Well, SKR I feel your pain.

I grew up in a family where my dad didn't hunt he was always too busy, or just got tired of eating game,I don't know which. He grew up with not alot and wild game was sometimes all that was on the table. However my Uncle loved to hunt and I was never shy about asking him if I could tag along, and thankfully he obliged and took me quite often. Me, my uncle and his german shorthair with a bad attitude and worse gas, all cramed into the Chevy Elcamino.

My grandpa was also quite a hunter or maybe just a survivor, growing up when he did, a WW I vet. I loved sitting around listening to my grandfathers stories about all the hunts that he'd been on, and the one thing that still rings in my head, it was sometimes the game, but more often than not, it was the people that he was with that made the stories so interesting. Even during grandads day, he said it was becoming a "rich mans sport", and how, during the war it was so hard finding ammo, but they always managed to find some, and always managed to find game.

I really don't know where I'm headed with this,,, other than to say the lyrics of a certain song "These are the good old days" they may not be to us, but they are to someone.

When I was a kid, I don't remember Christmas commercials on the tv at halloween, but my kids will, it is all they've ever known.

So keep the tradition going, for somwhere out there is a somewhat pudgy, clumsy kid who won't mind slogging through the mud for just one shot at a big snow goose, who knows what kind of memories you'll make. Even if my uncle has been gone for over thirty years, I can still hear his laugh, and smell that damn dog.

KJ