Don’t know if “they” put something in the water or if I look like easy prey but lately young men have been challenging me left and right.
Lucky for me they don’t know a fucking thing.
It started a while back when some young millennial/ older gen Z dude wanted to play the handshake of death game. Which earned him my you’re a dumb ass look, he grinned and I put my full man strength into it.I crushed down hard enough he tried to get away. I held on until I was done.
Then some dumb ass in a new’ish naturally aspirated Charger tried his luck aginst my 71 mach 1. Spoiler alert, dodges are heavy, slow and don’t hook up well. Would have been worse for him if I was in my 04 terminator but the take away here is 2 fold…. #1) dodges suck ass #2) it takes money to go fast, old men have money. He whined like a little bitch but he did pony up the money.
I went to help a young man get his service body truck out of a ditch. He pulled over, got them right side wheels in a small but muddy as fuck ditch and all them wheels would do is spin. I asked if he needed help etc and he said yes but didn’t think my truck would pull him. Told him something like “$20 says under 20 mims”. He laughed, I shoved some 2×4’s under his wheels and they did shit. 18 mins left….. Out came the fiddle snatch blocks and a couple of his traffic cones. I walked away with $20 and new friend. He’s a goodman man. Young and somewhat dumb but a good man. 24 years old, a diesel mechanic in the national guard, went to community college for it too, and now an on the road service tech. Making good money, a good wife, a fat baby boy who makes a lot of noise. Very pleased to have him around but this weekend he wanted to test my strength at the bbq I was throwing. Once again I took his 20 bucks.
Through him I meet another young man. A guy who thought he could out fish me. On my fucking pond! $100, dawn to dusk, by total catch weight. Asked him what rules we were working with and his only stipulations were no boat, one rod. He showed up with a rod, his own gear and bait etc etc. I showed up with a trout line, 5 fishing yo-yo’s and a couple of pool noodle float rigs. He wasn’t real happy about that but young men know nothing
Across the way is two brothers living on the same plot of land. They are industrial control electricians, learned their trade on aircraft carriers , working in the same plant togther and pooling their resources to get their own horse operation going. They grew up doing team roping and want their own place to train. They are serious young men and their place is going to be legit. We got to talking about some trees they wanted removed but they didn’t have a chainsaw big enough and didn’t want spend serious cash to drop 3 trees. I told them we could pull them down with their truck. They called bullshit and they were probably right, their dodge probbaly couldnt. Any rate after about 3 mins of shit talking I was over at their place with my truck, my rigging and cellphone. Used the cellphone to FaceTime my tree guy, who talked us through the rigging and down came 2 out of the 3. I couldn’t set the rigging for the 3rd tree. We chainedsawed some of it, used a guide rope and a different kind of pulley and pulled it down. Barber chaired the shit out of it but we weren t close enough to worry about that. Haven’t figure out how to remove that stump but that’ll happen one day.
I like these young men, well not the asshole who thought he could out fish me and he don’t come around here no mo but the brothers and the diesel mechanic are are good to go.
The problem is they don’t know anything. They are smart enough dudes, and have their shit togther for young men. The mechnic is over all the time, helping me when I’m doing projects around Camp Ton, the brothers never fail to help The Girls when I’m on the road or on some other project. And they are handy young men, capable with tools, home repairs, keep their trucks on the road with their own hands etc. but folks these days don’t learn how to do things. We live in a wealthy, techincally advanced society, which is a full on blessing. These young men grew up rural/ small town america and not in the best of times economically speaking but they didn’t grow during a time where harvesting food was crucial. They arent “privileged” etc in the way my younger children and grandchildren will be but they grew up in a society where cellphones can get you a tow truck and credit means most folks can “afford” to buy speciality tools they don’t use often and can swing the very occasiaonl tow bill…… they bitch about it but most folks drive really new vehicles and don’t ever need a tow truck.
These young men aren’t lesser. What they don’t know is because older men didn’t teach them, and older men haven’t taught them because for two generations now, wealth, technology and increasingly urbanization of america means you can get by just fine without knowing these old school tricks of the trade but knowing these old school tricks of the masculine trade will earn you much status among men with useful skills and it’s tricks like that will help an older man keep his alpha cred as his body decays and technology passes him by
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