He’s Famous!

As I was thinking and wondering what I should write about this week, I had to ask myself, "why do I write a blog each week anyway?"

For one, I like to write. As we were starting our little business venture, we had heard that writing a blog each week was a good way to keep traffic coming to your site. And so I started to write. I wrote about little things like how we were trying  to start our business, building the equipment, struggles along the way, as well as some family adventures and other odds and ends. Not only do I get to write but it also helps me to feel productive when we have a week with poor glass sales. Though it doesn't pay the bills, at least not in a direct way, I see the value in it. 

My second reason for writing is that as a Christian I believe that God has a purpose for each of us, and  I've often felt that my purpose in life is to encourage others. You all have specific callings of your own. And whether that's growing tomatoes to share with others or making others smile, only you and God know. But I hope that in some way I can help you see the importance of what you do and hopefully encourage you to do your best at it. 

 A little disclaimer here, being a Christian doesn't make me any better than the next guy. I have struggles and weaknesses just like everyone else. It just means that I don't have to let those weaknesses define who I am and can attempt to live the life that I was meant to live. 

I've been writing each week for a little over a year now, and I often wonder what I will be writing for my next blog. You can only write so many stories about the big deer and fish and turkeys that got away. Especially since it's not something that happens everyday. And when something big does happen, often the story isn't as exciting as the actual pursuit and all of the things that happen along the way. So as I write I often look for things to write about that happen while I'm out and about, waiting for that big buck or fish to come along, some little thing that might  inspire or encourage at least one of you out there.

This week's blog is a good example of that. 

This past weekend we had our annual boys fish camp. Caleb and Blake invited some of their friends and their dads and we camped out at my dad's pond. We fish and hang out all night. It was a good camp, the boys had lots of fun, and one of the boys ended up catching a 24" koi. But since it was a pretty normal fish camp, I don't want to bore you all with another fish story. 

As I was looking back on the camp and trying to figure out what to write about this week, I remembered watching my friend Nate teaching Evan how to catch crappie with a jig.

And so I'll write about Nate.

As we were setting up camp, Anthony said, "did you all see that Nate is famous? I saw his picture on Facebook". We all got a chuckle out of that, but the irony is that it was true. If Nate is on Facebook, that means he's probably famous. Otherwise you wouldn't see him on Facebook. He's not one to post pictures of himself, and I'm pretty sure that he doesn't even have an account. Well, at least not yet. He'll probably get one now that he realizes how much fame that Facebook can bring.

The story around that fame started back in April. Several of us often do a backpacking turkey hunt each year. It's as close to a Colorado elk hunt as you can get without spending money and usually we bring home the same amount of game that we would if we had been hunting in Colorado. Need I say more?

This year there would be five of us. Brian and Bobby are both pros at turkey talk. My hope was to set them in strategic spots while Nate and  myself would ambush the big gobblers as they came in. Anthony would be along to keep us from getting lost. He is one of the finest at raising and training hunting dogs. With all of his experience with tracking collars and GPS, he would guide us back to the truck in the event that we got off course.

Well, somehow we left a little bit of severe weather and thunderstorms on Sunday cancel our trip. It was supposed to be a nice Monday morning and so we decided to just meet at my house Monday morning and then spend the morning hunting and at least get some fun out of our plan.

We met at 4:30AM and then drove about a half an hour to where we wanted to hunt. Apparently the other guys didn't like my plan as we split up and didn't all hunt in the same spot. I think we all heard some gobblers but no one was successful at calling any in. We decided to just meet back at the truck at lunch. We were all texting back and forth and as the birds had stopped gobbling, we were all kind of moving around. Nate mentioned in a text that he had found a couple of morels. Since Nate is more the humble type, that usually means he found a bunch. Brian and I were the last ones to the truck. As we got close to the truck, Brian said, "Now that's a big buck!"

In front of Nate's truck was a huge buck!  And Nate hadn't even mentioned it, "Just a couple of morels". Apparently as he was looking for morels, he looked around and right in front of him were the remains of a huge buck.

We all gathered around the skull and we all thought the same thing. "That is one big buck!"

We hurried back to my house and got out a tape and a Boone and Crockett score sheet and started measuring and adding. Jenelle said we were more excited than a bunch of kids on Christmas morning! And we were! Our initial score was 175 & 2/8". For those of you that don't know about scoring deer, here in the mountains, a 120" buck is a nice buck. A 140" inch buck is really nice. And a 175" inch deer is practically unheard of! And yes, we were excited! 

Nate contacted the DNR to get the proper permits to keep the antlers. He cleaned off the skull and got it looking nice. He didn't put it on Facebook, but the word got out and before long it was there. A picture of Nate along with two guys from the National Deer Association holding the buck. And now Nate is famous! And the rest of us are excited because we know the guy that found one of the biggest bucks to ever walk in the mountains of Maryland!

Back to Nate giving a lesson to Evan on how to jig for crappie. Evan started catching crappie. He caught a lot of crappie. I could see on Nate's face that he was happy that he was able to teach Evan some tricks. If the truth were known, I would wager that Nate was just as happy about helping Evan as he was about getting his picture on Facebook.

With that in mind, maybe it would be good for those of us that didn't get to find the deer, or for those of us who will never be famous in the big world, to take a minute to think about what fame actually is. It's probably true that we all want to be known and famous to someone. And maybe that's okay. Maybe it just needs to be in this context;

Be famous in the eyes of those to whom you are sent or better yet, in the eyes of those who have sent you.