by Ron Foster
Farley grabbed his survival vest, his Boonie hat, his newly acquired Aero rifle and his shotgun and headed for the fire.
“So you did decide to finally get up Farley! Coffee is on fire you want some.”
“Ha Farley! You look like you got big head today from drinking too much!” Miss Feng sort of scolded, giggled at him.
“Yea and I don’t need you screeching at me either this morning. Where’s Charlie at? We got to finalize this decision on staying or going today.” Farley said sitting down wearily on the tree stump he declared his own personal perch for this community campfire.
“Oh he off with the boys checking trot line. He be here soon.” Miss Feng said rattling pots and pans next to her in a cardboard box much louder than necessary just to aggravate what she hoped was Farley’s hangover.
“You are the noisiest little woman I ever seen.” Farley grumbled in her direction.
“You no complain last night when you tell me and Becky make you sling out of paracord for your new rifle!” Miss Feng said with a wink towards Becky.
“Oh yeah, I forgot about that. This single strand I got on this thing will serve me for right now but if ya’ll got enough of that paracord I gave you last night to build one will take about , oh say 50 or $60 off that shopping list you got me working on for Christmas.”
The reason Farley liked being morale officer for this thing was not so much about the holidays lately, it was that he could provide for everybody’s needs and get paid for it to boot with favors or trade goods. He had somehow lucked into a very unique trade position and one he really enjoyed the benefits of.
Say for example, Miss Feng said for him to find Fong a nice warm sweater that she and Charlie could give him for Christmas in a boy’s size that would fit him and a particular color. That’s when the world record dance of bartering and parlaying would begin. Now finding the item in and of itself was one thing, adding that Miss Feng wanted a blue or a red one made it more valuable. That Farley needed her to make him one of her famous food dishes or trade for some soy sauce or something added to the trade.
That he wanted it now, even before he came up with the goods, to him was just like saying I need gasoline for my car to go look or shop for it. To Miss Feng, it was like giving Farley something for nothing that he might never come up with.
Becky for some reason thought Jeremy needed a cowboy hat which Farley thought was funnier than hell because the boy would hate it in his opinion, but he hunted for the best one he could find nonetheless. Hats should have been Farley’s thing since he loved them himself so much it seemed. But there was a also a dark side to this gift hunting thing, going in houses where they might be found occasionally scared the hell out of him.
His number one gift that he was vowing to search high and low for was for Charlie because it was to be his own personal gift was dang near impossible to source. That is until he found an old box in back of a closet of one of the inlet houses that contained an Englishman’s black bowler hat that he was going to present to Charlie come one fine Christmas day.
It wasn’t the Fedora style hat that he wanted but it would do. His reasoning to find such a gift was he thought about the famous old black and white movies of the Chinese detective Charlie Chan he had watched growing up and his Charlie if he could grow that mustache of the others would make him a dead ringer for him in that kind of hat. Farley didn’t think he would object to it and probably find it pretty cool. Charlie wore old style hats occasionally and if nothing else they would get a big laugh out of it hopefully.
Gifts could expand out into accessories and favors owed though and Farley wasn’t above creating situations that came out in his favor for goods on hand or promised for later.
It got worse when he showed the bowler hat to Fong and told him that he would like to trade him a rare Eagle feather he had found on the edge of the lake to go in the hat brim for his Uncle. That is if he would pay the price and wash Farley’s dishes for a week. The boy thought that was a pretty damn high price to be asking for a feather to stick in an old hat that his old man probably would not wear anyway. That was of course until Farley turned on the charm and enchanted the boys with tales about how the Native Americans used to get these very special feathers without killing the Eagle. They would make young boys as a right of manhood to sit in a hole in the ground with brush piled on top and hold up a piece of meat on a stick and wait to grab one of the eagles tail feathers as the bird came in for the bait while avoiding the sharp talons. You didn’t know eagles could be scavengers did you?
In the high country you can still find some old free standing traps
made from stone rather than pits that special “Eagle hunters” of the tribe used many moons ago. They fasted for days and put special “medicine” on their hands before undertaking such a task..
The price of such a luxury and it’s extreme rarity got even better when Farley said that Fong`s Uncle being the chief of this so-called tribe needed one for appearances sake. It would add meaning and ceremony to the cool old hat and he could probably pass Charlie off to the Lazarus boys wearing such a piece of haberdashery as a real Indian chief because they had never seen one before. Farley loved to mess with the Lazarus boys minds when he could sometimes. It was all in fun and they both learned things about each other and the world.
Everybody living at the resort soon started thinking that Farley was the most commercial Christmas person that had ever been even though he said he hated that aspect of the holiday. This feeling of commercialism was further enforced to them a bit because when he ran out of presents for them to work for he started asking them what were they going to get for Dump Truck, the Lazarus boys and even that old skinflint down at the trade store, Mr. Barnett. He coined a new word; it was called Farley Favors and damned if he didn’t have a whole list of them for everyone to owe him in some form or fashion to do. When Farley got scolded by Becky and Miss Feng for piling up so many Farley Favors on the boys, he replied simply “That’s what young boys are for!” with a mischievous grin.
