I’m not sure exactly what year it was, but I was probably 5 years old.
I’m not sure what month it was, either, but it was probably mid-January.
It was cold. Maybe 20 degrees. Sunny, with a brisk wind.
My brothers, Roger and Tony, were already teenagers with driver’s licenses, shotguns and a serious penchant for rabbit hunting.
They loved rabbit hunting.
And that’s why I loved it.
Truth be told, even at the age of 5, I think I loved it more.
I loved the excitement of rousting a cottontail from a brush pile and watching it zigzag through the farmland brush in a desperate attempt to escape.
My brothers were expert shotgunners. If a rabbit was rousted in front of them, it seldom — and I mean seldom — got away. Their aim was true probably 99% of the time.
But on this particular Sunday, they weren’t feeling it for whatever reason.
Maybe the Packers were playing. Maybe they both had a rare reprieve from having to cut, split and stack firewood in the basement. Maybe they just wanted to unwind at home.
Whatever the reason, they briefly entertained the idea of going rabbit hunting.
That tiny sliver of hope sent this 5-year-old into a complete meltdown on the living room floor.
I threw myself onto the thick, golden carpeting and begged, pleaded and, yes, cried crocodile tears.
“Please, just take me rabbit hunting!”
If I focus long enough, I can still feel the heat from the Franklin stove, kicking out BTUs like nobody’s business.
“Please! I’ll go through all the prickly ash and jump on all the brush piles! I just want to go rabbit hunting!”
The adventure would have been enough.
But deep down, I wanted to be the one to carry the rabbits home.
That was the highest honor.
And unless you’ve worn a hand-me-down, tattered game vest loaded with the weight of dead rabbits, you probably have no idea what that payoff feels like.
Let me tell you.
It was the best feeling in the world.
Well, my brothers finally relented.
They went hunting that day.
And they let me go with them.
They shot five rabbits. And I got to carry them home.
I still remember that day more than a half-century later.
Not because of the rabbits.
Not because of the weather.
Not even because of the hunt itself.
I remember it because my brothers let me go.
They could have told me no. They could have gone without me. They could have said I was too young, too little or too much trouble.
Instead, they took their little brother along.
And that meant everything to me.
Which brings me to my point.
If the young one in your life — whether it’s your child, grandchild, niece, nephew or a friend’s kid — begs you to let them go hunting with you, let them.
Take them.
Let them get cold. Let them get muddy. Let them walk through the prickly ash and climb over the brush piles. Let them carry the game vest, even if it’s bigger than they are.
Because you might be doing something far more important than taking a kid hunting.
You might be creating a core memory.
Whether that memory sparks a lifelong passion for hunting and the outdoors isn’t the point.
The point is that, in that moment, you gave that child something special.
You told them they mattered enough to be included.
You gave them an adventure.
You gave them a story they might still be telling 50 years from now.
And you gave them a memory that, no matter how much the world changes, nothing can ever replace.
Sometimes, the greatest gift we can give a kid is simply this:
“Come on. Let’s go hunting.”
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