BUT HOW?
Now that I've got your attention, what? How soon we forget. Last week I wrote about dinosaurs, the fact that we either resemble them or have become one. At any rate, there was a point to that discussion.
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BUT HOW?
Now that I've got your attention, what? How soon we forget. Last week I wrote about dinosaurs, the fact that we either resemble them or have become one. At any rate, there was a point to that discussion.
We live outside of town a bit with a couple acres of dirt. We have all the required pets, well, one that is as big as Kuma isn't required but we have dogs and cats and such. Next door our neighbor raises a few head of cattle each year. Down the road a short walk away they have sheep and train dogs to herd. The kids love to go and watch. We keep a garden and have an area that is still pretty much the same as it has been for a long time with wild huckleberries, blackberries, salmon berries and even thimble berries growing in it during spring and summer. Pear trees, apple trees, cherry trees and plum trees. Some grapes out there also along with raspberries and blue berries. Lots of birds, squirrels, rabbits, the occasional deer and a coyote from time to time. These are the reasons with some others that our grand kids bug the heck out of their parents to let them come stay at our house. There is cool stuff to do. Even in the winter we are always outside working on something. They have learned that the difference between winter and summer is you wear a rain coat in winter and there aren't any berries to pick but there are still stuff to do, critters out there and the birds that come to the feeders. Keighlee, our granddaughter loves to tie flies and go fishing with her grandpa. She will spend hours with grandma gathering fruit and working in the garden. She is almost 5. Ryder who is 2 is starting to show more and more interest in grandpa's stuff. Both love the outdoors and learning about all the different animals.
I took my son the former Marine and Iraq war veteran fishing a number of times this past year. He never had much interest in fishing and hunting when he was younger although he has always enjoyed the outdoors. He wanted to start with a bait caster and bought one. I taught how where to go and how to catch salmon with spinners. Now, he wants to learn to fly fish. He is interested in hunting and has enrolled in a hunting course at his college. These were things he grew up with but never really had the desire to do. Now, older his interest has grown and we are doing more together today than we did when he was young. Sometimes it happens in its own time.
I know what you mean but I think the first step is to provide the opportunity. I have no doubts that our grand children will receive the full benefit of my wife and mine's experiences if we have a say in it. And our kids, well, they already know but sometimes they need to gain their own experiences to appreciate ours. I know my older son did. We are closer now than ever before; he is 27 with a new willingness to learn from me and I have a yearning to learn from him.
Great article about getting off of your duff and kids doing the same. I know arguements actually occur in families about letting kids play on computers, the internet and etc. or not letting them. I have never seen any child hurt by not interacting with a computer game or other electronic device. Computers have their place (obviously) but they certainly take away from interaction.
example-As our kids were growing up we would always shut off the TV and computer for the entire time of Lent. This usually amounts to around 6 weeks or more. We actually would sit around in the evening and play cards, talk, play board games, go for walks, go out and throw the ball around and do all kinds of fun stuff.
I am talking about recent times too. Our last just left the house a year ago.
The kids would grumble a little at first about it but the bottom line is that we had fun and did stuff.....not just reading about it or staring at a TV screen. The kids appreciated the fact that we did it.
Excellent essay, Deanna.
I have a lot to say on the subject and can't even begin to write it all here. So I won't. Suffice it to say that all that increased funding going to things like ADHD and other developmental disorders comes in really handy to pay for therapeutic fly fishing programs for developmentally disabled children. Other funds now made available that used to not be there for physically disabled kids through federal education funding for adapted physical education programs pays for adaptive fly fishing programs. Most cities, counties, and states have block grant funding for disabled veterans, youth, and even adults. They also have similar funds for "at risk" kids and "disadvantaged" urban kids.
The biggest problem I find is that a great many fly fishermen are socially incapable and/or morally unwilling to interface with some or all of these demographics. As you called them last week: dinosaurs. That's the polite term. I'm not trying to pick a fight here, and there are a good number of fly anglers who are NOT that way at all. But we are in the minority.
Good points on the 'majority' being incapable of dealing with demographics.
I think (from an outsiders perspective) that I'd have to disagree though.
Even if what you say is true, it isn't necessarily a bad thing.
As an IT manager I want several types of coworkers on my team.
The 9-5 guy is dependable and there at expected times,
the work all night to get it done guy is great in a pinch but has to be gone to recover from an all nighter.... the list goes on.
In any group you want a mix of those that can deal with special circumstances, and frankly the group you are talking about is the minority of the population that needs to be trained. Ergo a minority of fly fishers is probably the right percentage to deal with this population. After all with special needs people, you REALLY need dedicated folks with extra patience and understanding. It's not a job for everyone, but everyone has a role to play in solving the overall problem..
--Ron--
Yeah, I wasn't totally clear there at the end. I made a leap from speaking of special needs groups to referring back to the intergenerational transferrance issue in general without saying so. My bad.
Obviously, the folks who do what I specialize in are always going to be a minority of the fly fishing community. That goes without saying. But - from MY perspective - I think that the majority of the fly fishing community have a real dysfunction when it comes to bridging the generation gap...period. And that's what I was getting at. I see a lot of apathy, intolerance, cultural ignorance (no negative conotation intended), or even just plain arrogance (the rarest problem) getting in the way of the recruitment of ethnic minorities, women (doing much better here in most circles), youth, etc.
Like I said before, I know a LOT of fly anglers who are absolutely the opposite of what I just described. But as I travel around the country, talk to fly anglers from all over the place, read fly fishing media constantly, and so forth, I still am persuaded that the majority have a looooooooonnnng way to go.