In the Beginning... A Nerd History Lesson

Hey kids! It's time for a Bored Suburban Dad Nerd History Lesson!

First, look what I got!

Oooooo...old dusty books!

Aww yeah. But perhaps you're asking yourself, in order:

1. Two copies of the same book??
2. Yay, I guess, but why is this book significant?

You're seeing the name H.G. Wells as the author. And as an avid reader of this blog, you're either: a) outdoorsy; b) gamer-nerdy; or c) both. And thus you're like "Ahhh yes. H.G. Wells. Author of such tomes in my vast Nerd Library as War of the Worlds and Dr Moreau’s Island, the movies for which are...unique. But here I see he's written a book about what's this now?"

And perhaps herein you see such truly intellectual irony that you grab your tweed jacket and your pipe,
and with a knowing nod say "well, of course, you know that Wells was an avowed pacifist, and yet here he writes a book about war." And you take a self-satisfied sip of your delicious and very peaty scotch. 

Ironically - but not - he wrote the book Little Wars in 1913. He based it on a long-played Prussian military exercise for their Officers: Kriegspiel; literally, War Game. Little Wars was, no, is, a tabletop miniature war game. It's a set of rules, from maneuver to firing and even hand to hand combat between little toy soldiers. It has maintained a cult following for years and years, and is considered not just the start, but the very progenitor of much of today’s tabletop gaming. 

So as a Prince in the Kingdom of Nerds, it’s my duty to own this book, being an Origin Story of gaming. Origin stories are important to us, you see. Fanfic and all that.

Well, I mean, it was a different time then, umm,

The green book on the left is as close as I have been able to find, in all my wanderings in dusty old used bookshops, to the first printing. It’s a second printing, dated January, 1931. An even bigger prize? Look at that hand-scribbled inscription: a John Collins of the 2nd Light Infantry! We haven’t really used that moniker in the US - perhaps in the 30s and maybe my Army friends will know - but if not, some British officer owned and played this game! The hands this book has passed through!

Hilarious side note: I love the second/alternate title of Wells’ book. “…that more intelligent sort of girls who like boys’ games and books.” 😬😳🤣🤣 Frankly, that’s most women I know? Anyway. 

Now, to the meat. Why also the 2nd, newer copy of the same book?

Diorama-meets-war

Like I said, this book is considered the beginning of tabletop gaming. You play any game, from a board game to a tabletop miniature wargame, like Warhammer 40k? Star Wars X-Wing? Risk? Twilight Imperium? Thank H.G. Wells and Little Wars. 

My loyal readers all know that my closest friends and I go to GenCon every year in Indianapolis. Why is a tabletop board/miniature gaming convention in Indy called GenCon when the only connection betwixt them all is the "Con?" Well, you see, if you didn't know, GenCon was started as a tabletop miniature wargaming convention in Lake Geneva, Wisconsin, in 1968. Little Wars was a feature, as were hundreds of other home-brewed games and professionally-produced (but little-known cult-followed) games. Pretty soon, though, the convention outgrew Lake Geneva, and fits now in 2 massive complexes in Indianapolis, taking the entirety of the Indiana Convention Center and next-door Lucas Oil Stadium.

And it is there, on the (covered) football field, the gridiron where NFL teams do battle, where is homage paid to the origins of GenCon: a massive area in which from the simplest to ultra-complex tabletop wargames are played.

That's a lot of tabletops. And....nerds.

But Noah, you claim, not quite yet bored to tears, that's all fascinating, and I kind of see the connection between modern tabletop games and Little Wars, but where is this headed vis a vis this red book?

There’s another game - maybe the most important game in gaming - that finds its origin in Little Wars, and finds its origin in the person who conceived of GenCon. The clue, my clever cyber sleuths, is at the bottom of the newer, red book: the Forward was authored by none other than Gary Gygax! 

Ohhh, right. Some of you are not nerds. 

The Forward was authored by none other than the guy who created GenCon and created and authored Dungeons & Dragons: Gary Gygax! 

self-explanatory

Gygax had a copy of Little Wars, and was an avid tabletop war gamer. It inspired Gygax to first create a game in which, instead of blocks of toy soldiers battling it out in a table, one would instead imbue some of those toy soldiers with traits, like how strong they are, how tough, how quick - and then those trait-imbued toy soldiers would duke it out. This game was called Chainmail, commensurate with Gygax’s fascination with medieval warfare. 

Idle hands...

But for a genius like Gygax, there was another natural progression: if this miniature soldier not only had traits, well then it must also have motivations, likes, dislikes...personalities.

And thus was born Dungeons and Dragons, imbuing each miniature with…humanness. 

Oh! And spells. And sometimes pointy ears. 

That’s why I’ve got 2 copies of the same book. One, because of its historical significance and its proximity to The First; one because the same book meant so much to the guy who means so much to so many of us in the gaming world, and it is cool to see his thoughts about it, in his own words. 

I often wonder what Wells would think about what his book has wrought. Again, the irony is Wells’ well-known pacifism. Why write a book about how to fight a war? He sums it up in his appendix in the old 1931 book: “If Great War is to be played at all, the better it is played the more humanely it will be done. I see no inconsistency in deploring the practice while perfecting the method.”

The game I and zillions of others love to play - I’ve played D&D for 34 years now - is one of the logical conclusions of these old tabletop games! So many of these tabketop miniature war games are played today, and I've even herein reviewed a few: my boys and I love to play Star Wars X-Wing and Star Wars Armada. I have to say, it feels oddly satisfying to own a copy of The Thing That Started it All, as in this house, not only do my boys play Armada; they also devise their own rules to wage war between little green army men or Lego guys, and we all play Dungeons and Dragons together! 

I’m happy to have now in my house the beginning, and it’s progeny. And I know it’s not the end!

