Sons to Dads, Generational Evolution

Facebook has a neat feature. From time to time, a photo appears on your page of a person or event that took place at some time in the past.
Last week, I enjoyed a photo that cropped up on my site that triggered a special memory. When my grandson, Max, was just a little kid and he and his family lived nearby, he enjoyed hanging around with me trying to emulate what I was doing, and this was particularly noticeable when I took him fishing.
I remember taking Max to a neighborhood pond where I was bass fishing. While I was fishing for bass with my spin-cast reel, Max was fishing with his little Zebco 33 and he hooked and landed a bass, the first one he ever caught. The photo of Max proudly holding his first bass was the image that popped up on my screen last week.
Ironically, my Facebook page this week contained a photo of Max taking his 5 year old son, Beorn, fishing and showing the big bluegill his son caught. It’s sort of a generational evolution where the son grew up to become a dad and had the experience of doing for his son what had been done for him when he was a kid.
Dennis Tietje lives in the community of Roanoke in southwest Louisiana and his family is in the business of raising crawfish on their property. I have been intrigued by the reports Tietje has had on Facebook over the past couple of weeks of the outstanding teal season he has had on the property.

“Our crawfish farm holds water through crawfish season and we keep it watered all the way to teal season. What this means is that when teal start arriving this time of year, they have a place to stop, to feed and hang out. Crawfish ponds have a lot of native grasses and aquatics and the teal really respond to it,” Tietje explained.
One thing of interest is that although he has friends who hunt with him, his favorite hunting partner is his dad, Cyrus Tietje who is just a few weeks shy of reaching his 90th birthday.
“When teal season opened, Dad said he’d like to go with me maybe one day to see if he could manage it. That one day has turned into him wanting to go four of the five days we’ve hunted. After that first day when Dad went with me, the next morning, Dad was standing in the carport, camo on and shotgun in hand and he is in the blind with me just about every time I go,” Tietje said.
“Our blinds are set up to where we can drive a side-by-side up to the blind and all Dad has to do is step out of the machine and into the blind. He has really gotten a kick out of getting to hunt with me and before season opened when we would go out just to see the birds working, he jokingly asked if we could open season a few days early,” he chuckled.
Not only do they teal hunt together, they have property north of the crawfish ponds where they deer hunt. Tietje said he has his dad a stand where he can easily step into it with no problem.
“I can’t tell you how special it is to still have my Dad who brought me up hunting when I was just a little fellow and now I get to return the favor and thankfully, he’s still able to enjoy it,” said Tietje.

Just like my grandson, Max is able to share what he loves with his son, Beorn, and hopefully one day when Max is older, Beorn will be able to be the one to take his dad. It’s a generational evolution, and it’s a beautiful thing.