School’s Out: Time to Play
By Tom Keer
Jun 18, 2014
We don’t need to look at a calendar to know it’s summer. Baseball season is in full swing, ice cream stands are open and backyard BBQ’s are fired up. While all of that is good and true, nothing says summer more than schools closing their doors for the year. In fact, many are already closed.
We don’t need to look at a calendar to know it’s summer. Baseball season is in full swing, ice cream stands are open and backyard BBQ’s are fired up. While all of that is good and true, nothing says summer more than schools closing their doors for the year. In fact, many are already closed.
Summer seems long at the beginning of vacation, doesn’t it? But if you don’t watch it it’ll go by fast. The next thing you’ll remember is buying notepads and pens, which means that what you do today is what you’ll remember next year.
If your plan is to crank up the air conditioner, watch television, surf the net, and snap chat your friends I’ll tell you this: next summer you won’t remember a thing. You won’t remember which video games you won or lost, you won’t remember a thing about the conversations you texted so vigorously were about. Why? Because you didn’t do anything memorable, that’s why. If you want to do something you’ll remember, then slap up the sign that says ‘gone fishin’.’
You only go around once in life but if you do it right once is enough. I thought of that line while walking to my fishing spot. I wasn’t alone, and I saw a bunch of guys walking through the pines to get to the beach. They had fishing rods in their hands and were staying at the campground a few hundred yards away. They just finished grilling steaks on the wood fire, eating corn-on-the-cob and baked potatoes grilled in the embers. They finished it off with smores and were heading out to catch the evening tide. I remember doing that when I was younger, and trips like that are some of my fondest memories.
So start summer off with a bang. You’ll create strong memories that will be passed down through generations. You might not hear about them, but the thoughts are there. They’ll come flooding back every time there is a smell of woodsmoke in the air, even if it’s from the neighbors’ firepit. Those memories are sweet indeed, so go make some today.
Summer seems long at the beginning of vacation, doesn’t it? But if you don’t watch it it’ll go by fast. The next thing you’ll remember is buying notepads and pens, which means that what you do today is what you’ll remember next year.
If your plan is to crank up the air conditioner, watch television, surf the net, and snap chat your friends I’ll tell you this: next summer you won’t remember a thing. You won’t remember which video games you won or lost, you won’t remember a thing about the conversations you texted so vigorously were about. Why? Because you didn’t do anything memorable, that’s why. If you want to do something you’ll remember, then slap up the sign that says ‘gone fishin’.’
You only go around once in life but if you do it right once is enough. I thought of that line while walking to my fishing spot. I wasn’t alone, and I saw a bunch of guys walking through the pines to get to the beach. They had fishing rods in their hands and were staying at the campground a few hundred yards away. They just finished grilling steaks on the wood fire, eating corn-on-the-cob and baked potatoes grilled in the embers. They finished it off with smores and were heading out to catch the evening tide. I remember doing that when I was younger, and trips like that are some of my fondest memories.
So start summer off with a bang. You’ll create strong memories that will be passed down through generations. You might not hear about them, but the thoughts are there. They’ll come flooding back every time there is a smell of woodsmoke in the air, even if it’s from the neighbors’ firepit. Those memories are sweet indeed, so go make some today.
Tom Keer is an award-winning writer who lives on Cape Cod, Massachusetts. He is a columnist for the Upland Almanac, a Contributing Writer for Covey Rise magazine, a Contributing Editor for both Fly Rod and Reel and Fly Fish America, and a blogger for the Recreational Boating and Fishing Foundation’s Take Me Fishing program. Keer writes regularly for over a dozen outdoor magazines on topics related to fishing, hunting, boating, and other outdoor pursuits. When they are not fishing, Keer and his family hunt upland birds over their three English setters. His first book, a Fly Fishers Guide to the New England Coast was released in January 2011. Visit him at www.tomkeer.com or at www.thekeergroup.com.
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