It was trout season, and I was out fishing with a few friends. The spring air was delightful and the water was very cold. My friend, John, was wading a bit out into the creek to get a place to cast into a particularly good hole. He flicked his bait out and lost his footing, slipping down into the deep cold water It, of course, filled his boot.
I was up on the bank, a little way off with another friend of mine and his brother when I heard him yell. He yelped and came back sloshing up onto the bank. Then he started trying to pull off that wader full of water. He was just having a horrible time and asked our other friend to help him pull it off. That’s when it happened.
His fake leg came popping off and the other guy watching, who didn’t know John, almost passed out.
I’m not sure what he thought, but we who knew John had to laugh. We had seen this before. He has been handicapped a long time, since a bad fall from a tree stand. This handicap doesn’t stop him from fishing and hunting, it just makes him occasionally need a little help.
This story makes me think about how many people across Pennsylvania hunt and fish with a handicap. I know quite a few, me included. Elderly people have so many handicaps that some quit doing what they love as it’s just too difficult. Others get more help.
I never go without friends these days. I can no longer see well enough to navigate the bumps and lumps of the fields and banks, let alone tie on fishing hooks. Hunting is another story. I hunt with friends, but must rely on them for my eyes. This is not how I want it to be, but it’s reality these days.
One acquaintance still hunts from his wheelchair after breaking his back in a bad fall that left him paralyzed from the waist down. He still reloads and hunts with his friends. They use quads and put him with friends. Determination is what drives him. He says he still loves the sport.
Not too long ago, I wrote about him shooting an elk. This must be awfully difficult for him and his friends. I admire his spirit.
I know of a few veterans who love to hunt and fish. My son-in-law fly fishes with an organization called Project Healing Waters. This great organization helps veterans learn to fly fish, even taking them on trips and building fly rods. He loves it and says the camaraderie of the military comes into play on these trips. The peace of fly fishing and the success of catching trout help him overcome some mighty bad times.
Sometimes the outdoors can be a healing place.
I often see a friend who deals and trades guns while running his business. He has a great love for guns and people from all over come to him when searching for a particular gun. The man has long been handicapped after a tree fell on his toe and it became infected. He lost a leg. He has overcome a great difficulty that would have caused some to curl up in a ball and stay in bed. I believe his great love and knowledge of guns has helped him through some dark times.
Another friend has some severe heart problems and he has been handicapped a long time. Still, he loves to go to the club to shoot. Of all my close friends he might be the most handicapped, but you really wouldn’t know it. We have tromped around hunting for a lot of years, and he has been through a lot. His handicap almost cost him his life several times and yet he still reloads and shoots weekly.
People who enjoy the outdoors are a tough lot, and we endure. Some might whine and complain – I know I do – but still we go out and sit in the fields. I guess you can be handicapped or you can just continue to be out in the environment doing what you can. Maybe with a little help.
It’s a life that is rich and one day outside is worth many days inside staring at the wall. Thanks to those who assist someone handicapped.
George Block writes a weekly outdoors column for the Observer-Reporter.
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