I want to wear out my own pants

I’ll wear out my own pants, thank you very much.
On a recent trip to Bozeman I picked up a new pair of Carhartts at a ranch supply store.
Mine are getting a bit ragged and since I wear little else anymore, it was time to get a pair that weren’t frayed, bloodstained or holey.
I’m no clothes horse, but I do know a bit about fashion. Among the many hats I wore during nearly two decades spent sitting at a newspaper features desk was that of fashion editor. I put together back-to-school fashion pages, explored the mystery behind the little black dress and held a light meter for the photographer during swimsuit issue shoots.
I know what tap pants are thanks to the fine folks at Fredericks of Hollywood who once sent me a pair.
All that, however, was back in the day.
Back when I wore khakis and button-down collar shirts.
Now I dress in Carhartts and wool and don’t worry about mix and matching camouflage patterns.
Picking up a new pair of pants requires little thought. Too little apparently.
The new pants turned out to be not what I had been looking for. While they were Carhartt brown, I didn’t realize until I got home that they were actually Carhartt light.
Soft to the touch instead of rough like all the new Carhartts that had preceded them, it turned out the pants didn’t even have double knees.
A card that fell out of one of the pockets explained that these Carhartts had “undergone a special process which results in variations of shading and color.”
I shrieked and dropped them to the floor like they were a pair of acid-washed jeans.
These were the pants all the wannabes wear.
Wannabe construction workers.
Wannabe hunters.
Wannabe Montanans.
Carhartts aren’t supposed to be soft or faded until they’re nearly done. What’s the point of buying a new pair that are already worn out.
Unless of course they’re half price.
But these certainly weren’t.
They were simply halfway to already needing to be replaced when I bought them.
Few of us still change our own oil, butcher our own meat or even mow our own lawns. Many of us, however, still like to look like we do.
We like that worn look of an old pair of Carhartts.
And while it may take me a bit longer than it used to, I can still wear out a pair all by myself.
Even the old-fashioned dark brown kind, stiff as a board with double knees.
Parker Heinlein is at pman@mtintouch.net

I turn to tree trophy hunting in December

I turn to trophy hunting in December.
Trading rifle and shotgun for an ax, I stalk the timber for a Christmas tree.
It’s a hunt I’ve taken part in since I was old enough to drive.
When I was a kid, my family always bought a tree, but by the time I was 16 I’d decided I could do better cutting my own. It was one of the few instances of my newfound independence that pleased Mom and Dad. My parents were happy to save a few bucks.
Conifers were relatively rare in the Southern Indiana countryside of my youth. Hardwoods filled the river bottoms, and everywhere else, it seemed, the land had been cleared for corn and soybeans.
Thank goodness for Mr. Peabody, made famous in a song about Muhlenberg County, Kentucky, after his Peabody Coal Co. “hauled it all away.”
The much-maligned practice of strip-mining provided my early Christmas trees. After the land had been turned upside down to reach veins of coal, the resulting spoil banks were planted with pines. Acres and acres of rolling land covered with conifers.
I’d walk the ridges, spot a likely trophy, and move in for closer inspection, eventually selecting a tree worthy of harvest.
The process used to take longer than it does now. I’d spot a tree, hike over to it, then realize it was 14-feet tall. I’d see another and think it was the perfect tree before closer inspection revealed it was actually two trees growing next to each other.
And as I grow older I’ve learned how to adjust the less-than-perfect tree. A shortage of branches on one side simply means the tree will stand closer to the wall. No branches on the bottom allows presents to be stacked higher.
But after nearly 40 years of cutting down my own Christmas trees maybe I just know what I want. Then again, my wife and I may have so many ornaments to hang that any imperfection is well hidden.
This year’s hunt took less than an hour. On an island in an ice-covered river flowing out of the Beartooth Mountains, I found a nice fir growing closely among a stand of dozens of its ilk.
A few strokes of the ax and I had the tree on the ground, tagged it with a Forest Service permit and dragged it back to the truck less than a mile away.
The tree is too tall as they often are, but a little off the top, a foot off the bottom and it will fit nicely in the living room.
For a couple of weeks the house will smell of evergreen, just like the mountains, and the backwoods of my youth.
May you all have a tree to enjoy this holiday season.
Merry Christmas.
Parker Heinlein is at pman@mtintouch.net

First snowflakes send me packing

It may have been the weather.
Following two months of sunny days and balmy temperatures, fall abruptly turned the corner toward winter last week.
Then the general hunting season closed and it was time to put away the rifle.
Whatever the reason, I was at the computer Monday making reservations for a campsite on Tampa Bay.
Salt in the air.
Palm trees on the horizon.
Fish on the line.
Have I become such a wimp that the first snowflakes of the season send me packing?
Not quite.
There’s a month left to hunt pheasants, follow wild-flushing sharptails into the next county and shoot a ruffed grouse or two in the foothills of the Beartooths.
I may even pull out those plastic grocery bags in the pocket of my hunting coat and use them to try to lure a white goose into range.
But when the mercury drops out of the thermometer and my hands are too stiff to feel the safety on the Browning my thoughts will head south, to sea trout and redfish, bars accessible only by boat, and sunburned feet.
Although I never considered myself a snowbird I find I’ve become one. For years now, my wife and I have hitched our boat to the truck and driven to Florida for the month of March.
Maybe it’s because we live out of a tent when we’re there, avoid retirement communities and don’t play shuffleboard that I consider what we do different.
However, it’s really not. While we endure most of winter‘s wrath, we don’t stick it out until spring. We flee Montana unashamedly on March 1, driving as fast as the law allows to reach a warmer clime.
And even though our departure is months away, I’ve already refolded the tent and readied the boat for the road.
It’s hard to embrace winter in northcentral Montana. Unlike the mountainous regions of the state where folks enjoy months of skiing and snowmobiling, winter recreation up here is limited to ice fishing on windswept lakes and trying to stay on your feet as you cross the frozen Albertson’s parking lot.
Fortunately it’s not winter yet. At least that’s what I keep telling myself.
There are still roosters to roust out of the cattails and Hungarian partridge huddled together on the edge of the stubble.
There may even be a late elk hunt in the mix.
It’s been a spectacular fall and a change in weather was long overdue.
So what do I have to complain about?
After all, there are palm trees on the far horizon.
Parker Heinlein is at pman@mtintouch.net