Publisher’s Note
Nov/Dec, 2000
Get a Backwoods Meatball FREE
with a purchase of $100 or more
Now and then you come up with an idea that is just too silly to let go. So it was with Backwoods Meatballs, which came to me during a restless night’s sleep. “If they can make those stupid Beanie Babies,” I told my wife, “then we can make Backwoods Meatballs.” So without further ado, allow me to introduce Mount Baldy (me), Head Flunky (John Silveira), and Jackie Out Backie (Jackie Clay) in the ads on pages 17 and 73 of this issue. We’ll be giving these fist-sized lentil and acrylic-stuffed fabric staff look-alike critters away FREE with purchases amounting to $100 or more. In future issues we’ll introduce similar look-alike critters based on everyone on the magazine staff from Annie Bananie (Annie Duffy) and Copper (Mas Ayoob) to Captain Gimp (Ron Graham) and Momzo (Ilene Duffy).
The idea for the magazine is to increase sales, but we also figured that readers who will be buying magazine items as Christmas gifts anyway for their friends would also appreciate the chance to get one of these little handmade stuffed critters. They’ll be made by staff members during the lulls between deadlines. They actually look kind of nifty and are about the size of a tennis ball. Maybe these Backwoods Meatballs will join your select stash of weird stuff and be worth thousands of dollars apiece some day. Who knows!
At any rate, starting with this issue we’ll enclose one of these Backwoods Meatballs FREE with any order over $100. You’ll have to take your chances on which one you get. To make it easier to qualify for one we’re offering a lot of stuff at our lowest prices ever. They’re listed in the ads on pages 16 and 17, and include:
- Any of our six anthologies for $10 each. Buy as many or as few as you like.
- Our CD-ROM of years 1996-1999. By one at the regular price of $39.95 and you get a second one for $1.05. That makes it two for $41.
- Jeffrey Fowler’s solar electric book, The Evolution of an Independent Home, for $10. It normally sells for $24.95.
- Pocket-sized copy of the U.S. Constitution and The Declaration of Independence for $3.
- A subscription gift certificate for $17. This normally would cost $21.95. This would be an inexpensive way to introduce a friend or relative, or even your local library, to the magazine.
- All the half-priced books listed on page 98.
With all that stuff, plus all the new books we have listed on pages 94 through 97, it should be pretty easy to come up with $100 worth of purchases so you can get a Backwoods Meatball.
Homeschooling articles
We’re also introducing a new type of homeschooling article with this issue (see page 60), one that will be for adults as well as kids. The articles will be on science, math, and history, since they are the key subjects to giving us an understanding of the world in which we live. Many of these homeschooling pieces will be written, at least initially, by me and Silveira since we have knowledge in these areas. The level of the articles will be at the high school level or above, as there are plenty of outfits out there already writing for the younger grades, and I think BHM readers are a lot smarter than the average magazine reader.
Although we’ve done a number of homeschooling articles in past issues, we’ve done nothing on a consistent basis. We intend to make a commitment to this higher level of homeschooling, as I think it goes hand in hand with being self-reliant. If the subject material sometimes seems to be rather deep, please persevere and it will become easier as you gain knowledge in unfamiliar areas. There’s a great big ocean of knowledge out there that is usually just glossed over in high schools and universities. I purposefully chose an overview of physics as our initial homeschooling piece because it underlies all the other sciences.
Keep in mind also that most of John Silveira’s historical articles in past issues are all excellent homeschooling pieces, even though we don’t label them that, and many homeschooled high school teenagers study them. John is also a degreed mathematician and is knowledgeable in all the sciences.
New England office
How’s this for another idea. I recently visited New England as part of a trip back to visit relatives in Boston, where I lived for the first 29 years of my life. Got to visit a couple of our editors while there, namely Richard Blunt in Connecticut and Oliver Del Signore in Boston. Couldn’t quite make a connection with Massad Ayoob in New Hampshire, but I’ll be back there soon.
What impressed me about the area, although impressed is not quite the word I’m looking for, was that it is largely a wasteland when it comes to self-reliance information. Nobody knows anything. They’re also ignorant about guns, the Constitution, the current state of America’s freedoms, you name it.
So I thought we’d open a New England branch of the magazine. Maybe we can bring a little bit of real knowledge to the Eastern heathens. We’re exploring this possibility now. I’ll let you now. " Dave
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