Who knew a grade school conversation in the lunch room could lead to such frank discussions between husband and wife decades later about the amount of time one needs to spend hunting and fishing and generally cavorting about the wilds of North America?
I was spewing some vitriol about fishing being a boring activity where nothing happened for hours on end, when I was called out for having never really been fishing. Shorty Gassner and Delvin Crankshaft basically told me to put my money where my mouth was.
One weekend fishing trip later and I was spending paper route money hand over fist on tackle boxes, fishing rods, lures, line and every other thing a middle school kid could possibly need for another eighty years of fishing!
As we all know, it didn't end with fishing. That moment all those years ago spawned a fisherman, hunter, backpacker, camper, hiker, bicyclist, hell, I've even gone trail running a time or two; and without a single wild animal in pursuit - an all around outdoorsman.
As you've likely read in any of my books or learned from years of reading my columns, I did in fact grow up in central Wisconsin. Little B.S. might be a fitting abbreviation for a town in my nonsensical short humor collections, but in actuality the B.S. stands for Bull Shoals. Little Bull Shoals was an early town in Wisconsin right near where I actually grew up. The description of the area, the lakes, rivers, woodlots, and so forth are relatively accurate. For a young man consumed with desires to hunt and fish it was the perfect place to spend a childhood.
One of my earliest memories of an outdoor nature was going to my aunt and uncle's house to see the whitetail buck my uncle had harvested. Uncle Wayne - one of the many men in my life who were combined to form the Uncle Slappy character - was instrumental in much of my outdoor learning. We spent a great deal of time afield together and my deep respect and appreciation for the great outdoors comes directly from him.
The picture of my sister and I with the deer has been a staple of our family photo albums for four decades. I look back on it now and still see, on that adolescent face, the same
The author and his sister "The Skeeter" with Stanley the deer.
happiness which can be seen today anytime I prepare to head into the field. I also see a look on my sister's face that says "Get me the hell out of here" which has been a continued influence on the character of The Skeeter in all my short humor writings.
Ironically, The Skeeter is another of my short humor characters who bares no resemblance to reality. I do in fact have a sister. She was called "Skeeter" by my father growing up, which morphed into "The Skeeter" in my writing. Contrary to the ornery, combative relationship depicted in my writing, our actual relationship couldn't have been more different. We formed an early friendship and it has endured into our adult lives. That, of course, is not humorous, so adjustments were made.
Adjustments are the name of the game in writing, just as they are in life. Many of my early outdoor excursions taught me just that. Growing up, my family did a lot of hiking. It was an activity chosen mostly because it was free, but also as a way to get away from the television and into the great outdoors. Fresh air does the body good as my mother would say, and I couldn't agree more. Those family excursions taught me much about adjusting on the fly. When the parking lot at a trailhead in the Smoky Mountains is full, simply go to the next one and walk further. When a dump truck passes your station wagon on a county highway and the updraft blows your canoe off the top of the car and onto the shoulder of the road, you just come home late for supper so you can fish for the same amount of time. When one is able to adjust on the fly, one is able to see black bears in the Smokies and large northern pike laying in a canoe.
While hiking was an enjoyable adventure which occupied my childhood, hunting whitetail deer cemented my love of the great outdoors. Like many Wisconsin kids, I learned much about hunting from my father. The years since have disproven much of it, but there a couple things to pass along to my own son. When it is twenty below zero the deer don't want to be out in the woods any more than the hunters do. In that case it is perfectly reasonable to sit and drink coffee at the local diner until well after sunrise and then go back to bed. That lesson goes hand in hand with the most important teaching I ever received, you
can't shoot a deer if you're not in the woods. You wouldn't think a lesson like that would need to be taught, but when it comes to getting through the thick skull of one's progeny, whatever words you are able to find to teach the importance of patience - USE THEM!
Thankfully, I did in fact learn patience. I was rewarded with my first deer at the age of sixteen and was able to take my second deer roughly two seconds after my first. I was posting on a drive while hunting with my best friend, his uncle, and his cousin - two more men who went into the creation of Uncle Slappy as a matter of fact.
The years between those first deer and my joining the army at age twenty-five were spent working whatever jobs were available, avoiding going to class in high school and college to instead fish and hunt as much as possible. The only real concern I had was making enough money to support my hobbies, or obsessions maybe? Realizing my life needed a bit more direction and some sort of actual plan, I looked to a career in the military. My family has a history of military service dating all the way back to The Civil War. With my service during Operation Iraqi Freedom / Operation Enduring Freedom my family has served in every major military action the United States has ever been in. I was unfortunately injured while deployed to Northern Iraq and a traumatic brain injury derailed what I had hoped would be a long career in the army
While the injury derailed a military career, it spawned a career in writing. From authoring newspaper columns, to compendiums of outdoor humor, to books espousing the virtues of the outdoor world and the activities we partake in while
there, it has been a wild ride. Instead of deploying to foreign lands, my day to day life is spent as a husband and father. I hunt, fish, write, and try to help folks understand how important our outdoor heritage is and why we should preserve it for future generations. I am living proof a life well lived is all one needs to be fulfilled. Plans might change, dreams may be altered, but a man can still find happiness on whichever path he ends up, if he allows himself to see it.
I highly recommend all of these companies. I am not paid to endorse them, nor do they endorse me. They simply make some of the best outdoor equipment on the market and support some of the outdoor causes closest to my heart. Whether making sure outdoor habitat and big game are preserved for future generations or making sure we have the best equipment available when we go afield, you can't go wrong with any of these companies - in my opinion of course!