Hello. My name is (insert name), and I' m addicted to the outdoors.
I was hooked early. As a kid, my mother often found me on the driveway, watching ants and doodlebugs.
I spent time at the drainage ditch down the street, which exposed a fascinating world of tadpoles and turtles, crawfish and bluegills, spiders and even the occasional snake. I hung out with other kids who were into the same things, like catching honeybees in mayonnaise jars or trying to jump in and out of rain puddles without getting our school shoes wet. On summer afternoons, we would spread out across someone' s lawn and watch clouds until our mothers called us home for supper.
The outdoors noose only tightened with age. I explored vacant lots and climbed trees, dug up nightcrawlers and became quite the marksman with a slingshot.
Not surprisingly, my addiction escalated quickly from that backyard pabulum to harder stuff, like night fishing and overnight camping. And tracking raccoons and whistling at quail and wading the surf and paddling canoes. My pals and I blew every dime we made flipping burgers or mowing lawns on shotshells and fishing lures.
For me and the millions of others so desperately afflicted, nothing has changed in adulthood except the amount of time and money expended on our habits.
The need to do something, to do anything outdoors, increases exponentially every day it goes unsatisfied, like running on sand while tethered to a giant rubber band. I crave fresh air like a chocoholic wants a candy bar.
On the way home from a recent fishing trip, I thought about the outdoors and the depth of its hold over me. I thought about how sunrise seems more significant when there is nothing man-made between me and the horizon, how catching fish and calling ducks and rattling antlers makes such perfect sense.
Mostly, though, I considered how much worse my addiction could be. People who don' t know the outdoors sometimes tote far worse monkeys on their backs, and they spend their best years and small fortunes trying to shed those shackles.
I can live with mine. I could not live without mine.
There are programs to help other addicts kick their habits, gradually to relieve them of their burdens and reintroduce them to " normal" life. And good for anyone who is able to find his or her way back from drugs or alcohol or gambling to a healthier lifestyle.
Perhaps those personal struggles up from the bottom might be more successful if clinics and institutions added a few extra steps. Do this, do that, don' t do this or that ... and then go for a long walk in the woods.
For the man or woman whose jones is for hunting or fishing, camping or hiking, the struggle these days is to keep from losing that passion. The world is loaded with other attractions, nearly all of which are much closer to home than the deer lease or duck pond, bay flat or bass lake. And in the end, it takes less time and costs less money to see a movie or play a video game.
Through television and the Internet, technology enables us now to watch other people hunt and fish or to exchange messages instantly with other outdoors types who also are stuck behind desks. With a tap to the forehead of a plastic mouse, we can visit virtual outdoor worlds or even view the real outdoors through special cameras.
How tragic. You are either outside or you are not, and there is no cyber-substitute for the real thing.
For anyone who has yet to sample the outdoors -- asphalt trails through community parks do not count -- I offer this simple, four-step introduction.
·1. Turn off the cell phone, lock the front door behind you and climb into your car.
·2. Drive away from town until you haven' t seen a home or business for at least 10 minutes.
·3. Pull safely to one side of the road and quiet the engine.
·4. Get out, shed your shoes, climb onto the hood, lean your back against the windshield and absorb every sight and sound and smell for one hour. If you' re lucky enough to be sharing the moment with a friend or spouse, do so silently.
That is only a taste, like grabbing a carrot stick off a country club buffet table, of what being outdoors has to offer. Every forward step from there reveals a bigger feast for the senses and whets what eventually will become an insatiable appetite.
Addiction to the outdoors is real and, quite thankfully, incurable.
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*****The liberty we prize is not America' s gift to the world, it is God' s gift to humanity*****
Great post, Johnny! A perfect description of my life---if it' s the weekend, I' m in the mountains! Luckily I have a husband who is almost as bad as I am! Almost!
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I thought all writers drank to excess and beat their wives. You know one time I secretly wanted to be a writer.---C.K. Dexter Haven
Why do you have to be a smart-ass Hip. Can' t you just shut your mouth for once??? Dang Liberal![]
Yep, you called it man.........I' ve got to give the credit to Doug Pike. Heck of a writer. Been reading his stuff for years. He is not an outdoors writer but Leon Hale is another one I' ve been reading for years in the Houston Chronicle. Have you ever read his stuff? He' s been around forever.
Outdoors addicts don' t need a cure.....
Great post, Johnny! A perfect description of my life---if it' s the weekend, I' m in the mountains! Luckily I have a husband who is almost as bad as I am! Almost!
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