It seems that no matter how much your fight to keep things the same, changes are bound to happen. They seem to be happening more frequently and time flies by at a blinding speed on top of it.
This is Team Frady’s busiest time of year, it’s hard to believe that we are already more than half way thorough the year. We are in full swing teaching archery at summer camp, Bud, our daughter just graduated High School with honors and will be heading to college in a few months. We are in the woods in our spare time looking for that perfect place to hang our tree stands for the fall and looking forward to our fall show season which begins the first of August.
We are busy to say the least but we are working hard to insure the sport of archery and hunting’s future, our daughter’s college future and some time in the woods with bow in hand in our near future.
It’s hard to believe that our daughter will be headed off to college to begin a new adventure in the field of biology. It seems just yesterday we were getting her ready for her first day of kindergarten. Jim and I have made sure she spent plenty of time in the outdoors and she has helped us do our archery and outdoor classroom programs since she was 6 or 7. We feel that her decision to pursue biology as a major in college is due to her love for all things wild.
I am sure that most of you are up on current events and saw the fuss about the new “I-Thingy” that has just been released on the market. It’s a phone, a music player, a computer and anything else you can imagine. It will set you back a chunk of change but it will do what ever your heart desires. My question is what happed to picking up the phone and calling someone? Does anyone remember what a radio is? I have a computer on my desk; I am typing this article on it so why do I need one to fit in my pocket? When I am away from my desk I don’t want to be connected to anything. Changes…..
Here is something to think about, the “experts” are now saying that one in six children are overweight, I wonder why? Could these new changes have something to do with it? Seems we are doing more and more to keep children in one spot staring at a tiny little screen to stay in touch, watch a movie, play a game and surf the World Wide Web. What happened to flying June Bugs, going fishing, scouting for deer sign, hanging tree stands and playing in the woods till dark? Changes indeed.
I remember when no one I knew had camo clothing to hunt in. Everyone wore blue jeans, a flannel-lined jacket and a pair of boots that were not gore-tex and more than likely were not insulated. I also remember when most people where I live did not have tree stands of any type; they hunted off the ground or stalked.
During the summer we were not sitting in the house with our nose stuck to some electronic device, we were outside playing, fishing, riding bikes and trying our best to dig a hole to China, we never did dig deep enough to make it though because Mom would catch us and make us stop when we knew one more scoop would have broke through.
Changes, some are great and others seem to separate us from what we need to be doing. We need to continue to teach our children what we were taught, to love the outdoors, wildlife and how to be stewards of what God has gave us. To pick up the phone every now and then and call our friends, family, hunting buddies and shooting partners.
To be advocates for all things wild and to continue our fight to keep the wild places for the next generation. If we are not proactive in this now, we are going to lose the battle. Look at the difference in your generation and the next, now think about the next generation after that one. It will be sad when the only elk you see is on a screen saver on your I-phone. But when it’s gone and no one cares about it any more it will be too late to do anything about it.
I know that you have heard this one thousand times but if you can just take one child with you when you go fishing, hunting or scouting that will be one child that will see how special the outdoors are and one person that might be willing to fight for it. Can you imagine if all of us took one child with us and introduced them to the outdoors? Maybe things would not change so much after all and if they did change it would be for the better.
