Kids and the Outdoors

Glynn Harris

Glynn Harris is a long-time outdoor writer from North Louisiana and has won more than 50 writing and broadcasting awards during his 47 year career.

My outdoors experiences began before I was old enough to handle a fishing rod or even a BB gun. I was fortunate to have a dad who was an outdoors-oriented person. My dad was a career employee of the Louisiana Department of Wildlife and Fisheries and he took my brother and me on outings not only related to his job but also on fishing and hunting trips.
I can still remember tagging along, sitting next to dad on the creek bank while he fished. Other times, my “tag along” experiences involved sitting beside him on a log while he watched the tree tops for a squirrel. I will forever be indebted to him for realizing the need to get us interested and involved in the outdoors before we were old enough to actually participate.
It wasn’t long before he put a fishing pole in my grubby little hands, instructing me how to watch the cork and set the hook when it bobbled and went under. The thrill of the pulsating fight of my first fat bluegill lingers even today. As we grew older, we graduated to casting rods, again under the watchful eye of dad. I can’t count how many times he’d have to take the rod from my hand and yank the lure out of an overhanging limb I’d nailed with an errant cast.
It was the hunting trips, though, that were the most exciting. While my short legs were hard pressed to step in dad’s footsteps, I tried to keep up. He’s shush me if I stepped on a stick or made too much noise rustling fallen leaves as I walked. I learned as I went along the value of being quiet and sneaky when trying to outwit a squirrel.
The day finally came when he handed me a single shot 22 rifle, unloaded, to carry to the woods with him. Dad laid his shotgun across a shoulder as he sneaked; I laid my 22 across my shoulder just like he did as I tried to be just like him. If a squirrel was an easy target, he’d let me take a crack at it with my 22. Usually, he’d have to down the fleeing squirrel with his 12 gauge because my marksmanship had not yet reached a proficient level. Nevertheless, I was there in the woods with him, serving my hunting apprenticeship under his watchful eye.
Eventually, I was permitted to hunt alone. At first, dad would sit me down on a log in a grove of oaks with the ground littered with cuttings while he slipped off to hunt alone, never too far to hear my call if I needed him. I watched for squirrels while fighting the feeling of fear and abandonment. Time would take care of this latter concern and I came to realize that dad only left me to hunt alone after he was sure I had learned enough to be responsible and safe.
Still later, dad bought a new shotgun for himself and he placed in my hands his trusty old 12 gauge Stevens double barrel. The gun was heavy but that didn’t matter. I was now the owner of a shotgun I could call my own.
I wish I still had that old double. I kept it until I was grown, eventually trading it for an automatic. The Stevens double knocked many a fox squirrel from the tall pines of the woods where we hunted and later, served as my first duck gun. I can still hear the sturdy “ping” when I opened the breech to drop to high brass #6 shells into the barrels; the solid “clink” when I snapped it shut.
Time marches on. My daughters are grown, married and gone from home but when they were younger, I had a covey of fine grandchildren to spoil and pamper.
On a particular squirrel hunt with dogs, I was an interested observer as another hunter and his grandson shared the woods with a group of us as we followed squirrel dogs on a hunt. Dr. Robert Pirtle, Shreveport dentist, had his 9 year old grandson, Jake Rodgers, visiting from Houston. Watching Pirtle instruct, assist, caution and teach young Jake was like turning back to a page from my past. I doubt that Jake realizes at this point in his young life just how special these moments were. Eventually, he will and he’ll be forever thankful that he had someone willing to take the time and effort to teach him the ways of the outdoors.
I was fortunate; Jake is fortunate. We all had the privilege of being introduced to and nurtured in the outdoors by someone who cared enough about us to offer us that opportunity.