The Gift List

It’s getting pretty close to that big day around these parts.  You know the one that puts visions of sugar plums, jolly and plump red-suited elves, and now I-pods, X-boxes and smart phones dancing in the heads of wee ones.  And those a bit older as well. 

So here I sit struggling to come up with something to give my two kiddos at home, along with the 20 I have in my classroom. With all these different kids, it doesn’t seem quite right to give them all the same manufactured craft or card. I am stuck… and close to being out of order. 

So, I go to the garage and get my summer tackle boxes out of storage and go through them. I sharpen and replace hooks, put the top water baits back in their spots, and make sure the deep diving cranks are apart from the shallow runners.  Jigs, plastics, hooks and spinners are once again arranged by size, shape, and color.  I can almost feel June’s warm breeze in my face…pitching an offering to an eager smallmouth bass waiting along a rocky shore.  I feel much better, because when my tackle box is clean and ordered, it kind of cleans and orders myself as well. 

Like a rock thrown from a tire that wallops your unsuspecting windshield, it hits me.  I can give these kids the gift of adventure… although I am going to need a little help.  Not to mention a whole lot of wrapping paper.  If we set our minds to it, I think we can take these kids from a life of watching, to a life of doing. We could make presents of zoo-going and eagle-watching and stone-skipping. We can teach them to take things apart just to see how they went together, and show them it’s ok to get their hands dirty. 

We can prop them up with pine trees or white oaks.  Show them the difference between gray squirrel and cottontail tracks in the snow. Maybe have them identify five different types of woodpeckers here in our neck of the woods.  Perhaps it would be good for them to learn how to crack eggs with one hand like mom used to do, or to roast marshmallows over open flames. 

It would take quite some effort, but together we could show kids of all ages the gift of gratitude. Tell them how the Earth is actually sacred ground, and they darn well better mind their manners when they are on it.  We can show them humor, teaching them to giggle at toads, gurgling catfish, and red fox pups in a July alfalfa field.  Teach them to not take themselves so serious.

Patience would be a good gift too.  We will need to branch out into canoes, flat bottoms, or even pontoons and allow them to soak in the simple pleasure of waiting for a bobber to go down.  Let ‘em tag along on deer stands, duck blinds, or turkey fields to wait for creatures big and small to appear. 

I think I will try to show them responsibility.  Teach them that those texting, gaming and smart phone fingers could be used for tending campfires on the Chippewa River, unloading a couple wagons full of 3^rd crop hay, or even the 2 o’clock to 7 o’clock rhythm of dry fly casting.  

Let’s give these kids the independence to be free thinkers and leaders and optimists. Don’t hold them back…let them make mistakes because they try something new and then figure out a better way to accomplish their goals…Society holds them back enough.   

WHO’S WITH ME?

DO YOU THINK WE HAVE ENOUGH WRAPPING PAPER?

-TGI