Becky remembered the conversation went something like this: “I can already get them boys to do pretty much anything I want because they want to learn things and because ya’ll raised them up well with respect to elders, they listen to me, but I’m making traders out of them boys! That’s the new skill they’re going to need most if we manage to get through all this and civilization restarts.” Farley would say.
“I’m also inspiring in them appreciation for what they have, what they can give, what they earned themselves. I have already given them a bunch of stuff free like a knife and this and that but if you remember right when I gave it to them it came with conditions. That was one faze of their little young adult education.
If they didn’t treat a gun or knife safely or let it rust, it was still mine to take away from them later if need be. When they do enough Farley Favors for something, it’s theirs and they can take care of it or not however they like, it’s theirs. Oh, I will probably bitch at them anyway if they do something stupid like putting a fishing reel down in the mud and saying there was a dozen more at the camp if it did get messed up, but the thing is they learned the value of hard work and the respect for the gifts they give or receive. That’s what we got to talk about today by the way. I got me a whole duffel bag full of crap that’s either on my books being outright purchases or credited for Farley Favors. Also on that lengthy list is what I’m giving folks for Christmas.” Farley declared and watched for the response he was going to get for broaching the subject so early in the season before carrying on.
”That’s another thing, just because I’m out and about collecting all that loot in abandoned places don’t mean I’m getting it for nothing or that trading some of it with Barnett means that I’m getting it for free. I risk my ass for that crap in more ways than one and I’m just starting to open up to you all with the stories of just how actually hard it is. The thing is it’s mine to dispose of how I like. I’m not saying now that ya’ll feel entitled
to my occasional largesse occasionally but I want you to value it in a different context now. I want you to think sort of like some Native American tribes do when they declare a yearly potlatch. Have you ever heard the term ‘potlatch’?” Farley questioned.
“No can’t say that I have.” Becky responded looking over to Miss Feng who hardly understood his southern English let alone Farley’s references to Native Americans.
“Potlatch is simply a tribal holiday to gather the clans and keep peace but it’s done in an ingenious way. Potlatch means to give away what you covet the most because many Native Americans considered the coveting of goods emotionally unhealthy. Kind of like the Bible, don’t covet your neighbors goods, it causes wars or jealousy. An unhealthy feeling of superiority or wealth was shown to cause the most discord or crimes in a community. Therefore, when this holiday was celebrated everyone was supposed to examine their goods and wealth accumulated this year and give something away that mattered to them the most to another in hopes of receiving something similar of importance. The value of the item was not the most important, gold or silver you might say, it was how important it was to a person. Potlatch can be thought of as a gift giving feast.” Farley explained.
“The boys have their version of money and wealth now, that’s hard for ya’ll to imagine when former society said you provided everything for them. Now when they gift give something away by crafting or trading they support the economy of the tribe as well as the soul. Things are looked at differently and each person’s value or self worth is not measured in goods but in the spirit of giving up that which causes the bad emotions we are all cursed with. Now I won’t give up my knives because I need them but I will give up for example, my saws which are some of my most cherished possessions because I’ve had bad feelings about myself being the only one good enough to use them when I know the opposite is true. I can also cast away by this gift giving, those bad feelings I have or assuage another’s jealousy of me possessing such wealth and not sharing. Some people would take it too far and destroy the property to remove it from the community and the people hoping it would gain respect. I know this makes no sense in modern society, but you have to look at it this way, everyone out here that is not part of a community supporting itself has not crossed the line of that spiritual awareness or personal identity that says the discord or the death usually just comes from just possessing “stuff”. As Ron Foster has said in many of his prepper fiction and survival books, “be prepared to lose everything but your mind!” If you can attain that level you can easily give of yourself or for yourself to others without regrets. If I lose my rifle or my knife in exchange for a lesser weapon or tool, do I measure my survival in the quality of goods or just their function? If someone can easily be gifted with such items once a year at a potlatch, would they wage war on me to steal what is freely given? That’s sort of what it means: every person has to evaluate themselves and I know to the prepper mind this seems a little crazy. But in our little community, those boys look at items as those are Farley’s tools, it’s Aunty Feng’s cooking wok, Becky’s frying pan, Charlie’s hat etc. They need to have their own things but not be so attached to them that they can’t see possessiveness as a possible cultural detriment. Stuff don’t matter; tribe matters.” Farley explained that forgiving debts was also part of the custom of having a potlatch.
“Did you know the Government criminalized potlatch back in the day just like they did their way of dress, language or customs; that’s subjugation, that’s conformity!” Farley stated
“The reasoning to attain rich or better goods if you were just going to give it away later individually changes outlooks and concepts for personal or community attainment. If you are only working for you and your benefit to be the brightest star in the sky, then you would lose out in the experience if you did not help your brother or sister attain the same goal was the reasoning if you know what I mean. Anyway, here’s my Christmas list and it’s not in a sealed envelope and I haven’t quite yet decided who gets to be in charge of it, but it’s listing all the Farley Favors ya’ll owe me just like a tab in a bar.” Which Farley said with a guffaw and Becky and Miss Feng gave Farley the look about appreciating the illusion of bar tabs.
