Time to live up to friend's teaching

With my NFL team on a bye week in the playoffs this weekend I jumped at the chance to go bird hunting.

It started with a call from my brother that was prompted by a call from one of his buddies who had been talking with a farmer with a wheat field being ruined by wild geese. As I write this about a dozen would-be waterfowlers are putting together gear for the safari, some with a little experience and some with none at all.

I fall into the category of a little bit of experience a long time ago. In my 20s I spent a lot more time than I should have chasing all manner of feathered, finned and furred creatures. I don't regret the hours I whiled away in a duck blind or in a boat. I do regret the fact that for some reason I stopped doing it.

The belly is big these days and the bones are stiff in the mornings but I think I can still get out there and do it. We'll see.

I found every call I own except the goose call. Most of the camo gear doesn't fit but I've managed to piece together an outfit good enough for a weekend outing.

Some of the last goose and duck hunts I was on were with a dear friend more than 30 years my senior. Lee's been gone for better than 25 years now but he'll be on this trip with me this weekend — in spirit at least.

I was blessed with lots of patience back then and having an old man along wasn't a burden it was a chance to learn a little. Granted, those lessons often came from hearing the same stories over and over again but they stuck with me.

It was hard seeing a friend try so hard to do the things he'd done all his life in the outdoors and sometimes coming up short of the goal. But it was all worth it to watch his eyes light up through those thick, smudged glasses of his when he had a trout on the line or was examining a fresh killed bird.

He told me when his health started to fail and he wasn't getting around too well he figured he had two choices. Stay home and be miserable with self-pity or get out there and keep doing whatever he was capable of doing as long as he could do it.

It's probably time I live up to Lee's teaching and get out there with the birds and the fishes again.

I don't really make resolutions but if I did that would be a good one.

Karl Terry writes for Clovis Media Inc. Contact him at:

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