What I usually have to guard against is over doing one subject and to mix up the topics for my articles to appeal to more than one segment of readers.

Sometimes I just go blank, particularly during hunting season when that activity commands so much of my time. In addition, there is the demand placed upon me by this newspaper.

Don’t get me wrong, the management has never filtered or censored anything I have ever submitted for publication. Their only demand has been that I submit an article that is of the correct length so that I don’t either over or under fill the space they allocate for me.

The problem with that is that there are times that I have more to write about than space available.  The result has been that the paper has allowed me to run some articles in parts. Not a bad thing. 

The “bad thing” comes from me. There are times when I have a topic in mind that I know I just can’t write enough about to fill an article. A nine-word article just won’t get it. So, this article is the reverse of a multi-part series, it is a hodge podge of topics that I just need to get out to cleanse my brain such as…

High Powered Rifles 

I just love when I hear some sort of a report like I did the other day when a hunter was shot and killed with “a high powered rifle.”

Question - have you ever seen or do you know of a low powered rifle? Is it one that has a cork jammed into the end of the barrel with a string attached? Does a low powered rifle go pop instead of bang? Does one of these kill slower or is it used only to wound an animal instead of killing it?

See what I mean? That’s all that needs to be said about this topic and it is certainly not enough for me to submit as a complete article. I have another one.

Dress warm

Uuuuuhhhhhhmmmm, OK, but first, so that I can better understand this statement, please tell me how you dress cold.

I might understand this a bit more in the summer time when you want to stay cool, but that requires a lack of dressing, as in fewer garments, unless I’ve missed something and there are ice filled T-shirts out there for sale by one of those evil big box stores! 

Another one that goes along with this is…

Stay dry

Come on now, why take all the fun out of my day. All I wanted to do this morning is get up, get dressed and run out in the rain to get wet. It just makes my day and you had to blab away and tell me to stay dry. Thanks a lot.

And of course there’s the king of them all, which I must admit I use all the time…

Be careful 

This one kind of wraps all the rest up in a neat little bundle, don’t you think. It doesn’t matter if you are shot with a high or low powered rifle, or if you are dressed warm or cold, or if you are nice and dry or soaking wet so long as you’re careful. Get shot as many times as you want dressed any way that you like, wet or dry, but by golly, just be careful doing it.

These types of statements sort of remind me of when I was a teenager. My mom never told me what time I had to be home from a date as long as I was home at the time I told her I would be. 

One night, I came in considerably later than scheduled. In the dark of our kitchen, I turned to kick off my shoes and the next thing I knew, I was on the floor.

My mother had been waiting in the dark for me and to signal to me that I had screwed up, she hit me over the head with a frying pan and then went off to bed without a word being spoken.

At that point, I could have added my own dumb statement to the above list. I could have asked “am I late?” 

See you outdoors!