain is broken. YouTube is, at the moment, where the few remaining young hunters are getting most of their training.
A small American tradition that fed families for a century, taught a sequence of practical and moral lessons no textbook can replace, and connected three generations to the land their ancestors lived on, is closing down quietly, camp by camp, season by season.
The cabin is still there. The stove still works. The buck is still in the woods.
The grandfather is in the cemetery on the hill above the cabin. He cannot take the boy himself.
Somebody else has to.
I believe in the power of prayer. Please join me in praying for Maddox. Dear Jesus, please heal him and help his family get through this difficult time 🙏✝️🙏
Last night Maddox Graser had two hits and helped his Wooster High School baseball team win 10 to 0.
He was perfectly fine.
By 8 pm he was throwing up at home. It got worse fast. He was rushed to the hospital in Wooster and then life flighted to the Pediatric ICU at Akron Children’s Hospital this morning.
Maddox is a sophomore. A second baseman. A teammate. A son.
Right now he has no brain activity.
From a baseball field celebrating a win to a pediatric ICU fighting for his life in less than twelve hours. His family never saw this coming. Nobody did.
His mom and dad are sitting in that hospital right now needing every prayer they can get.
If you believe in miracles please stop scrolling right now and say one for Maddox. His family is pleading for them.
Please share this post. The wider this reaches the more people are praying over this young man tonight.
Maddox Graser. Remember that name and lift it up.
Are younger or older brothers the better athlete??
Listen to Eugene talk about one of the reasons why 2/3 of younger brothers outperform older brothers in the big leagues out of a sample of 700🤯
“What’s the point of all this. It’s not like he’s going to play professionally?”
Sports parents get this question all the time. I see it all the time on X or Facebook groups. And this question shows me exactly where things have gone wrong in youth sports.
Because the simple answer is…so what if he/she doesn’t? Does it make the time we spend together today any less valuable?
Of course it doesn’t. Because joy is the point of all of this…of sports or theater or quizbowl. Joy is the point of life! And joy is found in the journey! ❤️
Go find some joy today. Maybe go play some catch with your kid…and remember what it was like to be a kid with a dream before the lame adults in your life told you it wasn’t worth it to try. ❤️⚾️✨
Most of you know that my brother died in a motorcycle wreck the day after Christmas. Billy Bob hits the nail on the head right here. I wish I could shake his hand.
"Turning the other cheek" isn't about submission. It is, actually, an act of defiance.
Modern society interprets Christ's command as a call to be a doormat, to be passive, weak, and defenseless.
In 1st Century Judea, the left hand was considered unclean. You would never use it to strike someone. Therefore, to slap someone on the right cheek (as Jesus specifies), you had to use the back of your right hand.
A backhand slap was an act of insult. It was how a superior hit an inferior. It said, "You are beneath me."
By turning your head and offering the left cheek, you physically prevent them from backhanding you again. You force the aggressor to use their open palm or a fist.
Why does this matter? Because a fist is how you hit an equal.
Jesus wasn't telling his followers to cower. He was telling them to stand their ground, look their oppressor in the eye, and say without words: "I am not your slave. I am a man. If you are going to hit me, treat me like one."
It is not an act of cowardice. It is an assertion of dignity that requires terrifying courage.
Rumor has it the adults cause most of the problems in youth sports. Parents hating other parents. Coaches on the same team not getting along. Parents blaming coaches. Coaches blaming parents. Adult jealousy. How adults treat officials. Adults manipulating GameChanger stats. Parent coaches playing parent ball. Adult unrealistic expectations of children.
The worst part is the kids see it and learn the behaviors. Be better adults.
10 things I've learned from 50 years in baseball:
1: The game isn't just about numbers. It's about heartbeats. It's about trust. It's about showing up every single day ready to get better.
2: Young players want to be great overnight. But greatness isn't built in a day. It's built in the small moments - being good for a day, then a week, then a month. Hall of Famers? They're just players who were good for a very long time.
3: We measure everything now. Launch angles. Spin rates. Exit velocity. But you know what we can't measure? Guts and nuts. The ability to keep showing up and keep fighting to get better.
4: Three questions every player needs answered about their coach:
Can I trust you?
Do you care about me?
Can you make me better?
Without these, nothing else matters.
5: My dad taught me the only thing fair in life is a ball between first and third. How you handle what's not fair? That defines you.
6: Stop treating players like pieces. They're humans with heartbeats. When we eliminate the heartbeat, the game becomes sterile. Feed it. Encourage it. Love it.
7: It's not old school vs new school. It's about being in school, together.
8: If you're not a leader, be a follower. If you're neither? You're just a roadblock.
9: Want to know if you're a good coach? Ask your players what they think your expectations are. You might be surprised by the gap between what you think you're saying and what they're hearing.
10: After all these years, one truth remains: The game is about transformation, not just transactions. Change the person, not just their stats. That's how you build something that lasts.
I share more lessons like these in my book, Hurdle-isms. Tap the link in my bio to order a copy. I think you'll be glad that you did!
Marine Veteran says we are coming to the point where we are realizing “We cannot vote our way out of this”
“Has anybody else started to reach their breaking point or a boiling point? This is starting to look like a country that I am no longer proud to have served
I've been working my entire adult life and I have paid half or more than half back to the government in some way, shape or form in taxes for the past 30 years, and if you don't believe me, look up everything that you have that is taxed
- State income tax
- Federal income tax
- Property taxes
- Payroll taxes
- Medicare taxes
- Medicaid taxes
- Sales taxes
- Everything is taxed. Everything.
And we have a political apparatus where half of them say that if you don't keep us in power, we will steal from you so that we can import people that will. So shut up and go back to work.
And another side of the aisle that is either in on it or is totally complete chicken sh*t and won't do anything about it and won't even try to actually represent the people that vote for them.
Is anybody else getting to a point where we feel like we cannot vote our way out of this?
Where does that leave us? Because nothing is going to happen about the fraud. Nothing.
All of the fraud that Elon Musk and DOGE exposed, the Republican Congress put it on the back burner and refused to f*cking vote on it. Turned around to the American voter that put them in power and extended one of these.
It doesn't matter what we do this situation is completely freaking unstable, totally and completely unsustainable.
It's a waste of time to vote, and it's a waste of energy to pay taxes so that we can give it to people that are going to steal from us.
And then we can send it to other countries that hate us, and we can send it to people in the European Union that look down their nose at the American worker and say, good little, go back to work.
It's putting us in a helpless situation.
And I don't think the people in Washington living in that bubble realize the anger that is fuming outside of the borders of that city.
And I am not interested in watching another theatrical Congressional hearing where a couple of ballsy Republicans out a corrupt leftist and then nothing happens.
Accountability and a f*cking tax strike is what needs to happen”