He came home with my uncle after a long hunting trip in the mountains of eastern Washington and there was something different about him.  I had seen the look on his face and the aura about him before, actually, one year before when he returned previously with my uncle on another hunting trip.

Every year, my father would go out with his brothers and spend a few days out in the woods and it didn’t really seem to matter just how stressful life had become, that one trip every year charged his emotional and spiritual batteries.

Though my father never took me hunting, we spent many a day out on the lake catching fish.  He and I didn’t see eye to eye on many issues but we both knew that there was and is something spiritual, primal if you will, about spending time out in the woods with friends, family and loved ones.

I’m doing my best to encourage my children to accompany me out in the woods and have actually taken my son and youngest daughter out, but sadly they are at an age where they just aren’t interested.  I love my father dearly, but have learned that now that I’m a father, I refuse to force my kids to participate in my angling and hunting adventures, but I will always make it available to them.

On this Father’s Day, my wish is that through my example, my kids will embrace the Constitution as I have - to fight to protect our 2nd Amendment rights and to preserve our hunting traditions for their children.

I think I’m making progress because during a conversation between my wife and my son, he mentioned to her that he needed to take some video software classes (he’s 12) because if something happened to me, “someone must carry on WILD Oklahoma.”

Perhaps my Father’s Day wish has already been granted…