Let's Set Things On Fire

We've had a lot of fun on this here blog recently, going on about camping and camp fires and such and a few dear readers who are in the exploratory phase of wishing to go outdoorsing have asked:

Great! So...how do I build a fire?

You've come to the right place. Destroying things by fire is a specialty here.

In outdoorsing and camping, there are 4 kinds of fire for cooking, telling stories, drinking beer, and being generally relaxed:

1. A-Frame, or, Teepee
2. Square, or, Log Cabin
3. Cheater
4. Fuck It

Additionally, in outdoorsing and camping, there are 2 places in which it is acceptable to light a fire:

1. A DNR- or National Park Service-prepared steel and cement fire ring at an official campsite
2. A small, very burned looking circle of stones or ancient, rusted-through steel ring at a National Park Service-designated backcountry or dispersal camping campsite

DO NOT.

If it's not on this list, and you're not on the show Alone, please don't.

Now, Smokey Bear will tell you that the 4 kinds of fire are Teepee, Lean-To, Log Cabin, and Criss-Cross. Smokey Bear is indeed an authority on fire, but I believe his authority more leans towards forest fires and their prevention. In all my years of camping and fire-making, the Lean-To and Criss-Cross are really just what happens to the A-Frame fire when it really gets going and all your carefully stacked and balanced wood collapses. Which it will. 

In fact, after the fire is lit and is at the point where you're adding "fuel" -- by which I do not mean gasoline, but instead I mean increasingly larger logs -- all fires really just become Fuck It fires.

The Fires

A-Frame and Log Cabin fires are the romanticized Scouting type fires. You need 4 things:

1. Tinder
2. Kindling
3. Fuel
4. A thing that makes heat

What are Those Fancy Words?

Tinder: dry pine needles, dry leaves, dry grass, itty-bitty twigs, dryer lint (I'm not kidding...bring a bag of that stuff in your camping gear), ripped-up newspaper or pictures of people you loathe; things that are tiny, DRY, and absolutely will burn, quickly

Kindling: Sticks and equivalent things made of wood, about as big around as your pinky-finger. 

Fuel: Sticks and equivalent things made of wood, of variable size, from about as big around as your thumb, to your wrist, to your forearm, to your leg. Please make sure it's not your thumb, your wrist, your forearm, or your leg.

A thing that makes heat: matches, candle-lighter stick thingy, lighter, flint-and-steel, white phosphorus grenade

The Process

1. Make a pile of tinder, like about as big around as your hand (unless you have tiny hands), about fist-or-so-high. More is better.
2. Have a bunch of kindling nearby. Stack some of it loosely around the pile of tinder like a tent.
3. Light the tinder with your heat-making device. Light it in multiple spots.
4. As the flame grows, stack more kindling around it, again kinda like a tent. You know: an A-Frame!
5. Keep adding that, layer by layer, as it catches fire, and your pile will look more and more cone-like.

Now here's where it gets different:

YES. This is perfect. Then just keep adding bigger
wood in this pattern (heh..I said "bigger wood")

With the A-Frame, start adding fuel. Begin with stacking 3 or 4 pieces of thumb-sized sticks around your flaming cone of fire. Then wrist-sized. Don't start adding the much bigger logs until this base really gets burning, lest they topple and smother your fire (remember: fire wants oxygen). Keep adding wood 3 or 4 pieces at a time, with a size commensurate with how giant you want your fire, by stacking them on the burning pile of flames bottom-down, point up, so they lean against each other and keep making that A-Frame/teepee shape.

Eventually, the logs are big, the frame collapses, but you've got a big bed of angry-hot coals and flames licking the sky, and you can just toss logs onto the inferno where it feels like you should. Go with it. Your primal proto-human neolithic paleolithic genetic code will assure you instinctively know how to keep a fire going, and your ancient, medieval, viking/barbarian/Greco-Roman/conqueror genetic code will assure you know how to instinctively make a fire bigger/worse.

I mean, make sure it's in a fire ring and not next
to dry leaves...but...perfect example otherwise

With the Log Cabin, start adding fuel. Begin with stacking 2 pieces of thumb-sized sticks parallel just to the left and right of your little burning pile, and 2 more sticks parallel top and bottom. You know, like Lincoln Logs when you made a Lincoln Log cabin. That you've also set on fire. You want those sets of parallel stick to juuuust be touching your burning pile so they too burn eventually. From there, as the fire grows, keep adding larger and larger sticks, then logs, in that same Lincoln Log box shape, each successive layer just touching the flaming layer, until you get to a point where you can add the logs right on top of the burning layer (they're logs at a certain point, and thus strong enough to handle the weight of a new log).

And then, as above: Eventually, the logs are big, the frame collapses, but you've got a big bed of angry-hot coals and flames licking the sky, and you can just toss logs onto the inferno where it feels like you should. Etc etc re: genetic code for fire-keeping and fire-bigger-making.

What's the difference?

A-Frames make a great bed of coals, quickly, for cooking. A-Frames go through lots of wood quickly because....uhh...physics about burning. Log Cabins make for nice, hot, long-lasting camp fires; they take a little longer to get going, but really give you lots of places to keep tossing logs for a nice long night of burning wood and drinking.

The Cheater Fire

Trading Outdoorsiness with convenience. Hey...
It's your soul.

Buy those firestarter logs. Chuck some dry tinder on top. Put some wrist thick logs along each long edge of the firestarter log. Light with heat-making device. Add wood. Feel mild shame, but give no shits because you have a fire.

The Fuck It Fire

Pile tinder. Pile logs all over it. Douse in Coleman/MSR white gas. Stand back 15 - 20 feet,

Still less harmful than Gender Reveal parties

and chuck lit matches at it. After the mild **WHOOMP**, add logs as necessary. Do not do this a Parks. Do not do this. But everyone is tempted because the beginning stages of building a fire takes a lot of TLC and time. You can't just light and walk away. You gotta baby it. Except...here. In this case, you kinda, like, get outta the way.

