There are these two guys on separate TV networks who make a big deal out of finding ways to survive the most horrendous conditions nature can throw at them.
I’m fascinated by these shows because one never knows when one might find oneself lost in a Costa Rican rain forest without a machete.
The fellow on the Discovery Channel is an Englishman named Bear Grylls.
I am not making that up.
If you’re in Africa, real, real thirsty and drinking the fluids from elephant dung is your idea of a refreshing beverage, then Mr. Grylls is your boy.
Believe me, it takes a lot to gross this lad out. If your bandana (made, of course, from tearing up your T-shirt) gets a bit warm in the desert, he recommends taking it off, peeing on it and then putting it back on.
Mr. Grylls is quite adept at pulling himself out of quicksand and finding just the right vines to use in making a raft.
But Grylls always takes along a film crew. That means if things get too rough, somebody carrying a camera can always hand him a sandwich and a beer.
The Science Channel’s Les Stroud _ or as he prefers to be known, "Survivorman" _ makes Grylls look like a momma’s boy.
Stroud not only has to survive for a week without supplies in swamps, deserts and arctic ice floes, but he lugs his own cameras around ... all alone.
It takes a real man to schlep 50 pounds of camera equipment around the Sahara with nobody there to suck out the venom if you get bitten by a cobra or something.
I, of course, can relate to roughing it without benefit of a camera crew.
I know the exhilaration of being one with nature, of abandoning creature comforts, of straining every sinew while pitting my wily survival instincts against whatever flora or fauna I might encounter.
It has been some years now, but the memories of harrowing camping trips with my daughter Penny are still fresh.
One can’t be too careful out in the wild, so we were meticulous in our planning, precise in our respect for the environment, and proud of our ability to live off the land.
Here’s how we did it.
We would drive to a campground, making certain it had full bathroom facilities and good lighting, and hope to heaven that the girl’s mother had remembered to put our tent and sleeping bags into the car.
We could have checked to make sure everything was packed before we left home, but we preferred to live on the edge.
Most of the time, the tent had made the trip with us, and it was the work of only a few minutes to have the campsite set up to our liking.
We didn’t bring along any food. No, that would be too easy. As the pangs of hunger gnawed at our innards, we realized that if we didn’t want to go hungry, we would have to hunt down our meal.
This we would accomplish by virtue of a journey in the family car to the nearest Chinese restaurant.
Nature is often cruel. But there is, after all, predator, and there is prey. If man is to survive, he must remain on top of the food chain.
So, we brushed aside any regrets about the fate of the unfortunate chicken, celery, noodles, onions and water chestnuts that had to be sacrificed to go into the chow mein that provided us with such vital sustenance.
By the time we had eaten our fill, night would be descending, and one never knows what dangers might lurk in the darkness. If we were to somehow become disoriented and not find our way to the campsite, it could be very, very bad.
Fortunately, the highway signs were routinely accurate, and we always managed to safely navigate our way back.
Our tent was always a cheery sight, especially from our car, in which we would more than likely sleep rather than have to contend with the icky bugs and hard ground so prevalent in even the finest canvas accommodations.
Bear Grylls and "Survivorman" might not approve of how we did things, but then again, I’ve never acquired a taste for Bear’s elephant dung juice.
And I doubt I ever will.
___
Sam Pollak is editor of The Daily Star. He can be reached at spollak@thedailystar.com or at (607) 432-1000, ext. 208.
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Coinciding with our websites redesign, we launched our new story comments feature through Disqus.
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June 23, 2007
Call of the wild can be mild
- Big Chuck D'Imperio
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Upstate theme parks offered affordable thrills
I saw in the news last week that Disney theme parks are raising admission prices to almost $100 a person. Children (who Uncle Walt considers 10 and under) are now $86 a day.
Continued ... - Getting creative with gifts for grads
- Safety Patrol D.C. visits never get old
- My pal Brucie, savior of Sidney's hospital
- Catching a whiff of 'Vermont Vapor'
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Upstate theme parks offered affordable thrills
- Cary Brunswick
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Book-banning has a tendency to backfire
So what does the 1960s game show ``What's My Line'' got to do with the Bloomsday festivities occurring in Dublin, Ireland, this week? Surprisingly, there is a link.
Continued ... - Envisioning a world without terror
- We've become our own worst enemies
- Plenty of blame to go around for Bangladesh horror
- Obama is going against his word on Social Security
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Book-banning has a tendency to backfire
- Chuck Pinkey
- Guest Column
- Lisa Miller
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A view from above
Fire towers in the Catskill Mountains have always been destination points, built to capture some of the region’s best views. These sentinel stations served an important role for the earliest possible sightings of forest fires in the remote mountain ranges. But the fire towers and those who manned them fulfilled a multitude of other roles as well.
Continued ... - Being a parent is a constant learning process
- Healthy doesn't have to mean expensive
- A family era ends with close of Potter series
- Independent stores make up for loss of Borders
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- Mark Simonson
- Rick Brockway
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Don't play around with snappers
The other day, I was driving along Route 205 between Mount Vision and Hartwick. Suddenly, I had to swerve out of my lane to miss a huge snapping turtle. It was crossing from a large swamp on the left to some higher ground on the other side of the road.
- Emmons Pond Bog is pretty easy to enjoy
- Fishing has gotten a lot more complex
- Waterfalls are even better when you keep them to yourself
- Kids have sparkle in their eyes
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Don't play around with snappers
- Sam Pollak
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Justice Dept., IRS abuses worth screaming about
"If this had happened while a Republican was president, the liberal media would be screaming."
Continued ... - THIS WEEK'S POLL
- Using time off in the worst way possible
- Terror lives on, and there's no end in sight
- Remembering the glory of their times
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Justice Dept., IRS abuses worth screaming about
- William Masters
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Schreibman tops Chris Gibson on women's issues
As the time to vote draws near, we need to remember how money can run politics more than we can. Raising funds is a prominent (if not the dominant) task of getting elected. Raising issues is also crucial, but those efforts are subject to distortion and fear-mongering.
- Republicans feelentitled to allthey can garner An entitlement is a legal benefit available from the government to individuals who are within a defined category of recipients, such as needing insurance for unemployment or health services.
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Romney focuses on self; Obama emphasizes unity
Mitt Romney criticizes President Obama for saying a person's success is rooted in his community, and is not all his alone. Romney belittles this with his belief in individual initiative. He is better at the put-down than the push-up.
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Romney shows little regard for common man
The Republicans in Congress have voted over and over, 33 times, redundantly and uselessly, to rescind what they call Obamacare.
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Scouts' gay ban creates problem where none exists
The Boy Scouts of America's "emphatic reaffirmation" of its vow to exclude any and all homosexuals from its hallowed ranks is ill-considered and pathetic, especially in view of its having reviewed the matter for two years.
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Schreibman tops Chris Gibson on women's issues
