Learning from the old adventurer

Today would have been my father's 87th birthday. He passed away five years ago, after suffering through senile dementia. Had he been aware of what he was going through, he would have been one of those that elected self-euthanasia, I believe.
My father was a farmer, an entrepreneur, and an adventurer. Over the course of my growing up he owned stores, farmed, ranched, was a traveling salesman, and a host of things, often to the chagrin of my mother.

I can remember the time he brought a prize sow into the bathroom because an ice storm had knocked out the power in the barn and she was about to have a litter of pigs. We kids loved it.

Another time he encouraged us to bring the Shetland pony in through the patio doors into the dining room. It was sure funny while it lasted.

When I was an adult, my dad called me from New Mexico, from Arkansas,  from Texas, to say things like: "come dig quartz crystals with me," "hey, I'm working at a saw mill, come see what it's like," or "I'm out here in the desert digging up 1000-year old pottery for the University, wanna come help?"

In his world, nothing was off limits- trips, trying news things, or making fun of those people who thought life could only be lived a certain way, owning certain things, projecting a certain image. For a while he lived in a bus converted into an RV. He showed me that it's really far more important what you think of yourself than what others think of you.
My dad showed me how to live off the plants growing around you, how to find books about any and every topic that interests you, and to always be curious about the natural world. I think it was one of my early memories with him that set the stage for my love of outdoor life, and the best wisdom he ever gave me:

It was rainy, gray, boring Saturday afternoon, the kind of day that hides sunrise and sunset in the fog and dull haze, and the day just fades in and out existence, leaving you restless, and tired and cranky from inactivity.


My father came into the house and insisted that we don our raincoats and rubber boots and follow him. My seven-year old self obeyed immediately. We went out into the chilly steel-colored day, drizzle coating everything. I’m not sure how far we walked, perhaps a half-mile or so, and being the child that I was, I probably whined about the wet and cold. My father looked back at me, sternly but not unkindly, and said, “Don’t mind the rain, or you’re likely to miss something interesting.”

Thanks, Dad, for not minding the rain.