A note on Things that Make Heat: 

Campfires take a minute. Even with real good tinder - real super inflammable stuff like dryer lint soaked in butane and molded into melted candle wax (yes, that's a thing) - sometimes, you have to light it again, or start over cuz you burned all your GOD DAMN hard-earned tinder before you stacked the kindling right, DAMMIT (this is an autobiographical statement).

Wood matches? Good. They, too, you see, look like and are the size of tinder. Light, bury in tinder. 

Paper matches? Meh. Maybe light the whole packet at once?

Those stick lighters? Fine, great.

Butane fancy-pants lighters or Bic? Fine, just watch your fingers and knuckles as you angle it around.

Torches? ...sure

Phosphorus grenades? Probably illegal??

Flint and steel/starter stick? Awesome and outdoorsy. Hard - you gotta absolutely baby that tinder when the sparks hit and it starts to smoke, but then you feel like a survivalist badass.

That rub-a-stick-real-fast thing? No. Don't. Calories expended versus the calories you'll eventually replace with whatever you cook over the fire? Totally unbalanced. This method is indeed possible but so un-worth it as to be a wives tale or legend.

Related tangent: I have a super fun story about an old friend, an unlit cigarette, a hat made of tinfoil, a metal folding chair, and a thunderstorm. Ask me over beer some day.

In Conclusion

There you have it. Fire-making for you campsite fire ring or backyard firepit. Impress your friends. Cook food like the ancients. Commune with Prometheus and thumb your nose at the rest of the gods.

3 more fire types, for some other day when we talk about survival, or because you pissed off Zeus (see above, re: Prometheus):

1. Lean-to. Good for making fires when it's super windy and/or rainy
2. Cross. Good for tiny little fires when you don't have much wood but need to warm your hands or cook something little
3. Dakota Fire Hole. This sounds...dirty. But this is a family blog, so I can assure you it's a type of camp fire and not, uhh, something else. Good for extremely high-heat fire built in gigantically windy conditions or if you want to build a fire that for some reason you don't want people to see from a distance. Like Zombies or something? 

Bored Suburban Dad Cooks: Campfire Cooking

Maybe 3 or 4 steps above Neolithic

As always with BSD Cooks, recipes first:

Bored Suburban Dad's Extra Fart Chili...Campfire Option

The ingredients below are for my tried-and-true Extra Fart Chili Recipe. The Instructions are how to make it over a campfire, like your Gramma (or Great Gramma for you young-'uns) used to have to do in their "Greatest Generation" Great Depression unnaturally hard life until WWII ended kind of way.

Ingredients

2 T high-heat oil (like canola)
1 large sweet onion, chopped all rough like a cowboy would, because they had shit for knife skills
1 jalapeño, chopped, seeds and everything 
8 garlic cloves, chopped
2 lb ground beef
1 lb Bob Evans or Jimmie Dean ground sage sausage (or spicy if you want more kick)
¼ C chili powder
2 T ground cumin
1 t paprika 
1 28oz can diced tomatoes; juices and all
2 15oz cans kidney or pinto beans, drained and rinsed
1 15oz can of some other bean, I dunno, pick one
14 oz (canned or otherwise) beef broth (smoky is best)
Sour cream and grated cheese of your choice for garnish, but no cilantro because that tastes like soap

Special ingredients:

1. 12” cast iron pan with sides at least 2 ½” deep

2. Campfire cooking grate of your choice

How

1. Get that fire going 90 minutes to 2 hours before you need it; you’re gonna want a nice roaring fire and a bed of hot coals, but you'll want the fire spread out so your grate and pan isn't, you

   

   Good for French food, but bad for the campsite

   
   know, engulfed in flames because you made a fire with 28-inch logs standing on end

2. Adjust your grate so that it’s just above - a couple inches - the actual flames; perhaps a foot or so above the coal bed

3. Set that heavy, cowboy-lookin' cast iron pan on the grate. Make sure everything is sturdy cuz you’ll be stirring, and the last thing you want is for the grate to collapse and dump your pan and its lovely contents into the fire. This is not an autobiographical statement, because I’m a gods-damned professional

4. Oil the bottom of the pan with a high-heat-tolerant oil like canola; just coat the bottom, but not so much that what you’re putting in it is swimming. 

5. Onions. Saute until brown, like maybe 5 minutes or until they're...brown

6. Add jalapeño and garlic, for like a minute or two

7. Add ground beef and sausage. Brown it, mix it all around.

8. Add all the spices to this aggregate and mix it all around, covering everything

9. Add tomatoes and juices, the drained beans, and mix it all around, but carefully-er because your pan is getting pretty full

   
   

10. Add only about half the broth. You’re going to save some, because this chili will thicken faster than the stove, so you’ll want to add broth occasionally to keep the chili from getting too thick too quickly, not cooking through, and sticking to your pan

11. Boil like crazy for 30-45 minutes. Add broth when needed. If you run out of broth, add a little water if you need to

12. Move the pan around the grate too, to find a slightly cooler spot if you need to.

13. Time’s up, ring the dinner triangle, call the cowboys in, serve it up the same way as above: sour cream, cheese, etc. Maybe find very manly bowls and manly spoons.

Not only a consequence...but also our goal

There you have it: a chili for the stovetop, made over a fire. Super easy, actually, and your campers and all the surrounding campsites will look upon you with something akin to worshipful adoration. They will talk about you in a legendary sort of way, looking wistfully at the sky whilst they recall that one time this one guy made chili in a big-ass cast iron pan over the open fire, just like our Grammas used to do right after they got done hand-grinding the cow they slaughtered that morning and all the other chores Grammas did in addition to cooking over open fires because of the Depression, and they did it all after they walked uphill both ways from whatever horror they had to do by hand prior to that.

