The Late, Great Outdoors

As part of my strategy to broaden my horizons and improve myself as a husband, father, provider, and human being in general, I plan to go out in the woods and shoot cute, furry woodland creatures.

My reasons for wanting to hunt rabbits are many and varied, and I won't get into them right now, because I'm afraid that if I do people will begin to suspect that I am more crazy and unbalanced than I appear. But to prepare myself to go rabbit hunting, my Dad and I went out in the woods on Saturday and set about finding the dwelling places of those elusive cottontails. During the four or five hours we spent tromping around the woods we were amazed at the diversity and sheer numbers of wildlife that we saw. In the hours that we spent combing the forests, we came across countless numbers of... of... ummm... well, we saw a squirrel! Yes, one lone, scrawny (I assume it was scrawny), depressing squirrel. On my 15 minute commute I see more wildlife smooshed on the street than could be found in several hours of active animal seeking-out.

As depressing as that was, I still had a really good time. You see, this is how Dad and I used to go hunting. We would pack up our hunting gear, drive out into the Coast Range (or the San Bernardino Mountains, when we lived in SoCal), and hike around until we came upon a place where the animals should have been. As you have no doubt surmised, the animals had been notified of our coming and had all fled to Argentina, where they sipped tropical drinks (I assume there are tropical drinks to sip in Argentina) and snickered at those pasty goobers sweating their freckles off in their furry animal search, and will only find that all the wildlife has skipped town.

But it was always fun. And that's why our recent trip was such a great time; it was just like old times. I remember trudging through the woods in search of deer and elk, and finding only insects. I recall sleeping in stinky tents, curled up in Dad's old Army sleeping bag - the one stuffed with down (or some type of feathers, at least), but not sleeping well for all the feathers sticking out of the fabric and puncturing my tender skin in random locations. I honestly don't remember a lot of things from my childhood, but I remember being in the outdoors, and I remember it fondly.

Many years have passed since Dad and I went marching around in the woods together, and a lot has changed. Dad and I are both older and wiser (debatable, in my case). I've got a job and a wife, and a baby on the way. Dad's got a boat. I've got a house and a mortgage. But clomping across that clearcut and sitting in the shade, waiting for rabbits to pop into view... well... I was 10 years old again, and it was just Dad and his little boy. Twenty years vanished and I got to relive some very precious memories.

Unfortunately, I have not kept pace with changing times. Dad and I don't get to see much of one another anymore. Life's demands seem always to be getting in the way. Hunting isn't so popular, and camping can now be described as "reserving a 'camp site' months in advance, filling the RV with canned goods, driving to a campground packed with fellow 'campers', and watching DVDs and eating microwave popcorn." I have a feeling that developments like these will lead to many "When I was your age" speeches when our little baby is old enough to be subjected to them.

But then again, perhaps for us, camping could be what I grew to love: hiking through endless miles (endless to a 10 year old), trying to find a spot of ground level enough that we wouldn't roll downhill in our sleeping bags. Eating flattened peanut butter sandwiches, or our favorite, cold hotdogs. Watching the stars move through the sky for entertainment. Not seeing any living things in the forest, because they had all fled. To me, those things are more precious than gold. If I can pass some of those things on to our kids, I think they would be very lucky, indeed. And if all that comes without us being able to find one stinking rabbit, well, it was probably worth it.