When they were children, my sons regarded me as a barbarian.  I have a little better status now, but I am still suspect.  I should not be surprised, they are city kids.  They grew up civilized.  When I was a kid, if you called me civilized I would have punched you in the nose.  Worse than being called a sissy.

 

Not too long ago Mark was showing me a fancy bottle of expensive, single malt Scotch.  He wanted me to try it.  I pulled the cork and took a swig.  I thought he was going to choke to death.  If it hadn’t been expensive I think he would have thrown the bottle away.  Hell, I didn’t backwash.  How was I to know I was supposed to use a glass?  I can imagine what would have been said, when I was a Smokejumper, if I had passed a bottle and expected them to use a glass.

 

They grew up in suburban New York City, Washington, D.C., and San Francisco.  Their mom was a teacher; their dad was an FBI Agent.  They never really had a chance.

 

I grew up in a small lumber town in Northern California.  If you didn’t have a BB gun by the time you were five you were a social outcast.  If you didn’t know how to dig BB’s out of your hide, without your mother, by the time you were six; you were doomed.

 

My aunt and uncle lived on a ranch by a lake.   We loved to go there.  We always took our BB guns.  My brother and I would hide in the haystack, allegedly hunting for birds or rats.  When I got a chance, I would shoot the bull in the nuts.  He would go about six feet straight up if I made a good shot.  I didn’t know until a few years later that a bull, or steer for that matter, could walk right through about any fence it wanted to.  If that bull had realized it was me shooting him, he probably would have killed me.

 

I mentioned this to my brother a few years ago.  I thought we had competed to see who could get the bull to jump the highest.  He denied all knowledge.  He became a teacher and raised daughters. Perhaps that civilized him.  I bet he even has a pink shirt.

 

We could not wait until we were old enough to get a hunting license at the age of twelve.  Many of my peers had their own .22 rifle by the time they were eight.

 

We lived for hunting and fishing.  Our house was on the edge of town.  Nearby the river emerged from a canyon.  There was an old abandoned rail line that went along the river, up the canyon, to the next lumber town about 35 miles away.    That canyon was our playground.  We could not wait until we were old enough to go “up the tracks” by ourselves, to fish and spend the day.

 

By the time I was twelve I had my own .22 and could take it “up the tracks.”  I went through a 500 round “brick” of ammunition in about a week.  Needless to say we got to be pretty good shots.   It was a good thing I had a paper route, I had the funds for fishing tackle and ammunition.  The Army Navy Store provided us with everything else we needed.

 

REI and North Face were not around when I was a kid.  The good stuff was army surplus.  I had a down mummy bag that only had a few holes in it.  We were in Boy Scouts too.  Their gear wasn’t that great.  The army stuff was a lot better.  I remember buying a Boy Scout pack and blowing it out on the first camping trip.

 

In the early 90’s we took our sons camping in West Virginia one weekend.  Joe, the oldest, had just started Cub Scouts.  He was a Tiger Cub.  Of course it was raining when we got to the campground.  I surprised them, and Terry, by setting the tent up in the rain while keeping the inside dry.  Soon we had a nice cozy camp.  We sent the boys out to get some firewood, explaining that the wood on the ground was wet.  I told them to break the dead limbs off of trees to get the dry wood.  After about a half hour they came back with a small bundle of reasonably dry twigs.

 

I told them to come with me to learn how to get wood.   We found a small dead tree about fifteen feet high.  I broke it off and used the long stem to knock the high dead limbs off the taller trees.  Pretty soon we had a big pile of wood.  Then I showed them how to break up the big pieces of wood by levering them between two close standing tree trunks.  It made a lot of noise and splinters.  I was pleased to have taught them some woodsman-ship.

 

Later when we were in our sleeping bags I could hear them whispering about dad killing trees…