We met a mountain man who killed a bear. We saw the picture, we saw the skull. He gave a claw to each of my kids.

We met a mountain man and also met his legally blind, ninety-year old mother. She wanted to give us hugs and just talk to us, have contact with someone. She gave a cookie to each of my kids and seemed genuinely glad to have our company.

We met a mountain man. We met his mother. He shared an important moment of his life with us; he opened up his humble home. He was kind and very engaging. He seemed very happy to share his story of when he killed his bear.

We met a mountain man and he was proudly independent. He seemed very satisfied in feeling that he owed nothing to anyone. It felt as if he could have been one of the original minute men, private and not wanting to get involved in other affairs until the point that they concerned and affected him. And perhaps his old, kind mother.

We met this man and he lived as most of us would likely not live, not these days, not any longer. He was cleaning his freshly-caught crappy when we met him and apologized for not being able to shake our hands due to the blood on his hands. He was polite and considerate and seemingly self-sufficient. And very proud of that fact.

It seemed to me this man would have a hard time surviving or at least enjoying a life as most of us now have. We work, we slave away, and we answer to far too much authority, every day and in so very many ways. And so much, far too much I know now more than before, is dictated to us by others who do not live as we do and would not want to. By those whose rules rule us but somehow fail to touch them in the same way as well. And yet we smile and carry on and let them add, little by little and often more, to the control they have over us- all of us.

This man will likely die in his house as will his mother. He was likely born in that same house or at least nearby. His mother as well. With heavy accents and a strong sense of lingering independence, both things scoffed at by those so much in the know, so elite and high above, they linger on and seem to be satisfied in their existence and with their blanket of freedom.

So much more and so far beyond what most of us hang on to in this life. So elevated from what we are now allowed to enjoy. So much more like what we were, all of us, much more like such a long time ago.

We are still free but these mountain people are still more so. But, in the end, not fully like they should be.

None of us are all that. None of us will ever be. A mountain man and and his mother. And a poor, dead bear.

Hold on to your freedom my friends. And take as much with you as you can when you go for once, a long time ago, that was what this country meant for you, for me, for all of us.

May God bless your souls and keep you always. My friends.