"Patent Pending"

To say I was not bitten by the entrepreneurial bug would be a gross understatement. Some people are blessed with whatever gene it is that allows them to see a business opportunity in even the most mundane of circumstances. I, alas, did not get in that line when genes were being handed out; instead, I waited all day and half the night in line for those really useful genes that allowed me to make really cool noises when I played war as a kid, and that make me a really great whistler today. We all know how individuals with such genes have helped reshape the world. The truth be told, I am among the countless drones destined to work for smarter, braver and more creative and entrepreneurial folks than we. Such is my lot in life.

Amazingly however, some currently unidentified event or substance recently stimulated the left side of my brain, and I have had not one, not two, but no less than four original ideas for which there just might be a market. Marketing professionals believe very deeply in testing their ideas and products on live audiences. So allow me to steal a page out of their playbook and focus group my earth-shattering cogitations with you now . . . before the light bulb goes back out.

Idea No. 1: USO for Hunting Camps

For more than six decades the USO has traveled anywhere and everywhere to bring a little slice of America to our armed servicemen and women overseas. We’ve all seen the footage of Bob Hope and Marilyn Monroe entertaining troops in Korea. Recently Ted Nugent and Toby Keith rocked our fighting men and women in Afghanistan and Iraq. While hunters don’t perform the same service as our brave warriors when freedom is threatened, they do spend long periods of time in far off places away from their homes. So why not a USO for them, too?

I propose to establish a need-based service organization featuring high caliber entertainers to go on junkets from hunting camp to hunting camp bringing music, laughter, food, and deodorant (unscented of course) to those in need. Modeled on the real USO and its recipe for success, the goal will be to sign up comedians, country-western stars and silver screen icons to donate their time and services to those deployed to such far off and dangerous posts as the Mississippi Delta, the Alabama Black Belt, New Mexico elk country, rattlesnake infested Texas mesquite flats, the pheasant-rich Black Hills of South Dakota, the quail-filled pine plantations of southwest Georgia, and the frigid hardwood stands of Montana. Just imagine the goodwill that will flow from the photo ops of movie stars scoring out antlers and measuring spurs before a throng of bedazzled good ol’ boys.

Idea No. 2: Camp-Inspired Aromatherapy Candles

Scented candles constitute a multi-million dollar industry annually in the United States. My wife, who at times has been a major source of funding for this industry, relaxes by igniting candles that emit her favorite soothing aromas. She swears by the candles’ ability to relieve stress and alter moods. Building on this concept, I am going to introduce to the outdoors market aromatherapy candles for hunters and hunting camps. The angst and frustration hunters feel over missing a deer or getting busted by a gobbler soon will be assuaged simply by lighting any one of my fine assortment of scented votives – Freshly Bush-Hogged Field, Disked Up Soil, Gun Cleaning Solvent, Wet Dog Lying in Front of the Fireplace, Honeysuckle, and Pungent, Dusty Seed Bag.

The guys in the white lab coats told me not to bother with my Doe Pee, High Sulphur Well Water, Aerosol Bug Spray, and Three Days-No Shower scent ideas. I think they’d have been big hits with the hunters, but what do I know?

Idea No. 3: Bottled Up Emotions

Have you ever heard the phrase, “Somebody should bottle that and sell it”? Well, now someone has. All the good times and great feelings about being outdoors are captured forever in my convenient four ounce bottles you can open and enjoy again and again. Hunters would be hard-pressed to put into words the spectrum of feelings and emotions they experience while in the Great Outdoors. Words cannot adequately express the heart-pounding excitement of a heavy-horned buck emerging from a swamp or the feeling of utter triumph at hoisting up a mature longbeard by the feet. Adjectives come up short when trying to capture the zing that races up the spine at the burst of a covey of wild quail exploding from the grass, or the happy panic that goes along with trailing the erratic flight of a dove through the treetops with the bead of a shotgun. Now, for the first time, those sensations are all here in my original travel sized containers.

Making memories is among the predominant motivations for spending time outdoors. Lifelong memories of family, friends, hunts, beards, stories, racks, shots, misses, and jokes are what keep bringing us back to the camp hunt after hunt, year after year. They are just part of the allure of being there. Now you can experience those emotions and savor those memories year round with these must-have hunts in a bottle. Order yours today.

Idea No. 4: Camp in a Pill

Long ago, someone came up with a pill capable of fooling people into feeling like they had just eaten a huge meal and were completely stuffed to prevent them from overdoing it on their portions. This dietary subterfuge was meant to curtail overeating and foster weight loss. I have taken this concept one step further and am in the process of manufacturing a pill that can be taken as needed to give anyone – regardless of age, gender or body mass – the feeling that they have just spent a weekend at the camp.

