Whew it's hot..... as the days of summer drag on I am reminded of my childhood days when the summer was the best part of the year. When each day lead to the opportunity of new adventure. Might I be looking at these days with a bit of Romanticism..... well.... maybe but they were wonderful days none the less.
I don't remember any complaint about how hot it was and I am sure it was hot. I don't remember trying to find ways to hole up in the house all day and suck up the AC. I don't remember there being a single shortage of things to do. I do remember..... riding bicycles all day. Ten miles or more to our friends house just so we could hang out and play. I do remember going to movie matinees at the movie theater for a buck. I do remember late night catfish trips with my best friend and catching so many we could hardly carry the stringer. I remember weekend camping trips in the surrounding woods with just us kids several miles away from home...... no cell phones.... no pagers..... no GPS. Just us....... of course our parents could find us if they absolutely needed to but it would have taken significant effort.
Why do I bring this up? I got a small glimpse of what it use to be like in my childhood. I decided on Friday to take the boys out to the woods. We were going to spend a few hours doing the unthinkable...... actually playing outside. I asked my wife to make us some lunches, peanut butter and jelly and we each grabbed a couple of waters and threw them in our back packs. We grabbed our bikes, and three B.B. guns and headed to the woods. We didn't go far into the woods maybe a couple of miles but it was wet and after a bit we had to push the bikes and could no longer ride. It was hot the going was tough and there was a little complaining but we got to a nice spot as we were all covered in water and sweat.
It was time to leave the bikes and go on foot with the B.B. Guns. We were loaded, still with backpacks on and we headed deeper into the woods. Hoping to find new things, discover new places and make new fun. We did just that.
We have one main rule when it comes to hunting. If you kill it you have to eat it. So you better be sure of what you are shooting (no one wants to eat a skunk) and if you have no intentions of eating it your better off just keeping the memory and not wasting the resource. This is not the only rule. We are very aware of gun safety. We talk about it every time we have the guns out. We don't shoot things out of season and we respect the resources that God has given us. Couple of things growing up I was always told not to eat any mammals, (rabbits, squirrel, hog etc) in months that do not have an R in them. That would be May, June, July, August, so even though we were out there and nothing of significance was in season it still gave us an opportunity to enjoy the experience. Oh by the way we have claimed open season on the following creatures...... Lizards, all amphibians....snakes and bugs, if you can hit that grass hopper than pull the trigger. If you see one you can kill it. You don't have to eat it. We will all celebrate in your fine shooting and we will go on about our business loosing no sleep about it.
So what did we shoot? Empty beer bottles, a few cans and the water bottles that we had brought with us after we had drank them. The boys are getting very good at shooting... they are able to hit nearly anything that they shoot and almost at will. They are exhibiting the gun safety rules in the process. It wont be long until we can graduate to something with a little more bang. We packed out all the trash that we took in and left nothing behind. We did leave the tiny little pieces of glass that had been shot and re-shot until virtually nothing remained. What did we see? A bald eagle..... A turkey buzzard..... A water moccasin eating a frog.... My son got a little to close to this while we were wading in ankle deep water. I shot the 2 foot snake in the head.... he dropped the frog not sure if the snake lived or not but remember we have declared open season on snakes.... and seeing how I was sure it was a moccasin I wasn't going to try and find out if it was going to die from the injuries that I had inflicted upon it.
What did we discover? That the outdoors are still a lot of fun. Sometimes boys need to be motivated to dream about adventure. We decided that we are going to load up and ATV and go to this perfect spot that we found and camp for the night. Just the boys no electricity, no TV, no video games. Just us.......... the outdoors, and a few ghost stories. While your children will remember the time that you spend with them.... I doubt that playing Wii or watching TV with them will have as long of a lasting memory as teaching them to love the outdoors.
Of all the wonders in the world none speak of God's glory any more clearly than nature. Find a way to pass that on. Walking, hiking, fishing, there are hundreds of ways, find one and do it with your kids. The memories will last a lifetime ..... they have lasted me.
Here are the boys looking as menacing as they possibly can. I am convinced.... how bout you.
What things do you remember doing when you were a kid during the summer?
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