Cultivate hobbies

Several of my friends who are up in years and now retired, seem like they are bored. They don't have a hobby, if you will, to spend some of their time on. So they sit and watch the boob tube or flat screen now and that's about it. In a way I kind of envy them because they don't have 40-11 tasks ahead of them and a list entirely too long. But when it's all said and done, I don't envy them at all.

I guess from the time I was little I loved taking on tasks and trying something. I am a born piddler. I liked to read, so when an appealing idea in one of the magazines sounded good, I had to try it if Mom and Dad said OK and if they'd pay the bill. I saw an ad way back in my childhood from J.W. Elwood Taxidermy in Lincoln or Omaha, Nebraska. In something like nine or so short lessons, one could become a taxidermist and mount lifelike specimens like birds or deer or antelope or fish. Had to have the lessons and take the course.

After signing up I got the first lesson, and they then came monthly. Seems like the first couple were on birds. So after getting some Calorax and some excelsior and wire and glass eyes I went out and smoked a bird with my 22. The bird was worse for the wear but still good enough to try mounting. So I carefully skinned the bird, opened up the wings so I could get Calorax or a preservative in around the bones and used some wire to make the neck and body rigid. Didn't look too bad. So I'd smoke some birds and try mounting them. I got to the point I used the .22 bird shot shells, and they didn't tear up the feathers. I mounted some deer heads and antelope heads which one of us shot or a friend. Learned a lot. One thing I learned was it was a lot harder than it looks. One thing for sure, I stayed busy.

I was reading in one of the magazines about Estes rockets. One would construct these small rockets and add a solid fuel engine and light it up and away it would fly. So Mom and Dad paid for me to build hobby rockets. I think the biggest one I built was a three-stage rocket and the last stage had a parachute. It was a blast building them and flying them. I tried building my own rocket solid fuel motors by mixing gun powder and model glue and putting it in an old aluminum cigar tube. Had to have the glue. I built one with just gun powder and it kind of disintegrated. My homemade engine got hot. Real hot.

Dad kind of fueled my curiosity as well. Dad showed me how to braid three-strand and four-, both flat and round. Then one can braid six-round and even eight-round. There are special knots one can braid. My first attempts were from old boot tops. One can take an old boot top and go around and around cutting the leather about a quarter-inch inch wide and end up with a pretty long piece of leather. So I'd braid reins and bridles and hackamores. Braided belts and all kinds of stuff. About this time macreme came along and it was a cinch compared to braiding reins and such.

I graduated from high school and college and got married. So I went to tooling belts and wallets and purses and such. Really enjoyed it. I saw an ad about building a muzzleloader from scratch. It was supposed to be a rifle but I decided to turn it into a pistol instead. So I ordered the barrel and the nipple from Dixie and made the rest. I built the stock and tang and breech plug and lock. It worked. I still enjoy working on blackpowder guns. But I don't really have the time now that I'm retired.

I always was interested in blacksmithin, so I began to gather up blacksmithing stuff. Tools and anvils and forges and such. Finally took a blacksmithing class up by Potosi put on by Tom Clark. Tom was an awesome individual. When we all showed up for the class, there were exactly enough learning stations for everyone but me. So Tom said to take his work station and use his anvil and forge and tools. I couldn't have planned it any better if I'd tried. I was used to work and handling a hammer, so I wore down some of my callouses that week. Some wore some blisters.

I was in school in Bartlesville taking ministerial classes and working gosh knows how many hours, but I saw an ad about a fly-tying class put on by Green County Fly Fishermen. I'd fly fished since I could walk, so I had to make room to take the class. The class was a blast. We learned how to make woolly worms and nymphs and dry flies and some more. Then they took each of us fishing, which was a hoot. I think my guide was a little concerned I'd hook him. In later years I probably hooked both our boys and Marge when fly fishing from an old canoe.

The canoe was another story. I saw this ad in the paper where someone wanted to sell a fiberglass canoe that was in two pieces. Someone had stolen it and left on a creek bank and high water had taken the canoe and wrapped it around a tree and broken it in two. I thought I can fix that. And after a lot of grinding and laying down fiberglass, we had a cheap canoe. We really enjoyed it.

There are two things I wish all us old people and parents would do. Don't ever just sit and do nothing. Find a hobby of some kind. If you can't, then get a job of some kind. Volunteer somewhere. I call my one sister most every week and ask her what's she's been up to. Invariably she will say she's read the paper, did the crossword puzzle which she loves, went and visited two days with friends and had lunch with them and visited with friends on the phone. Her one son I think calls her pretty much every day. Stay mentally and physically active. Don't quit. Talk to your doctor about what you can do.

If you are a parent or grandparent with grandkids then help the young ones to develop hobbies beyond the games and stuff on the Internet. Real hobbies. Maybe photography or cooking or fishing or hunting or shooting or 4H or carpentry or antique cars and on and on. Help them find ways to be active later in life when maybe they can't work.