Now, any time someone has a bad day at the office and just needs to get away but can’t, he can take one of these all-natural herb enhanced pills and within minutes experience a stomach soreness that comes from those belly laughs one has only at the camp. The next time someone is ravenously hungry and has access to merely one-quarter of a day-old club sandwich, he can instead swallow one of these patentable panaceas and within no time experience the satisfaction of just having enjoyed a hearty ribeye steak and baked potato with collard greens and homemade cornbread followed by pecan pie a la mode. The boston butt with baked beans and sweet tea unit is currently up for FDA approval. Regretfully, research has indicated that manufacture of the pill able to replicate the sensation of wrapping your hands around a trophy rack would necessitate the presence of illicit narcotics. Hence, this offering lingers in research and development for the time being.

I don't have good ideas very often but I think the four lightning bolts described above stand a fair chance of changing not just the outdoors industry as we know it, but the entire course of human history itself. I hope you're as excited as I am for this venture to get off the ground. It's a guaranteed success in the making.

Or maybe not. Jeff Foxworthy, George Strait and Jessica Simpson all just turned me down. A backup singer on the second season of American Idol and one of the fellows from that makeover show said they’d be happy to do it, though. Oh well. Back to the drawing board.

Hey, who turned out the lights?



(c) Roger Guilian 2006

"That's Cookin'"

I flipped the tenderloin beneath a blanket of thick, heavy, delicious smoke, and inched it a little closer to the coals and the hickory chips that puffed like a locomotive on top of them. As I replaced the grill lid I noticed my 2 ½ year old son, tongs in hand, looking curious and a little panicked up at me. “Want cook,” he said unassuredly.

“We are cooking,” I explained. “Men cook meat on grills, and when we do so it’s called grilling, grilling out, or just cookin’.” I continued by extolling upon him the heavy burden and awesome responsibility he has as a man-to-be to learn to grill out and carry on the calling and tradition of all men everywhere to master the grate and coals. He nodded in absolute understanding as I described how we men graduate from grilling to smoking any time we cook large cuts of fine meat for long periods of time over indirect heat, preferrably with the aid of a pile of well-soaked hickory chips. That one really hit home for him because we just so happened to be smoking a fine pork tenderloin at that very moment; the sweet, flavorful smoke provided courtesy of broken up casks from the Jack Daniels distillery in Tennessee.

My son’s anxiety over what he perceived to be inaction on the part of the chef was assuaged by my elucidation that when men smoke meat over a bed of throbbing hot coals, we do so most effectively by holding a beer in one hand and confidently thrusting the other in our pocket while we watch and comment on – usually quite complimentarily – the smoke pouring from the seam between the grill and its lid. Immediately he recognized that he and I were not simply standing around while work and cooking waited to get done; we were at that precise moment inexorably engrossed in the art of cookin’. His faced turned from one of trepidation to one of understanding, and finally to one of supreme confidence.

As the pork was slowly cooked by the hickory fog inside the grill, I expounded upon the basics of grilling different types of meat. I prefaced the introductory lesson with one biblical tenet he must carry with him throughout his life: Thou Shalt Not Overcook. Beef and steaks, I explained, need to be watched carefully because their fat will flare up the flames as it drips onto the coals, creating a risk that an inattentive cook could ruin the meat by scorching and overcooking it. Venison is even more sensitive and can be overcooked even under the most watchful eye. Deer meat is the most overcooked delicacy on the grill, with the possible exception of fowl. A venison filet, I went on, is unlike beef which is flexible enough to be served anywhere between rare and well done, although anyone who would request a steak well done should go be a vegetarian instead and leave the beef to someone who will do it justice. Venison is acceptably served at medium rare only, I insisted, and this means the prudent cook should pull it off the grill and check it precisely after it has cooked for four minutes per side. Having had his share of venison backstrap already, the little man nodded to convey his grasp of the material. We moved on.

Fowl such as duck and dove are easily overcooked, too, I explained, and suggested he consider wrapping fowl in bacon and securing it, along with a dollup of cream cheese and a jalapeno pepper, with a toothpick to seal in the moisture and avoid drying it out. After all, I stressed, he will invest good money and a lot of time pursuing fine game such as dove, duck and deer, and he owes it to the animals and himself to prepare it properly and enjoy its bounty. “Wild turkey is good grilled, too, son, but it’s even better deep fried in strips,” I tried. He didn’t buy this one, as he is fully aware my best chance of being in the same room with a dead turkey – much less actually ingesting one – is when I go to the grocery store and even then I'd probably have to ask someone where to find it. “Silly Daddy,” he teased.

By this time the pork was ready and it was time to take it inside to be enjoyed. As I opened the back door I told him, “That’s cookin’, son. And you’re doing a hell of a job.” I alluded to our next lesson as he stepped off the porch and into the house: ribs and boston butts. He glanced back over his shoulder with a look that told me he could not wait. Neither can I. He’s a fine assistant.



(c) Roger Guilian 2006