Outdoor People

DC Reed/Director

It has been my privilege to live most of my life out of doors. From a 1960’s Boy Scout forward through hunting, fishing, camping, and yes, government service.

I have spent some fine times sleeping on the ground in some incredibly awful places tempered by the equally incredible people I was with.

It seems I have always found myself standing or sitting around a drowning campfire, freezing in a …stand, or being boiled alive in a punishing sun. Commiserating with men of such gravitas, as the day got worse, as the collective mood began to sour, their humor got better. Or bawdier!

Bad jokes, tobacco, good food, bone handled pocket knives, very bad food, and of course often very strong coffee. I was humbled just to be with them.

It is with these years spent in such company while on a range, or in harms way, or in the pursuit of game that you form a bond, that those unfamiliar with such a lifestyle will not understand and will very often devalue.

It is in my mind the most acute way of leading a participatory life; a life spent in motion not merely in the passing of days, but in seeing the worth in every wild and hairy minute!

It is through such associations and adventures I formed the metric by which I have, often unknowingly and maybe unfairly, measured the people around me to this day.

Sadly, many of those I learned from are now gone. Happily, many are people I still walk around the woods and rifle ranges with today.

So- Here’s to the out door people of substance and worth! People unconfused by the moral and ethical static around us all today. Men and women you want your kids to hang around.

And hope there’s some rubbing off happening.