Seriously, I'm not sure what Grampas did, and frankly, we keep holding cowboys and vikings to all this ancient hand-wrought badassery, but history shows us it was consistently the women who did that kind of badassing, and the men apparently just beat the shit out of each other and chewed loudly with their mouths open.

Finished and ready for methane production

I make this chili with lots of extra beans and I made sure to add ground pork to the initial recipe as I made this up a few years ago, because those two things in combination add to your methane output. Hence: extra-fart chili. Our tent, enclosed, that evening, is testament. My boys love this chili not only for the fart factor, but also because it's a fairly flavorful but relatively mild chili, which pleases their chicken-nugget/pepperoni-pizza palates. Doing it over the campfire added this really nice smoky quality to it.

The boys ate with a gusto - an abandon - akin to all those gross, loud, eating-parts of action movies,
where everyone eats with just a little bit much joie de vivre and open-mouth smacking while breathing really loudly through their nose. Seriously. Why do movies do that? Why is the thing with badguys or dudes about to go out on a thing that everyone chews with their mouths open, breathing like they just ran a marathon? Anyway, it was horrifying, but they ate a lot, so I was fairly happy.

Dad Lecture: On "Hiking," and Hiking

Just a little jaunt down the block and back...

For those who follow, you know that hikes -- day-hikes; overnight backcountry ordeals; walks in interesting areas -- are a part of my family's identity and connection. While I couldn't quite convince my sons to get into Scouting, our camping and hiking trips together became my way to impart what I saw as the best of those ideals and skills: comradery, teamwork, duty, orienteering and survival, appreciation and knowledge of nature and natural processes, good stewardship of our natural resources, and all the good ol' fun that comes from sleeping and living amongst the rocks and trees and dirt apart from the mind-numbing comfort of electronics and permanent shelter and endless consumerism. How can one truly take a measure of themselves, and understand their part and their relative insignificance in a broader world, when your contact is Minecraft and clever documentaries? Minecraft has its place, but my boys and I have seen and felt the inspiration and awe that you can only get from sunsets over lakes and the impassable, impossible mountains.

I digress. You get it: we like hikes.

I'm really here in this episode to address a thing, and it's where an especially shitty meme and a really tragic news article converge, and it's about hikes.

Let's start with the shitty meme:

Maaaaan...screw you

I hate this meme. It's probably meant to be funny, and poke at people who get intense about a thing: "take a step back and see your own intensity" kind of thing. I'm sure we could find similar, and similarly-shitty, memes about running, weight-lifting, eating breakfast cereal, whatever. But this one strikes at what I love, so my turn for outrage I guess.

Now, let's look at this tragic and mildly-preventable article in the Detroit News recently: 

Michigan's park visitors set off surge of search-rescue missions. Here's why

by Michael Gerstein

If it's behind a paywall, allow me to extract a couple highlights to confirm what you likely guess is the general direction the article is taking:

Rangers in the state's most remote wilderness continue to scramble to rescue a surge of people who lose their way, injure themselves or become disoriented in the vast Porcupine Mountains wilderness in the western Upper Peninsula. In 2020, the state Department of Natural Resources sent a record number of rangers on search-and-rescue missions there to save hikers who were underprepared for the rigor of the backwoods.

Yeah, I get it. This can - and does - happen to even the most prepared of us. But:

 The fatalities include a 36-year-old man from Chicago who died last year while hiking in the Porcupine Mountains about 2 miles from the parking lot of a hiking trail, according to local news reports.

“We have a lot of people from the Midwest who come to the Porkies, and they say they hike a lot of miles in their neighborhood ... and they seem to underestimate the difficulty of the terrain here in the Porkies, and seem to bite off more than they can chew,” Park Manager Mike Knack said.

The problem appears unique to the Porcupine Mountains among state parks but is common across national parks [emphasis added by me]

 Guys.

"Hiking a lot of miles in your neighborhood" is not a gods-damned hike. It's a walk. In your neighborhood. Is your neighborhood hilly? Sure. Is your neighborhood festooned with roots, difficult traverses, hard-to-discern pathways, massive shifts in topography and elevation, and natural (and sometimes hidden) hazards? Do you have to suspend your food from a tree every night in your neighborhood so bears don't eat it? When it rains outside, can you not light your kitchen range? When it's warm and sunny, and all of a sudden it downpours in your neighborhood and the temperature drops by 10 or more degrees, is it difficult to get dry and warm?

Many people rely too much on cell service for navigation, which is at best spotty, according to rangers. The people who rangers rescue are often not prepared, don’t bring enough water or pack too much equipment and become exhausted, Knack said.

...

“A lot of times, it’s lack of preparation and planning," Reece added. "We are seeing that: People going out with no water, people wearing flip flops."

That's not a hike...that's a hike

Listen, I don't think you have to strap-on a day pack with a 3L water bladder and a 4-person first aid kit for every National or State Park walk. I'm not trying to be all Crocodile Dundee about walks and hikes. There are many, many walks that are "family-accessible" to meet the needs of toddlers' legs, casual shoes, and a nice family photo-op (Accessibility is another chat for another day). 

But let's circle back to that shitty meme in light of the culmination of the News article: "a lot of times, it's lack of preparation and planning." 

That shitty meme begrudges people who prepare for what they're about to face. Sometimes that preparation is as simple as reading a Park's website, which helpfully rates trails, gives lengths, and offers warnings; sometimes it can be experience that informs a walker or hiker. And at the end of it, when your toddler wears out because what you thought was 1.5 easy miles is instead 1.5 miles of strenuous ankle-deep sand dunes at 33-degree angles, you can pick the kid up. When you find yourself hypothermic or heat-exhausted, I don't think Crocs and Barbie-dolls are gonna help much. Maybe the extra water and walking sticks would have.

