Boys will be boys

The great naturalist Jon Muir once said, “When a man comes to the mountains, he comes home.” I agree, for it is in the mountains, hills, fields and trees that boys get challenged, often get pushed to limits and then find themselves not lacking. Obviously, I am no psychologist but much has been written on these things by those more educated on the psychology and/or sociology of boys becoming men. What I do know is that I just spent the weekend sleeping outside with a low of 3 degrees, climbing through caves, and jumping off very tall cliffs attached to a rope. I was joined by a good friend of mine, and our sons, mine is 11 years old and his is nine. Did I mention we had a blast?

For some of our female readers, most notably my wife (the mother of said eleven year old), this may all sound a bit, crazy. For those of you who think this, you may actually be right. I humbly submit to you that it is a good crazy though. I don’t know about boys growing up to be knights in shining armor. What I do know is that I personally like it (you do not have to agree) that we want our boys to grow up to be men. Part of doing that involves doing somewhat dangerous things such as climbing mountains, dangling precipitously off of ropes, paddling down dangerous rivers, etc. So it was this past weekend when I and my eleven year old son spent the weekend outdoors.

I remember once a trip that my own father took me on. We took a small overnight hike through a part of the Red River Gorge. I will never forget several things on that trip. One was that a small portion of our hike was alongside the side of a cliff in which at any moment I would fall off to my sure death and destruction, but I didn’t. We also only had a sheet of plastic and a very thin sheet blanket to cover us. I surely thought I was going to freeze to death during the night, but I didn’t. I put my shoes next to the fire during the night to dry them out. I kept putting them too close and was instructed by my dad and my uncle to pull them back or they would catch on fire. Well, you know what, I didn’t and they caught fire. I had to hike out barefooted. When we started I did not think I was going to make it out, but guess what I did.

So it went for me, nearly 30 years ago, and so it was for my son last weekend. Challenged and pushed to our self-imposed limits then finding myself, and my son too I suppose, meeting those limits and learning how to push myself through them. I am not saying that going out and climbing Mt. Everest is a good idea. I actually think that is a useless endeavor, but I do understand why they want to do it. Some people have limits and others know those limits and try to get past them. A friend of mine (actually he married into our family) is one of the Special Forces, Army ranger types. You know what I mean, the go-getter A-type personality who meets all obstacles head on and busts on through them. He told me a long time ago after graduating from Ranger school some very good advice. He said that Ranger school was not about learning how to be ten foot tall and bullet-proof. It was learning how to recognize where your limits are and then how to work through, or around them when the need arises.

Nature study and awareness skills can be done the same way. You don’t have to run a zip line, crawl through caves, or other like-minded fun to be pushed. It may be a challenge for you to know your birds. Don’t blow it off and say, “There are just too many, I can never learn them all.” Rather recognize that is a limit that you want to overcome, and work through or around it. You like the outdoors, and want to see some interesting sights, but can’t make yourself get a backpack and put 15-20 miles under your boots on a hike, then don’t. Recognize that as a goal and go out and walk a mile or two instead. Your may meet your goal of learning more about nature and the more natural things around you.

Yes, boys will be boys, and girls will be girls. We all need to meet our obstacles and go through them and if you cannot do that, then go around it instead. With that said, I hope to see you on or off the trail somewhere soon.