The Exalted Shack Master and a single subject recently paid a visit to faraway Camp Cholesterol, and boy, did we have fun.  
It is deer season, after all.
Camp Shack was left in the hands of the very capable Occupy Camp Shack protesters who would not be thrown from their encampments as winter is about to set in, with perhaps 100 inches of snow and 40 below temperatures coming their way.
Our camp meteorologist assured the thousands of protesters, some who arrived from more southerly habitats, that they needn’t worry about the weather too much since climate change will reduce the number of lengthy cold snaps by about half.
When pressed further about the science behind his predictions, the meteorologist said that too much information can be confusing for the people of large industrial nations that chose to ignore the fact that we’re headed toward an unsustainable future. He told the huddled crowd that was shifting from one foot to another during slight snow flurries that he knew they were trying to see the world differently than the usual cast of robber barons and Wall Street financiers.
He told them to keep pushing against the wall of conformity that has left the nation in a near-feudal state.
He said it would be cold—heck, it is winter—but just not as cold as it used to be. A good cold snap nowadays will last less than a week, not three. Bundle up, and if you’re careful you won’t end up frozen in a snow bank.
Before the Exalted Shack Master and the single subject, a scribe, departed the land of little sticks on their way to the land of muskeg and pine, the camp witch doctor blessed their bullets and packed them a satchel of steel wool and xanthan gum to ward off evil spirits.
They were the same bullets that had been blessed the year before. And the year before that.
The incantation was provided to ward off hangovers and provide a safe journey. We always humor our camp witch doctor and go along with his odd beliefs, knowing full well that it’s never the rum that gives you a hangover. Cloudy morning thoughts are caused by a buildup of neutrinos passing through your head. Don’t blame the booze, it’s plain old physics, though we haven’t quite come to grips with the notion of quantum theory and the idea that your atoms might be in two places at the same time.
The Exalted Shack Master told the protesters they could play on the deer stand escalators as long as they were mindful of the weight restrictions. They could shoot the flare gun and heat up the sauna. And be on the watch for unscrupulous speculators who snoop around every camp for some new commodity or fossil fuel they could trade in futures, swaps, or derivatives.
Nothing in the financial industry has changed, he warned. Supply and demand is doomed with those miscreants on the loose and lurking near our shack.
The Camp Shack portfolio is gluten free. We at Camp Shack aren’t beholden to the agri-industrial complex. In recent years the camp has shied away from investments in direct solar power, choosing instead to look at fresh innovations that will someday be able to harvest moonlight, which is just as bright in the winter as it is in the summer.
You want steady dividends? Tapioca starch. Modified tapioca starch. Earl Butz wouldn’t touch the stuff, and commodities brokers won’t go near. There are those things in the universe that defy the gravity of Wall Street. Tapioca starch. Put your money on modified tapioca starch.
Back to our visit to Camp Cholesterol.   
After many years of attempted communication between our two hunting camps by non-industrial means, abiding by the rule of the Great Anachronist, we finally made contact when a note in a bottle was hand-carried over the Laurentian Divide and dropped in a stream headed toward Hudson Bay. After a miraculous journey, the bottle was retrieved by a member of Camp Cholesterol, and a return message was delivered by ore train. We gladly accepted and headed northward, where after a perilous journey through blinding snow and condescending ravens we were greeted at the door of the camp nestled in the pines by our old moose-hunting pal, The Echo. We exchanged gifts: fish for pairs of knee-high neoprene boots, which are what everybody has on their feet up in the country that surrounds Camp Cholesterol. I mean everybody. Waitresses and people that work at the bank. The barber. The local high school basketball team. Even the hockey team, if you can believe it.
The Echo, also a scribe, appeared to be head of the camp. That was apparent simply because the Exalted Shack Master, who looks and acts a bit like Napoleon, didn’t patronize him, showed little disdain, wasn’t smug with him like he is with all of the subjects and scribes at Camp Shack.
We’ve learned to live with that and go along with that. It’s just easier that way.
The Exalted Shack Master banged his hand on the table and killed a fly with his shoe.
A great meal was to be prepared before the hunt.
“Bring on the cholesterol, baby—we’ve been starving ourselves for years,” he shouted.
The fry pan sang.
We have known The Echo for years. A newspaperman, he is skilled at throwing his voice. The words come out of his mouth and your lips do the moving, which is a very interesting ability and quite fun at public meetings or crowded deer camps.
Believe me, many a public official has wondered just what the heck was said at just the wrong time, only to later read about it in the newspaper. It isn’t all journalistic hijinks, however. The Echo is a kind and humble man and never accepts credit when he offers a great quote to some poor fellow stumbling for the right thing to say.
“The ultimate result of shielding men from the effects of folly is to fill the world with fools.”

Forrest Johnson has been writing for over 20 years and was editor of the Lake County Chronicle in Two Harbors.