OPINION: ALFORD: Cane poles create lifelong memories for mountain kids

Janie Slaven, The Sentinel Echo, London, Ky.
·2 min read

Sep. 10—A lady asked a clerk in the bookstore where the outdoor magazines are.

"It's right over there," the clerk said. "Is there anything in particular you're looking for?"

"Yes," she replied. "My husband."

I can't begin to tell you how much I've enjoyed outdoor magazines over the years. As a child, I fell in love with Outdoor Life and Field and Stream.

I loved reading the great adventures of those writers. They hunted grizzlies. They hunted African lions. They hunted antelopes. They hunted upland birds. They hunted all kinds of waterfowl, the likes of which I had never seen in person.

They'd describe their guns that just couldn't miss, Weatherbys and Benellis and the like. They fished for peacock bass in the Amazon. They went after swordfish in the oceans of the world. Sometimes, they pulled giant sturgeon out of vast northern lakes.

Then there was me, a mountain boy whose great outdoor adventures involved hunting squirrels and rabbits back behind the house or fishing for sun grannies in the creek.

I had a single-barrel Stevens for hunting and a cane pole for fishing. But, oh, did I ever have fun.

A simple life is a wonderful thing. Proverbs 15:16 tells us it's better to have little than to have great treasure and the trouble that comes with it.

Those men with those guns that cost thousands of dollars or fishing reels that ran into hundreds of dollars always had to be aware that thieves might break in and steal them. So, no doubt, they bought unbreakable safes to protect their expensive equipment. Sounds like a great deal of trouble.

Me, I propped my Stevens in a corner without worry because no one else would want the thing. My cane pole, I'd lean against the cellar wall. No one ever took it. After all, cane poles grew like weeds all along the creek banks.

I miss those carefree days of childhood when all it took was a single-shot shotgun and a cane pole to create lifelong outdoor memories.

On hot summer days, when the sun grannies were biting, I'd be on the creek bank, cane pole in hand.

When squirrels started cutting scalybark hickories in mid-August, I'd be sitting beneath them with my single shot across my lap.

In the same way the woman knew her husband would be in the outdoor section of the bookstore, my parents always knew exactly where to find me.

Reach Roger Alford at 502-514-6857 or rogeralford1@gmail.com.