Allow me one more example, because when Dads get going on a lecture, we just can't help but flog a dead horse:

Recently, my family walked the Blue Ridge Tunnel in Nelson County, Virginia. Awesome experience.

Hiking boots? Nah. But
neither high heels...

The trail is about a 5-mile loop. We took water and head lamps. See, there's a web site that talks all about it, and even has a section called What to Bring. Could a toddler in flip-flops do this walk? Likely. The trail itself is damn-near paved, and you literally can't walk anywhere but on this highly-accessible, perfectly-groomed trail. The tunnel gets damn dark, though, and if we didn't bring head lamps, it would have been very tough: some real ankle-twisting dips to the right and left of the trail, and if you try to just feel your way along, you'll slice your hand. Why am I wearing a day pack? Sunscreen, an extra bottle of water, some snacks because we were going to have a late dinner, and the stuff that keeps my diabetic ass from passing-out is in there too.

What's that song about Poison Ivy?

By comparison, here's my boys and I along the trails at Wilderness State Park, our most favored of the Parks here. The trails are very well-marked, very well-maintained, and the elevation doesn't change much at all. Yet, here we are with day packs filled with food, water, and first aid. Why? Because we knew we were going to combine several of the trails into a very long walk (8.5 miles at the end of it), we wanted to eat lunch on the trail, and though the trails are marked, maintained, and obvious to follow, they're still rutty, muddy, root-y, rocky, tick-y, and not, ya know, sidewalks. 

It's hard to see how steep this was; Dom is
holding the tree because he has to, or
he'd fall

My sons and I enjoyed the Manistee River Trail recently. It is a well-known section of stunningly-beautiful but difficult trail that parallels the North Country Trail along the river. We wore full packs filled with what it takes to live on a trail for a few days. The Manistee River Trail portion is, from one trailhead to the next, about 11 miles, and it's not 11 easy miles. Ups, downs, and plenty of ankle-biting terrain despite the beauty. We ran into a group of sight-see-ers who had parked at a nearby dam and walked the 3/4 mile along the trailhead, where we happened upon them. They had a bottle of water, and wore sneakers. They asked us how far it was to a particular feature, and we broke the news that it was "about 10, 11 miles." Crestfallen, they turned around. What would have happened if we hadn't seen them? Were they prepared to walk 20 miles? Would they have called for help when it got dark?

Look, hiking is god damn wonderful. You get to really get into a place, see things not everyone wants to see. It can be dangerous. It doesn't need to be dangerous. Let's leave it here wit a repeat quote:

The fatalities include a 36-year-old man from Chicago who died last year while hiking in the Porcupine Mountains about 2 miles from the parking lot of a hiking trail, according to local news reports.

Two. Miles. In his neighborhood, that's 20, 25 minutes at a nice walk, along well-marked streets and sidewalks. But in the wild, that could be an hour or two of back- and knee-busting trail. And if you make your kid walk along with a Barbie Doll** instead of water, and the wrong damn shoes, well then, you ain't much of a dad.

**I get it. Toddlers will Toddler. They burst into tears when you won't let them wear a "hat" made of razor blades and fire, and throw a tantrum because you won't let them drink used motor oil. Fine. Barbie it is. But maybe some water too?

My Secret, Make-Believe Life. Or Lives.

I live in a house with somewhere near, or at, or around, 300 board games. There are probably 3 still in the plastic. There are, oh, I'll say 8 to 10 that I was given that I've read, but not played. There is one that I bought because I just had to own it; the very thought of it, the very essence of it, the theme, it's new-ness in the field of board games and the thought that it could be The One that changes how board games work

Games. ALL OF THEM.

demanded  that I have it. But maybe I don't ever play it. Nuts, right? If it's so goddamn great, what's the problem? The problem: maybe if I do, maybe everything indeed changes. Am I ready for that?

I'll tell you the game in a bit, maybe later. If I do it now, I'm gonna write gushingly about it. The name of the game isn't the point. It's the mechanic. And a big piece of the mechanic of this board game is: storytelling. 

Storytelling? In a board game??

Guys. This is where I'm headed. Since when is a board game about storytelling? Board games are about buying Park Place, or saying "Sorry!," or winning because you nabbed Australia first, right? 

They used to be. They still can be. But board games are figuring out what my First Love has known all along: storytelling is central to our species. Telling stories is literally what separates us from the animals. We looked at stars and asked why and made a story about them. We looked at us and asked why and made a story about us.

Storytelling can be passive: we sit as a friend tells us a funny story; a pastor at church relates a biblical story to a modern-life story; we listen to a podcast; we watch a play or movie; a parent reads a child a book. But what if storytelling was active? Participatory? What if we told stories together? How sublime that we, a communal species, create a fiction together...tell a story together...explode our imaginations together?

Two paragraphs ago, I mentioned my First Love (with regard to gaming, folks, come on now). Ready? I've loved my First Love for 33 years. We met when I was 14. We've been together, weekly, monthly, yearly, ever since. Here's the Big Reveal: 

Dungeons and Dragons.

Working professionals by day; Elves, Gnomes, 
Halflings, and sure, Humans by night

Role Playing Games are community storytelling: the interaction between the Dungeon Master (or Game Master in any Role Playing Game that's not D&D) - who is the narrator - and the players - who are the characters. The DM provides the story and structure, and the players react to it, change it, take it to new and unpredictable places, make it "real." I enjoy, so much, being a player. I love to be someone I'm not for a few hours, and I love even more being variations on who I am, taking me to different places in different ways (one of my favorite selves of all time is a female half-orc Paladin, and it's her quirks and raison d'etre that makes her so special to me). But even more, my true joy is being the DM - the narrator. I love it so much when I present a situation, and have thought of outcomes and directions this situation and my best friends on the planet - but as their not-themselves - are going to take this...and instead they go in totally different directions. I have to, on the fly, make new things happen in this world we've created, in cities or wildernesses we've created, with citizens and denizens we've befriended or angered or killed or helped.