“Here’s the deal.” Farley said back peddling to his audience’s response about his allusions. “I got everybody’s Christmas presents already sort of all put back in my cabin as well as who owes what on credit. This little parlay attempt I am undertaking with the zombie boys and the rest of the heathens out here in their little warlord garrisons and such is not the safest thing in the world to be venturing out for and I sort of want you ladies to see that my wishes are done in case something happens to me. Now hush now, it isn’t my last will and testament or anything, it’s my Santa Claus list if you want to call it that.” Farley said as Feng screeched and Becky moaned for Farley to maybe consider staying home instead.
Farley played with the scruff on his face because he hadn’t shaved in a month or two and he could probably be Santa with a beard if he wanted to by Christmas but decided not to make that joke..
“Look here, I need you alls advice on a couple things anyway. I know I went on and on about potlatches and such and how the value of property shouldn’t be considered, but these are modern times and we are modern people and folks look at things that way. I found for example not long ago a fine set of silver Stag knives. Becky, you know how much Jeremy loves that set that I’ve got and how useful they are in the field. The idea of having two knives, a big one for bigger tasks and a smaller one for those tasks that need more finesse we all realize these days. The boys are getting along just fine with their pocket knives and their sheath knives I gave them but I want to graduate that concept of two knives a bit. By the way I’ll be forever in debt to that Rural Ranger book that got me first to thinking about it. Before I got these I am wearing now, I once strapped a small sheath knife kangaroo style to my big blades sheath with paracord and rubber ranger bands. My problem is this: I’ve got this exquisite extra set of Silver Stag knives that came up for trade sometime ago at Barnett’s. Cost me a pretty penny in trade I might add, but they are infinitely well worth it in my opinion.
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They were beautiful, hand built, made in USA, affordable, yet to some a highly considered and saved for purchase because knives of this craftsmanship and quality along with the fine tempered steel used don’t come cheap. These were knives to be treasured and passed down to other generations. This particular set of exquisite yet functional antler handled eye candy knives my heart said Jeremy should have them the first time I laid eyes on them. I wanted him to be the proud possessor of these for this Christmas. But I feel funny giving them to him because I don’t have anything that fine to give Fong. I thought about this for some time and it’s a terrible thing to be a product of modern society and think this way, so that’s what brought me back to the idea of potlatch. It’s not the importance of the value of the item, its importance in meaning. I tell you what, it’s been driving me crazy for a few months since I found those two well matched and crafted blades and my first inclination was to proudly present them to Jeremy because of his love of my Pro Slab Silver Stag setup I wear.
These two beauties that I am giving him are just as fine, just as resourceful but quite a different blade style than some people would think to choose for themselves without the firm education in bushcraft that I’ve been trying to give them boys. It’s also an obligation and a responsibility that one would choose this particular styling over another. Now we all love big bladed knives and part of that is my sometimes regaling them with old stories about King Arthur and his knights and big swords and such from the medieval periods but we don’t live there now. I choose the styling of my knife for many reasons and tasks that I undertook as well as my military outlook on things. I can remember when I was in a quandary of which set I wanted to purchase and the owner as well as bladesmith of Silver Stag Knives was commenting on my choice of hip wear and I chose the part
icular pair I got from their fine line up of blades. See, I kind of got sucked up in the story of the Navy Seal that came to his shop that picked up the first prototype of that field and fighting knife thinking about it as a defensive weapon.
And yes, that blade style does lend itself to such a task and is the proper decision for that type of scenario. Unfortunately, most everybody that looks at a knife imagines they are going to be sitting in all kinds of romanticized versions of fighting with those kinds of knives and forget about the mundane tasks of living such as we are doing now. Now, I’ve let Jeremy and Fong shadow fight the air with my favorite blade but getting either one of them little boogers to properly skin an animal without hitting it’s viscera or having to do that God awful anal cut without getting splashed has got them seeing the sense of shorter and more practical knives that has nothing to do with Merlin or Lancelot in their choice of blades. I love Bowie knives also but that’s another story and use. This new pair I bought has got a gut hook on it and in case ya’ll don’t know exactly what that is, it does a twofold purpose. But basically the way I will explain it to you is that you can make a small slit on an animal, insert a hook that’s built into the blade that’s dull on the surface that touches the innards or membrane layer so it doesn’t tear into the sacs and such and basically does the unzipping of say a deer out of it’s hide in one precise trouble free motion. It takes a lot of the expertise and carefulness out of the operation needed because of its specific design. It also serves another function, however, and that is removing the guts of an animal without having to dig your hands in which we all are kind of squeamish about. The bigger blade serves many functions and has the added value of having a machined watch case type of engraving finish that helps to hold oil on the blade when it’s stored.” Farley explained.