Tenderfoot Diaries

Just over a week ago, I issued a Challenge on the OBS blog.   The subject of the Challenge was one I felt strongly about, and one that I knew had impacted a lot of outdoor bloggers including myself.  I figure  some of the OBS members will write some very personal stories and given that, I feel it is only fair that I share mine.

My mother and I didn’t always have the easiest relationship when I was growing up.  We were, to use a British saying, as different as chalk and cheese.  Everything she cared about meant nothing to me.  Everything I revered she thought odd.  We spent a lot of time talking at instead of to each other.

If there was one comfort during the troubled years of our relationship it was this, I knew we had tons of time.  After all, the women on my mother’s side of the family lived forever.  In fact, I used to joke that you had to hit them over the head with a mallet to take them out.  I had great aunts who lived into their late nineties.  My maternal grandmother lived to be 98.   I had no reason to expect or believe that my mother wouldn’t do exactly the same thing.

Until I did have reason.

Mom was diagnosed with liver cancer in the late 90’s.  By the time they found it the cancer was very advanced.  Liver cancer is also one of the hardest cancers to treat and has a very high fatality rate.   The doctor who diagnosed Mom gave her six months to live.  I’m guessing, privately, he thought she had less.

The cancer fought hard, but Mom fought harder and bought herself three more years.  If it can ever be said that good can come out of something horrible, then those three years were an awful lot of good.  Since I knew our time was limited, and that perhaps I wouldn’t have the luxury of years to make amends, I said what needed to be said, apologized when apologies were due, and got to know my mother in a way I never had before.  It wasn’t all roses and sunshine, in fact a lot of it sucked monumentally, but I finally made peace with Mom and with myself.

Mom died in 2002.   It wasn’t a gentle death or an easy one.  The cancer robbed her of her speech and her coordination and finally her life.   The jokes I’d made about having to take the women in my family out with a mallet suddenly didn’t seem so funny.  At that time, pretty much nothing seemed funny.

My mother, Glenda Ackerman Shreve Fosgitt was 56 when she died.

We should have had more time, but  cancer came along and suddenly everything was different.

I’ve always been an advocate of the indoor voice.

Mostly that was because of constraints of the various jobs I’ve had.  In a lot of ways it has almost become second nature to keep my opinions to myself.  On the Hunt Smart Think Safety Blog, I wrote on behalf of a company.  If I’d spouted off what I really thought about certain issues, I could have negatively impacted the company image, which wouldn’t have been good for the company, or have provided good service to the people who signed my paycheck.   It was easier to just stay neutral and to try to write about the issues that mattered in a relatively noncontroversial way.

When it comes to the Outdoor Bloggers Summit I speak to and sometimes on behalf of 200+ different bloggers.  Almost anything I say that has even a whiff of controversy is probably going to offend or annoy someone.  So, as in my corporate life, it is easier to steer a middle course and not say anything that might really reveal what I think or how I feel regarding certain issues.  It is just simpler that way.

When you write for a company or organization and people read and respond or give weight to what you write, you chalk it up to the fact that you’re writing for a company or organization.  Doing that sort of thing gives you a certain amount of gravitas, even if it is only in your own mind.  It also gives you a certain sense of responsibility.  Someone or some group is giving you a platform and allowing you to speak on their behalf.  You have a duty to represent that company or group in a responsible and proper manner.   It isn’t really a matter of speaking softly and carrying a big stick, it’s more speaking softly and carrying no stick at all.  Creating controversy is the last thing you want.

When I finally got an outdoor blog that was just mine I thought I would be bursting at the seams with opinions.  I could finally say all the stuff I hadn’t said, and express all the opinions I’d left unexpressed for so long.  There are a lot of things I want to say, but now that I could say them, I’m not sure I should say them.   Learning to use my outdoor voice is proving harder than I thought.

I suppose, in the end, all I can do is say what I think and what I feel and let the chips fall where they may.  While I will never be a fan of controversy, I do believe that civilized debate is still possible and can be achieved.  I also think that people should stand up for what they believe and what they know to be right.  I have a platform, and an audience who is willing to listen to what I say, and I still have a responsibility, even if it is only to myself.

I’m lucky enough to have an outdoor voice.

Now I just have to learn to use it.

I have to admit, I’m a bit of a Daddy’s girl.  It seems kind of an odd thing to say given that the “Daddy” in question didn’t come into my life until I was 21 and didn’t marry my Mom until a few years after that, but being odd doesn’t make it any less true.   My Dad and I aren’t related by biological ties, our ties are ones of love and support and standing by each other through some very tough times.   I can’t think of a man I admire more, so it stands to reason I’d want to be like him, in as much as that’s possible.

I’ve always been a indoor girl.  My maternal grandmother exposed me to nature, and both sets of  grandparents took me fishing and made me work in the garden.  My biological Dad made me take walks and ride my bike while he ran, but I never found that much fun, in fact I saw it more as a punishment.  I wanted to be inside where I could read and write and dream.  Outside there was bugs and sun and it was either too hot or too cold.  Inside just seemed easier.

Up until my Dad came along, I’d never really known anyone who hunted or fished with the passion that he had.  He loved all things outdoors.  He skied and road dirt bikes.  He liked snowmobiling and had a Harley.  He had award winning fish mounted and hung on his walls, and an antelope ( I think) mount that my sister and I named Ralph.  Dad is a life member of the NRA, a member of countless fishing and hunting clubs and an ardent supporter of conservation efforts.  He loves Alaska and British Columbia and takes long trips to fish and hunt.  His life was one I’d never experienced, but I quickly saw the attraction.

Under Dad’s influence I started to see things in a new light.  I’d always enjoyed fishing, but fishing was more fun with him.   He did more than encourage me to drop my line in the water, he taught me how to fish.   He was also proud of my efforts and patient with me when I hooked the same pile of brush for the 34th time.   I felt he was happy to be sharing something he loved with his daughter,  a trait he’s also extended to his nephews, his grandchildren and the children of friends.  He loves to share what he knows, and his enthusiasm for teaching is infectious.

Thanks to Dad I also began to see that hunters were more than just guys with guns who shot Bambi.  I’d always been an apathetic hunting supporter, but Dad was one of the people who taught me that hunters did a lot of good.  He was always picking up trash on his land or by the rivers where he fished.  He cared about keeping the land pristine and about maintaining habitat for the animals who lived on that land.  Dad was as struck as anyone else by the beauty of an animal in it’s natural habitat, but he wasn’t sentimental.   The deer that he admired in July could easily become a venison steak in November, that was just part of the cycle of life.

The best thing about Dad and probably the thing I owe him for the most is that he made being outdoors a fun, no pressure experience.  If I wanted to go I went.  If I didn’t wish to go I didn’t.  If I did go, we laughed and I learned and we had a good time.  The picture at the top of this post is from one of our last trips to the U.P.  Dad had the distinction of catching both the biggest and the smallest fish that day.  I love this picture because of the sense of mischief on his face.  He’s laughing at himself and enjoying the outdoors and that’s the best outdoor role model a girl could want.