In 2020, Storytelling looked a little...
different?

Authors, when they're interviewed, talk about how they write their characters, write a situation, and "see what happens." Sure, maybe, probably. They have an idea, or a few, and they game them out, but it's not likely random like human behavior and decisions truly are. But when I work with - tell a story with - my players? My friends? It's just...sublime. It's us. It's biases and group dynamics and mob behavior and deviousness and compassion. A push and pull around motivations and desires, where I try to move a story and where they drag it anyway. It's perfect. And what makes this so true is that right now, I DM two similar groups of different people with two different levels of experience with the game: each group is a collection of well-educated, multiple-degreed, Type-A types who revel in curve-balls and whose jobs require flexible, seat-of-the-pants thinking; but one group started playing last April after hearing about the game and wanting something to do in a pandemic...and the other group, like me, have been playing for decades. 

Some of the tools of the trade, with a Pandemic twist

These are not "versus" relationships. They're  partnerships. And each of these groups plays the very same adventure, or module (in gamer-speak), or tells the same story (in all-of-us speak), in very different ways! Different responses, reactions, directions. It's collective storytelling in its purest form.

Role Playing Games have evolved a little to include miniatures - or more rightly, they're always included the possibility of using minis, but they've evolved now to emphasize it - because fighting and combat is a part of the story. The game started as an "all in the mind's eye" game, and has moved to storytelling-plus-pieces-on-a-table. In other words, role playing games are increasingly a hybrid between the tabletop miniature warfare games that inspired them, modern board games, and storytelling!

All the cool kids do it too

But it's this evolution that brings this full-circle. The newest and best board games tell a story. The board of the board game itself changes depending on how you play the game, and what the outcome is of the game you played before the game...on the same board...you're playing now. For those not so deep in nerd-dom as my boys and friends and I, picture it this way: imagine you buy Boardwalk and Park Place. And then you Monopolize them - you put the Hotels on those properties. and everyone, when their pieces are on that side of the board, are like "oh god please don't roll a 5," 

But now, with the next evolution of board games, imagine that another Monopoly player breaks a story about worker abuses among your hotel staff at Park Place. And imagine that the other 3 of your opponents pooled their resources and launched a PR campaign that publicizes not only your worker abuse scandal at Park Place, but also your horrible money-laundering scheme at Atlantic and Ventnor Ave and Marvin Gardens and how you bribed the Mayor for economic development dollars to put houses on those properties at a net bank cut. And as a result: you have to put permanent stickers on the Monopoly Board on those properties that devalue their worth to lower-than-Mediterranean-and-Baltic, and a new game rule is instituted that requires you to pay all the other players $50 every time you pass go as part of a settlement agreement. 

The origin story of all origin stories, 
told via the artwork of the story

That is a glimpse of where board games are headed. D&D and other modern role playing games are slowly morphing storytelling - their core - with pieces on a table. My players in D&D make permanent changes to the world that they act within - throwing-in with the "President" of Waterdeep pisses off the criminal underground led by Xanathar who now makes life Hell, for example. Now, board games are catching up. Don't just play the game; change the game, forever, even for whoever plays it after you, because what you did makes the board - the world, because in a board game, the board is the world you're in - different for who plays after.

So You Want to Go Hiking, Volume 6

Noah's Unofficial Guide to Not Dying in the Backcountry 

How to Die a Slower Death on the Trail

We've covered so much ground, we have: packs; sleeping; eating; wearing things; going poo. All grown up and almost ready for your Big Woodland Adventure! But I do want to cover one more range of items you should pack to help make your trip smooth and agony-reduced: Oh Shit.

Oh Shit are the things you should have on hand for when, as you do things in the trail, your first two words are: Oh...shit. From compound fractures to burns to rattlesnake bites and surprise rain storms, this is your guide to things which, if you don't pack them, you will need them.

The 2 Most Important

There are 2 things that will make your life not suck on the trail: a pocket multi-tool; and paracord. Cut a branch? Dig a sliver out of you left ass cheek? Open packages? Cut rope? Stab a bear? If you don't have at least a Swiss Army Knife, things are actually going to get mildly complicated on the trail. You can't believe how much you'll use a pocket knife. Having a pocket knife with saws, pliers, files, 6 sizes of knife, and a toothpick means you have all the amenities of home. My boys and I carry Leatherman tools on our belts or in an easy-to-access hip pocket.

I cannot stress the importance of rope. And on the trail, the lightest, strongest rope to modern hikers:

Learn to store your rope, dude

paracord. Your Friendly Local Outdoorsy Store carries like 27 different sizes of this stuff on several wheels behind the cash register. Get you like 15, 20 feet of #550 paracord for your trip. Guys. Like...need some rope to stake-down a tarp for rain cover on a surprise storm? Break a bootlace? Need to hang a bug net and the cord it came with broke? A strap on your pack break? Your hip belt screw up? Your pants belt break? Need to snare a rabbit for dinner? #550 paracord is the all-purpose, tough-as-nails rope that is strong enough to get you out of everything but having to literally hang a bear in the air. And even then, with enough of it, you could make that net that grabbed Chewbacca and his friends on Endor. You can get away with #325 paracord, but I suggest #550.

First Aid

But is it bleeding??

