Sunday, January 18, 2004

"Someday" may be now or never Dennis McCann's January 7 column in the Milwaukee Journal Sentinel struck a chord with me. McCann writes about promising "someday" to visit people he has long corresponded with and then learning that they have died before he makes good on his promise. The recent deaths of two such long-distance friends, Silent Sports publisher Greg Marr and Boulder Junction writer Tom Hollatz, kicked McCann off his figurative butt on this issue. In his column, he resolves to make sure that doesn't happen again. He regrets the missed opportunity to go rowing with Marr or introduce him to the Ice Age Trail (which, incredibly, the editor of Silent Sports had never done!); and he regrets never talking shop with Hollatz over a few beers in a northwoods bar. McCann is right. Time marches relentlessly onward, and none of knows when the last grain of sand in our proverbial hourglass will tumble into eternity. This is why it is so important to tell a loved one how we feel, to look up an old friend, to make good on the promise to "stop by sometime." I have let many opportunities in my life slip away. Some maybe just weren't right at the time, so no great loss. Others might have been just the chance I had been looking for, if I had only had the foresight to know, but they, too, are now too far behind me to reach back and grab. Others, I somehow managed to jump at, and they have changed my life. For instance, a conversation with former Milwaukee Sentinel outdoors writer Don Johnson at an OWAA conference in Traverse City, Mich., in 1984 (my first conference, BTW), in which he informed me that a certain TV station in Milwaukee was looking for someone to host a new outdoor show. "That's nice," I said. "Go talk to them," he insisted, so I did, although I had no TV experience and was looking for a writing job, not one in broadcasting. I made the phone call from a phone booth on the way home from Traverse City before I lost the nerve. A week or so later, I was in Milwaukee, taping an audition for producer Jack Abrams. Shortly after that, Jack called to ask when I could start. Going on 20 years later, Jack and I have produced nearly 1,000 episodes of Outdoor Wisconsin, with no end in sight. Had I not run into Don at that conference or not followed through, Lord knows what I might be doing now, but it's a fair bet it wouldn't be TV. I've let a lot of other opportunities pass me by, but a couple years ago I made up my mind not to let too many more opportunities to do things with friends and family get away. My close friends and family members are scattered from coast to coast, so it is easy to put off "someday." But after enough talk about a "someday" turkey hunt together, brother Mike and I finally set a date two years ago. Now, our opening-week hunt each May back home in New York State has become a fixture in our calendars. Last year, I initiated what I hope will become another annual event, when I flew to Washington State to fish for steelhead with son Jon and my grad school buddy from Rice U., Pat Henry, whom I had not seen in 30 years. That's too damn long, Pat and I agreed, and so we are planning our second annual Washington Steelhead Reunion. Maybe this time we'll even catch something. It would have been easy to let the calendar fill up with business commitments and avoid the effort it takes to plan a week-long adventure like those, but the value of an opportunity to hunt or fish with brother, son and friend outweighed other considerations and we made it happen. Funny thing, too. Once you have taken an opportunity like that, it becomes easier to do it again. And since I don't know when my sand will run out, I'm making every effort to create similar opportunities and take advantage of them when they come a-knockin'. Later... 9:34:53 PM    comment []