Pages Past - An Outdoor Journal

In a world of the non-stop barrage of political sound bites, the modern news cycle that used to be days in length now seems to be updated every few minutes whether we need it or not. I am old enough to remember when our country's leaders were not media celebrities but statesmen that our nation held in esteem, even if we disagreed with their point of view. Recently, while allowing my dogs to stretch their legs on a warm evening, dusk brewing on the horizon, my mind retreated to a similar evening in my boyhood, July 15, 1979.

- Glen Blackwood

We had just finished baling the season's second cutting of hay, and the wagons were stacked full, when my grandpa told me to put them in the barn and come inside and clean up. There were a couple hours of daylight left, and the Cincinnati Reds had an off day; I was perplexed. When I questioned why, he told me President Carter was speaking. Now I was more confused. I said something like why were we stopping and watching him when you don't like him. I was tersely told be respectful because "he is our President." A lesson in civics never to be forgotten. That evening, we sat side by side at the kitchen table and watched Carter's "Malaise" speech on a black-and-white television, the rabbit ear antenna capturing the signal.

The surfacing of this memory caused me to reread our 39th President's sporting memoir, An Outdoor Journal, published by Bantam Books in 1988. In the title's foreword, he calls this book "a labor of love," and by reading the book you see the author not as a political figure but as a sportsman who relishes time in the field. While best known as a fly fisherman, he was also an upland hunter, and dove, quail, ruffed grouse, woodcock and wild turkey are discussed throughout the work. The author also included a chapter called "Learning to Hunt." The chapter begins:

Before I was big enough to handle my own gun or even a BB rifle, I was serving proudly as a pickup boy for my father during the frigid hours of the winter dove shoots....