What’s Missing

I’ll tell you what’s missing; good stories that’s what. Ruark like, Old Man and the Boy stories. Stories that made your eyes water or brought a smile to your face. Readers of the outdoor word have been blessed with a few good story tellers, I’m not one of them. Oh, yeah, I might eek in a nostalgic thought on occasion but, a real story teller I’m not.

There’s often the claim that today’s modern outdoor and gun press is driven by advertising. I know how things work on the backside and while that may seem the case, its not. Consumers drive the train; if you don’t like the content of gun and hunting magazines, stop buying them and write and tell the editors why. (Last time that happened a tenured writer got fired and a new editor was assigned.) Obviously, there are too many magazines selling too many copies for anyone to be doing that.

But there’s nothing like a good story on a Monday morning when you’d like to be doing something other than work. There’s nothing like a good story on a rainy Saturday when you’d really like to be out in the world making your own story. And, there’s nothing like a good story as you sit by the fire on a cold evening. (With all this global warming it looks like those cold evenings might just keep coming.)

I found a new source for good stories; short reads that’ll make you remember or think about something that is, was or will be important to you. Its a blog called The Trail Less Taken and it is purveyed by a man I know and have hunted with. He’s also been a game warden for a long, long time. (He was arresting folks for killing wooly mammoths.) Check it out when you get time. I’ve been telling the feller that he ought to retire from being a opossum cop and let the young dogs do the hunting – chasing bad guys – and start writing full time.

Old Dogs are the best at telling stories!