Outdoor Enthusiast Must Have Book: A Fine And Pleasant Misery

Nov 4, 2010
Chandra Brown

Texas Camping - Chandra Brown

If you have a few stories from your experience living temporarily under the sky, this book should be an addition to your camp story collection.

A Fine And Pleasant Misery: Cautionary Tales Of The Outdoor Life By Patrick F. McManus, is by far the outdoor enthusiast humor guide. His anecdotal style will leave you chuckling and ready to share the laugh with your friends.

About The Author

Patrick was born and raised in Idaho on a farm where much of his material for his writing was cause for inspiration. He graduated from Washington State University in 1956 and began his writing career in the newspaper field. He dabbled in television reporting and became a professor of English in 1962.

He has authored five other outdoor best-sellers and wrote columns for Outdoor Life and made contributions to Field & Stream, Sports Illustrated, Audubon and Reader’s Digest.

Roughing It

Patrick captures the essence of what a true outdoorsman is made of; grit, whit and willing to rough it. According to McManus, “camping was a fine and pleasant misery.” The word “was” is key to his statement that true camping is not renting a cabin or hauling your home behind you; it consists of primitive, old fashioned ways.

For instance, climbing boots, camp stoves and sleeping bags are luxuries. Real camping was hiking in your tennis shoes, cooking what you caught over a fire pit and freezing in an old quilt you called a bedroll while gazing at the stars.

Certain rules applying to true camping McManus calls “kid camping”. The first and most important is that there is no planning involved. The second rules is to do it with friends with nicknames like Retch and Lefty and a good for nothing, “pervert” dog called Strange.

Mountain Men Mentors

Of course, kid camping had to have a helpful skill or two taught by a well seasoned real life mountain man. You needed one that knew the secrets of living off the fat of the land like good old Rancid Crabtree and was a reliable source because he was, “never caught red-handed in the act of holding a job.”

You also need a supplier of tools and tack for your outing adventures so you made alliances with the likes of Henry P. Grogan, the owner of the War Surplus store. A score buy was, “any items with a bullet hole in it,” sure enough to feed imagination fodder for any boy heading out on adventures.

Survival Technique

Anyone heading out for an excursion needs to know the basics for survival. McManus brilliantly defines the first reaction to getting lost and how to deal with the emotion that initially arises.

First, getting lost is usually accomplished by relying, “on a companion who claims infallible sense of direction.” The second way to get lost is simply by daydreaming. If one finds themselves in this situation, using the MSP model for releasing the emotion of panic in the long run will save you.

MSP stands for Modified Stationary Panic and is performed under these guidelines: “the key is to not bounce up and down in a monotonous fashion but to vary the steps so that it appears to be a short folk dance, I recommend throwing in a couple of Russian squat kicks. The chittering sound should be replaced by an Austrian drinking song, shouted at the top of your voice.”

If you have ever been lost in the outdoors or driving on the road, conjuring up this image will indeed result in a laugh, allowing those few needed seconds to exhale and recoup your bearings.

Patrick F. McManus has captured all the fun the outdoors has to offer in a hilarious, memorable fashion that keeps you reading, re-reading and sharing his stories. If you camp you have stories of your own, this book only makes one want to pack up and head to the great outdoors to reminisce around a campfire with family or buddies.

If you’re heading for your favorite fishing hole, tuck A Fine And Pleasant Misery in your fishing vest you won’t be disappointed! (The chapter, How to Fish a Crick may be right up your alley)

Source:

McManus, Patrick F. A Fine and Pleasant Misery, Cautionary Tales of the Outdoor Life, Introduction and Edited by Jack Samson, Henry Holt and company, 1978. First Owl Edition, 1981.