Your friend will accidentally hit you in the face with overhanging branches that whip back when they get caught on their pack. You'll singe your eyebrows and burn your finger the first time you light a WhisperLite. You'll slide down some scree traversing an incline "that'll be just fine." My boys and I carry 2 things to help us deal with minor trail annoyances (read: BLISTERS) and prepare for the remote possibility of situations like in that movie where the dude got pinned under a boulder and had to cut off his arm (see above, re: knives): The ultralight and watertight Adventure Medical Kit for 4 People; and this pocket-sized British SAS Outdoor Survival Guide. That little book...man. Everything from safely removing ticks to setting broken bones. And some interesting notes about self-defense and silent kills.

Water

You can go 3 weeks without food. You can't make but 3 days without water. You're hiking-in 2 or 3 liters of water (hikers use the metric system, along with every developed nation on Earth but us; get

On the upside: will fill
your purifier quickly

used to it) in your pack's water bladder. You can use some of that for food, sure. They design their bladders for easy pouring. And heck, my sons and I even carry a handy extra water thingy just for food-on-the-trail. But you do not ever want to think you can just hump-in all the water you need. Get you a water purifier so that no matter where you are, as long as you're near a water source, you can refill, not worry about spills, and the like. We carry the Katadyn 10L Base Camp Pro. Fill the bag, hang from tree, clean water comes out. Magic.

For shits and grins, I bought one of those LifeStraws. It's conveniently-inconvenient. Once you get it working, it's kinda neat. But initially, it's like trying to suck ice cream through a straw, like when you make a shake too thick. You burst blood vessels in your eyes and risk a brain bleed before the water comes in, but when it finally does...pure bliss. Until your brain bleeds out from the previous effort.

Oh Jesus It Won't Stop Itching

Well, fuck. You did it. You wiped your ass with that big leaf, and now your ass is on fire. You saw this beautiful vista, and waded through a knee-deep field of this odd plant with 3 leaves and now you're full

Sure, let's hang here for the night! Seems fine...

of blisters. Fear not! My boys and I carry a big-ass bottle of Tecnu. This. Shit. Is. Magic. Listen: my oldest son and I spent 5 days on Michigan's South Manitou Island. South Manitou is made of poison ivy. 100% of the island. It floats on a bed of poison ivy or some shit. We would rub our legs in Tecnu and rinse in the Lake. Not one spot of poison ivy. You have 8 hours after exposure to use this stuff. It's goddamn wild.

Sidenote: bugs. If you're not carrying 99.8% DEET, bugs will eat you to death. Spray your lower legs, boots, and waist/belt especially. Ticks like to hang out there. Shins and ankles can be a tick cafe.

WHAT?? The Radar Said Sunny and 70**!!

Yeah. Michigan. It rains. If you know you're camping and hiking and it's likely to rain, everyone from

I don't think the heavy stuff will come down 
for a while

North Face to Arc'teryx makes a whole range of light-weight, fast-drying rain gear (I wear this), and most Osprey packs come with an attached rain cover.

But sometimes, you plan a weekend getaway and the weather looks perfect...until it isn't. Because Michigan. For such mayhem, my boys and I carry this packable, super-light, disposable poncho that's available at our local grocery/everything store that's not WalMart. And from Volume 2 of BSD's unofficial backcountry not-dying guide, wherein we covered sleeping, I again point to SOL's Emergency Bivvy as an indispensable piece of backcountry chaos gear.

**for those of you not from the North, "sunny and 70" is considered perfect weather. Anything above 80, 85 is scalding and deadly-hot. 90, stay indoors. 60? Bust out the shorts.

I Can't See!

Alert: it gets dark at night. Very. We city-slickers are used to some ambient light from street lights to airports to just neighborhoods worth of porchlights. But way way out there in the middle of BFE? DARK. My boys and I like the free use of our hands, so we pack headlamps (ones at the link are pricey; we just use good ol' Colemans). Bonus: shine bright lights in one another's eyes just by the common human interaction of making eye contact when you talk! Fun with spots in your eyes!

Etc.

None of this is strictly necessary, but falls under the BSD edict: if I don't pack it, I'll need it:

• 

  Should fit fine, NP

  Avenza Maps app on your phone. Topographical maps that use your phone's always-connected GPS (don't need wifi or a signal) so you can end the age-old argument: where the fuck are we??
• Waterproof matches. No, it won't light wet wood, dummy. But it'll lite your gas-powered WhisperLite so you can still eat.
• A real compass. If you use paper topo-maps like a badass, this is the tool I was trained on in the Marine Corps. Just not the compass from this place.
• Go old-school like our ancient forebears. It's actually kinda neat.
• Camp towels. Dry your dishes, dry your ass. Same one. Screw it. You're outdoors. 

And with Christmas just around the corner, just cut-and-paste this handy guide when your relatives are looking for stocking-stuffer suggestions! I'm sure your grandma won't mind the swearing; we've heard her after she gets a couple drinks down.

Disappointed Dad's Guide to Orvis' Holiday Catalog

No one can top the Hater's Guide to the Williams and Sonoma Catalog. It is an annual work of art to which we all eagerly look. 

For my part here at BSD, I'm a foodie only inasmuch as I like to go to nice restaurants and eat good food. Sure, I can cook fairly complicated recipes, but let's face the facts: so long as I have 3 young gentlemen living here whose meal tastes range from "bacon" all the way to "chicken tenders," the W & S catalog and pages of useless equipment will be just out of reach.

As the Holidays fast approach, amongst the tsunami of Holiday Special Catalogs jammed in my mailbox was one that fits the BSD sphere: outdoorsy, sporty, camp-and-hike-y.

And full of goods that no one who actually spends time in the woods would use. It's a catalog for customers who like the idea of hardy outdoorsiness, but without the dirt, bugs, and weather. You know, that indoorsy kind of outdoorsiness.

So come on outside. Sit with me by the fire, started with kindling from our 15# burlap sack of Orvis Fatwood (a mere $35 + shipping!) - cut from the resin-saturated heartwood found in the stumps of longleaf pines, burning with a hot, aromatic pine flame! - and let's peruse the finest offerings from the gentleman's outdoors store, Orivs!

