Chief Longwind Of The North
Certified/Certifiable
my petty vent: I was born with two serious ailments, aging, and mortality. In my head, I can wade streams and push my way through bogs and tangles, with nettle grabbing your pant legs with every step, all the while fighting ridiculous swarms of biting, blood sucking bugs, all for the excitement of catching those wild and beautiful brookies.
In my mind, I can climb rock faces in wet tennis shoes with a fishing pole in one hand to get back to a trail. I can canoe against a 5 mph current, and avoid thousand foot lake freighter while crossing a river with a tarp, a hatchet, and frying pan, and a couple of matches to camp out for a weekend in the wilderness. I can run for miles, and bicycle all day. And roller skating, is as easy as walking.
the reality; can
t got too far away from a bathroom. Need a nap by mid-afternoon. Cant enjoy a whole bunch of foods that I used to lover, and used to love to cook. There will be no more races on plastic toboggans against kids on steep, snowy slopes I can no longer shovel through 5 feet of snow, banking the snow into eight-foot high walls in a ten foot circle, making a snow table, complete with snow chairs, so that I can have hot cocoa outside with a three year old (she was so cute that she absolutely captured your heart. I didn't have a chance). I can't go dirt biking with my kids anymore. No more climbing hair-raisingly steep hills with the back wheel of the bike dancing on the loose gravel, or dusty clay. i used to do everything, even bombing a ski slope in a straight line, from top to bottom (very fast ride on well waxed skis). And now, the most excitement I can have is to teach others the wonder and beauty of a perfect bow shot, feeling the relaxation of the fingers, letting tj\he string tension pull tje bowstring out of the tree-finger grip, knowing that the arrow knock was anchored just right, the left arm out and rigid, with the fleshy portion of the forearm pining toward th e ground, feet positioned properly, and witching the arrow sink into the bulls eye from 60 yards. I teach them how to line up the bead in the V of open sights on a pellet rifle, or how to cast with a fly rod. My excitement now is passing the memories, and trying to inspire the youth to have adventures, and to live life to the fullest, to explore, to learn, to experience, and to appreciate everything from the fractal patterns of snow flakes, to the math that explains them, to the wonderful complexity of a caterpillar, to showing how a bit of trig knowledge can help them set guy lines for tents, and hammocks. I teach them knots that will be useful to them. I teach them how to cook. In short, I am living vicariously through them.
I want my 22 year old body back, so that I can again do all of those things with them, my grand children, mu child friends, and my adult children.
Seeeeeya;
Chief Longwind of the North
In my mind, I can climb rock faces in wet tennis shoes with a fishing pole in one hand to get back to a trail. I can canoe against a 5 mph current, and avoid thousand foot lake freighter while crossing a river with a tarp, a hatchet, and frying pan, and a couple of matches to camp out for a weekend in the wilderness. I can run for miles, and bicycle all day. And roller skating, is as easy as walking.
the reality; can
t got too far away from a bathroom. Need a nap by mid-afternoon. Cant enjoy a whole bunch of foods that I used to lover, and used to love to cook. There will be no more races on plastic toboggans against kids on steep, snowy slopes I can no longer shovel through 5 feet of snow, banking the snow into eight-foot high walls in a ten foot circle, making a snow table, complete with snow chairs, so that I can have hot cocoa outside with a three year old (she was so cute that she absolutely captured your heart. I didn't have a chance). I can't go dirt biking with my kids anymore. No more climbing hair-raisingly steep hills with the back wheel of the bike dancing on the loose gravel, or dusty clay. i used to do everything, even bombing a ski slope in a straight line, from top to bottom (very fast ride on well waxed skis). And now, the most excitement I can have is to teach others the wonder and beauty of a perfect bow shot, feeling the relaxation of the fingers, letting tj\he string tension pull tje bowstring out of the tree-finger grip, knowing that the arrow knock was anchored just right, the left arm out and rigid, with the fleshy portion of the forearm pining toward th e ground, feet positioned properly, and witching the arrow sink into the bulls eye from 60 yards. I teach them how to line up the bead in the V of open sights on a pellet rifle, or how to cast with a fly rod. My excitement now is passing the memories, and trying to inspire the youth to have adventures, and to live life to the fullest, to explore, to learn, to experience, and to appreciate everything from the fractal patterns of snow flakes, to the math that explains them, to the wonderful complexity of a caterpillar, to showing how a bit of trig knowledge can help them set guy lines for tents, and hammocks. I teach them knots that will be useful to them. I teach them how to cook. In short, I am living vicariously through them.
I want my 22 year old body back, so that I can again do all of those things with them, my grand children, mu child friends, and my adult children.
Seeeeeya;
Chief Longwind of the North
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