Teaching A Son To Fish … Or Use A Laptop

Feb 22, 2012 by winjaw

Give a man a fish and you feed him for a day. Teach a man to fish and  you feed him for a lifetime.

(Chinese proverb)

So Eldest Son of Thunder decided to go hunting.

He had it in his head that he needed an animal skin for something, what that something is, or was, I’m still not sure. I was invited to join this little safari, but declined.

And yes I realize I missed one of those “bonding moments.” And yes I know the “they grow up so fast” and “you have so little time with them” and “opportunities like this come so rare” and fill in the mantra.

This was not an Alaska bear hunt; not even a deer hunt. Rather, Eldest was off to get a rat squirrel. My extreme and total loathing (The Dress does not allow the words “hate” or “hatred” in the house) of squirrels is well documented within this blog and in my latest book, The Little Black Dress and the SONS of Thunder – Recipes On Life and Food.

I digress. I’ve shot my share of deer; love a dove or quail hunt; and put me in a salmon river where I can wave a stick (or fly fish) and Nirvana beckons. I’ve gutted deer, plucked dove and filleted more salmon than I can remember. I love being outdoors, and am happy to just tag along on a hunt. I’m just at that point in life I’d rather shoot with a camera than a gun. And that’s probably because I’ve never really gotten into the taste of wild animals. Dove and salmon, however, is another matter.

I am more than happy to plug away at rats and squirrels all day. But I’m also at a point where I think you should eat anything you kill from God’s bounty. And the refrigerator was pretty well stocked as it was and this was not Dual Survivor and we were not out in the wilderness starving to death. So I just told Eldest to go ahead without me. And the fact The Dress was pretty adamant we were not having squirrel stew for dinner sealed the deal, at least on my end.

An aside. Thank you in advance for sending in your great-grandmother’s squirrel stew recipe. No, we will not be trying it, no offense.

Anyway, Eldest being Eldest is successful and sure enough comes back with a rat squirrel. There is something incredibly satisfying about a dead squirrel. And I gave him the big high-five from dad and all the other congratulatory necessities and life was good and I was proud of him and …

“Will you help me skin him?”

Well crap. (The Dress isn’t too crazy about that word either).

To be honest, I am simply not in the mood to skin a friggin rat. Yes, and go back to all those “bonding moments” comments. But he’s pretty pumped and this is my chance for one of those “bonding moments” and sometimes you do things you don’t want to for the greater good and it’s a teaching moment and I need to man up and …

“You can do it.”

Regular massage of the male buy generic cialis organ using this herbal pill. Of course life threatening situations involve heart and kidney lowest price on cialis damage. Kamagra products are comparatively lower in price and have same results as that of original levitra generika. What kind of scams can you encounter from these male enhancers? Get an increase of more free sample of viagra than 2 billion dollars. And he looks at me with a confident nod and disappears upstairs.

A few minutes later I go out to at least check on his progress. He’s got a big old Ka-Bar knife out and has just successfully separated said squirrels’ head from the rest of his body.

And then I notice the laptop.

Eldest, being Eldest, simply went online and found various YouTube videos on the proper way to skin/gut a squirrel. And he enlisted Youngest Thunder Son to hit the pause button as needed.

And before you know it, we’ve got a squirrel skin hanging from a tree.  And Eldest did it all by himself, or, at least figured out how to do it all by himself.

And I was pretty proud of him and told him so.

No, I didn’t go step by step with him on the squirrel skinning. Oh, the flaming arrows of dad failure.

Life is a collection of lessons. Over the years I’ve taught him the proper way to use a knife, how to shoot, to think things through, and more importantly, to trust himself. To trust himself enough that when he sees a problem, he can find a solution. That, to put it simply, he can do it.

And he did.

Give a man a fish and you feed him for a day. Teach a man to fish and  you feed him for a lifetime.

And yes, I’ve taught him to fly fish.