Are you ready for what’s coming? I mean, really? How old are you? How many miles do you have left in gas tank, the engine. Can you go another 10k 50k? Are you still bullet proof? 

Can you remember when you all of a sudden realized your fuel gauge was below a quarter tank and it’s time to start looking for a gas station. If you take good care of your engine and meet the required oil change intervals, you know you’re going to get more miles. What about if you’re a go, go, go kind of person? You push those intervals from recommended 3k to 5k gaps. Then all of a sudden you start belching smoke and the morning start-ups take longer. Warmups area a little bit hesitant. Now all of a sudden, your 3k intervals are 22k-27k. That’s when suddenly you realize your eyes are going bad, you need glasses. You try to climb that hill and what used to be a normal walk is now an exercise in pacing yourself to your newfound state of worn-out engine – or um I mean body. You are 15 pounds overweight, maybe 30, or even 50. So, you realize just since last hunting season you went from the bullet proof young stud muffin… to a middle aged old, “What the heck happened?” Last year I climbed that hill and didn’t notice. Now, dang! That’s a long way up there. 

Life moves on. Get on board and pay attention or suffer the consequences. Like all of a sudden you can’t make it to the top without two or three stops and self-scoldings about staying in shape. The delusion of feeling bullet proof ended abruptly for me at the hunting season of my 42nd year. What came natural and easy and without thought all of a sudden was challenging. That good ‘lope buck out there about a mile or so, now needed a look with binoculars to see if I needed to set up the spotter to assess for trophy quality. The next outlook knob what more carefully selected because at the end of the day there was one or two few ‘just one more knobs’ left. So now you realize time waits for no one. 

Now you find yourself thinking about thigs. Like in a tight scoring ball game you look up at the scoreboard clock and wonder if you have enough time to score. You call for a time out because you are behind and need to regroup. But no… there is no referee whistle, no time out and no clock stoppage. Time marches toward the rocking chair on the porch. Wait I didn’t get to hunt sheep, or moose, bears, goats, muskox, ibex, aoudad, javelina, or... all the rest of those critters I always going to get to when I could afford it. 

Just a warning to those of you who have not hit the wall yet. The wall is coming. Faster than you think. If you are the kind that always is prepared and always in shape and ready for the next challenge, you may put it off for a little while. But be assured, it’s coming. Pay attention adjust your priorities. Get a credit card and go on the lifelong dream hunt while you still can. My wife and I had a pretty bad cancer scare many years ago. I paid my bills and had a good credit score because I was careful and frugal. I had an offer to swap a hunt with an outfitter in Alaska and I hesitated while he invited and brushed it off. He said he would let me think about it and call me back in a couple weeks. In the course of that couple weeks, we had a very scary and possibly life changing doctor visit in the family. So, we decided that time was short it’s a lifelong dream and we decided to make plans. I did the budget and figured I could probably budget to pay it off on a credit card in about 3 ½ years. So, we pulled the trigger and made it happen. Fortunately follow up doctor visits cleared the cancer scare. We were on our way to Alaska for the biggest adventure of our lives. That story is much too big for a column. Suffice to say, it did take years to pay off the credit card but I honestly paid every payment with a smile and a great memory in my head. We came home with a great trophy caribou for my wife and the bear that tried to eat her is not a permanent stuffed teddy. Yes, that is true and real. It really did happen. Life threatening on several occasions and will forever be one of the biggest events of our lives together and a true life changing fully rewarding event.

My message… life is short grab it by the horns and bulldog it into the ground every time you can. Yesterday is gone and not coming back. Tomorrow is not guaranteed. Live it. Share with everyone you can and smell the flowers and admire the sunsets.