Originally intended to be one, somewhat succinct post, I’ve opted instead over the coming few weeks to post about different happenings in my most recent trip up north. Accompanied by two close friends, Alex and Stilly, we went out for a true wintry experience and got far more than what we bargained for. Today, however, is inauguration day, and its presence looms heavy over Richmond… Two and a half hours north King Oligarch and his puppeteers plot to destroy everything decent and respectable about America. I love this country. I love its land, its people, its ideals, even if we consistently fall short of them. At the core of this site, I explore the relationship between Americans and the environment. I’m not partisan, but I am political.
How in the hell does this relate to the Adirondacks? As much as I despise Trump and his cavalcade of veritable creeps, his supporters fascinate me. When I dig deep into their worldviews, it’s often a mosaic of contradictory opinions, praising a distorted version of Trump nothing like the genuine article itself. At their core, though, these are people who have some genuine grievances with the world around them who are neither Nazi Stormtroopers nor innocent victims taken advantage of by master conmen. These are people who haven’t been given a proper alternative as the Democrats continue to bend over backwards for some allusive middle manager median voter that simply doesn’t exist as they fail to have a strong message for the working class. We met one of these true median voters in the North Country, however. I’m thinking about him today.
There’s a near zero chance he or anyone he knows ever reads this, but let’s call him John anyways, that’s ethical right? He owned the bar we frequented in Tupper Lake for the week and made the best damned apple pie moonshine you will ever be graced with having. We, specifically Alex, wanted to get our hands on some to bring back home. The logical thing was to strike up a conversation with the gentleman, sweeten him up, bim boom bang we have apple pie moonshine for our own personal consumption back home. Instead of getting the nectar of the Gods, though, we were given a reason to keep drinking.
John’s a character. A former cop, early retiree from a nondramatic injury, understated real estate mogul, self-described “not a conspiracy theorist” and flat earther, the more he talked the more contradictions he collected. He talked to us for two hours straight, only pausing to post memes on Facebook and briefly join a game of darts.
To the left, he supported Luigi Mangione. He thought the killing of George Floyd was wrong. He thought the immigration process should be less complicated, and had praise for the immigrant work ethic. Everything else? A bit further right.
At one point in his ramblings, he gave us his plan to fix America. “Well, I think it’s real easy, just give me two months. We all drive on Washington DC, no guns, no knives, no violence, we just remind them they work for us. We replace every last one of those corrupt politicians. The elites aren’t going to control this country anymore. The first issue we’d hit is welfare. I see people hitting the slots every damn day around here, and I know these people don’t have jobs, so where are they getting the money?! My taxes, that’s where! I can’t blame them, it’s a good deal, but I couldn’t look you in the eyes right now if I knew I was living off of other people’s paychecks.” Strong words coming from someone with a healthy state pension for being injured on the job.
“So we cut welfare. It’s one thing as a stopgap, but nothing more. Next, immigration. These people can come over and get a free phone, free healthcare, free everything, just for breaking the law! I’ll make it real simple for them… you have thirty days to leave the country. You call a number and we’ll help you get back home for free. After that.” He paused, I couldn’t tell for dramatic effect or to wonder if he was really about to say what he was going to say “We kill you.”
I was taken aback. We all were. He said the quiet part out loud, for all to hear. We were mortified, but at this point it was like a train crash where you just can’t look away. Interestingly, he kept reiterating he admired the work ethic of Mexican immigrants, how he understood why people would enter illegally, how the immigration process was broken. This wasn’t just simply xenophobia or racism, this was something more. He went on to rant about how JFK was killed by his driver, something Jackie apparently failed to mention, RFK was shot from behind and this was something his coroner told the family secretly years later, how the moon landing was faked, and the earth is flat. “You mean to tell me there’s a man beneath my feet right now? How stupid do you think I am?” At different points we all tried to inject some semblance of sanity into his monologue, but it just bounced off of him.
Sandwiched between conspiratorial ramblings and plagiarizing Fox News, he stopped everything to tell us a story about how he lost a close friend to the unforgiving woods of the North Country. There was no impetus, no logical link we could see, he just started.
The story went that John and his friend had been out hunting on somebody’s property years ago. They had split up and it was getting close to dusk. John had made his way back to the truck, but his friend was nowhere to be seen. He shot some rounds into the air to see if he’d get a response, nothing. He’d repeat that every few minutes until he did eventually get a response. John headed towards the response shots and found his friend, alive but bloodied and clearly shaken. His friend wouldn’t hunt for another two years.
Two years later, his friend went out hunting once again, this time on forest preserve land. It was at this point John made a note about how New York kept buying up private property under the pretense of stewardship, which John didn’t buy. Didn’t private landowners have an incentive to protect their land? He continued the story. His friend didn’t come home that night. A response team of rangers went out to search him, but were waylaid by bureaucracy hindering their response time. John and some of his friends went out looking for their friend, eventually hearing what they thought was a communication that he had been found on some tracks and that he’d be ok. They gleefully informed the family – except – they were wrong. His friend was never found. He reckoned if search efforts had been able to start earlier, it might’ve ended differently.
In retrospect, this story made everything else make sense about John. He gave us his contact information in case we ever got ourselves in a spot of trouble in the North Country. We never did get that moonshine.
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