---------------

Item HK2KSL - Oak Traveling Bar

A Portable Booze Dresser

Price: $1,195

Blurb: Handmade...from seasoned quartersawn oak, portable travel bar holds two bottles with ample storage for glasses and accessories. Spanish cedar humidor drawer.

Bored Suburban Dad: For $1200, you can make a real statement the next time you go to your friend's house: I don't trust you to have the right liquor or glasses for our toast, plebe. Heaven forbid we drink my Johnny Walker Ultraviolet out of your cracked coffee mugs, and by god, are you just storing your Wild Turkey on top of your refrigerator?? Neanderthal. And nothing says "I'm camping" like bringing a mini dresser filled with booze and Waterford Crystal. Well, maybe there's a small point to be made...

---------------

Item HK20NF - Handmade Artisan Sporting Belt

Price: $195

Blurb: Each artisan buckle is created using a multi-step process with 5 metals...Wax occasionally with any high-quality paste wax."

Sports!

BSD: I have a funny story about the first time I bought a $100 belt I'll tell some time. This one's twice that. First, 2 pages in to the catalog and we can check the "artisan" box off the high-end catalog bingo card. Second, no belt I have ever worn for outdoorsy abuse, or even with my nice suits in my day job, has ever required or even been around words like "use high-quality paste wax." I don't think I have "high-quality paste wax" in my house. Also, what kind of "sporting" involves "high-quality paste wax?" Don't answer that. This is a family blog, god dammit.

---------------

"That's not a knife..." 
--C. Dundee

Item HK19Z4 - Gentleman's Pocket Knife

Price: $159

Blurb: Whether you need an elegant knife to carry every day or are looking for a small folder to breast out birds, this knife will serve you well. Choose from African oxhorn or European staghorn.

BSD: Finally, with the high-quality paste-waxed sporting belt, and this "gentleman's" pocket knife, I am but a few more steps away from my rightful spot among the well-heeled and genteel. If only I had a...

The 'Gentleman's C' of Watches

---------------

Item HK2PEA - Gentleman's Everyday Watch

Price: $109

Blurb: Perfect for everyday wear... Personalize with engraving, up to 3 letters.

BSD: Yes! My ascension to Gentleman is complete! No, this watch is a mere $109, so it won't matter if I accidentally get the stench of poverty on it when I come over (with my Oak Traveling Bar in tow, of course).

---------------

Initials? Monogram? CHOICES...

Item HK2XCB - Personalized Toasting Box

Price: $149

Blurb: Orvis-exclusive white pine toasting box...so you're always ready to raise a glass.

BSD: Wait. Shit. I thought I was all set with the Oak Traveling Bar. But now I can have a Toasting Box too? Personalized? Which will impress my friends more? Which will really drive home the message that I am of higher taste and class? Gods, being a refined gentleman is so hard.

---------------

If you have to
Google Sheesham, you're poor

Item HK95TO - Gift-Boxed Brass Compass

Price: $98

Blurb: Handcrafted solid brass compass is presented in a handsome Sheesham box.

BSD: Solid brass is awfully heavy, and this big box is gonna take a lot of room in my pack, but gentlemen are far more concerned with the classic, brass look of this hardy compass, reminiscent of those one classic sailing ships of yore. Evokes memories of our more travel-hardy ancestors, using the stars for inspiration and guidance. What does "N" mean?

---------------

Portable things don't need wheels 
when you have Staff

Item HK2TNE - Kudu Portable Grill

Price: $549 (plus an additional $270 in accessories)

Blurb: A portable grilling system designed for cooking over an open fire

BSD: Ahh, perfect. Cooking just like the cowboys did over an open fire. Three steel legs that attach to a nickel-plated, steel fire ring and stainless steel accessories! Perfectly portable with my SUV or perhaps my vintage covered wagon! Not sure I'd recommend it for backpacking, though. Or carrying from your garage without a dolly. Or really just being portable, period.

---------------

Boil boil toil & trouble

Item HK21SG - Cowboy Cauldron

Price: $275

Blurb: ...made from solid plate steel and built to last

BSD: You see, just having these cowboy-covered-wagon things makes one feel very Montanan and outdoorsy. It's hard to tell if this is for cooking, elevating your roaring campfire off the ground where fires otherwise belong, or for making mysterious and dangerous magical potions from Stetson-clad witches.

---------------

ONLY for barns, not outdoors in general

Item HK24S2 - Ripstop Barn Coat

Price: $298

Blurb: ...this coat is up for anything and looks good doing it

BSD: ...while guaranteeing that no one who actually owns a real barn could afford or wear this coat, dirty peasants.

---------------

They added too many letters to "kid"

Items HK3AF7 & HK21ML - Wall-Mounted Kindling Splitter & 35-lb Carton of Firewood

Price: $199 & $49

Blurb: Splitter - Mounts easily where virtually anyone can make unlimited quantities of softwood kindling; Firewood - Perfect kindling for the woodstove, fireplace, or campfire.

Your woodsy-wood is SO 
proletariat

BSD: No one with kids will buy the Wall-Mounted SKULL SPLITTER. "Hey, Tommy, put your head in here real quick..." And I promise, if you bring your own sack of corporate-branded firewood to your campsite, the ghosts of your outdoorsy ancestors will rise from the grave simply to mock you.

---------------

Item HK3AGA - Great Outdoors Jigsaw Puzzle

Outdoors! How pretty.

Price: $59

Blurb: Create a customized high-quality jigsaw puzzle using US Geological Survey mapping.

BSD: Perfect closer. Why go outdoors, when you can bring the outdoors indoors?

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Welcome to the Great Outdoors! I hope you brought your toasting box and kindling! We can burn it in my cauldron, along with our pride.