Do-over please

Have you ever done something only to realize you really made a dumb mistake? About right then, you are really wishing you could roll back time and do a "retake" or a "do-over, please." Man I have.

Years ago, I went with Lewis Hamilton hunting at Mingo, which is a big swampy, state-owned area in Missouri. There is a lot of ground at Mingo. The day was overcast and kind of drizzling rain off and on -- so perfect to hunt. Lewis sent me off in one direction and then went his own way. I hunted there for a while and then walked and hunted and walked some more. About then I realized I wasn't sure which way was north or south or east or west. Not a clue. And I didn't have a compass. I kind of freaked out for a few minutes. Then I remembered that moss is supposed to grow on the north side of a tree.

So I headed south. I walked and walked and walked and finally came out on a gravel road. I wasn't sure which way to walk, so I headed left of south and hoped it was east. About that time a game warden came by in a pickup. I was happy to even see a game warden. If I could have done it over, I'd have had two compasses in my hunting pack. Definitely a "do-over, please" moment.

Mick and I seemed to always have some young horses to break so we could ride them. One time we decided to rope one of Dad's bucket calves. I can't remember what Mick was riding, but I was on a kind of sorrel mare Dad had bought down by Tryon, Nebraska. My 2-year-old mare hadn't been even caught when we got her. Mick roped the head of the bucket calf, and I roped the heels. Some how my horse fell down and rolled over me. About right then I was wishing I could do a "do-over." Let's try this again, Mick, and do it a different way. Nothing broken, but I did have a bruised pride problem.

I'm not sure when I got my first BB gun, but I was little. Gosh knows how many BBs I shot through it. I wore it out. So I learned you could put a drop of three-in-one oil down the barrel, and it would soup up the velocity. It made a difference. I shot everything.

I got to wondering if I could drop one of those strike-on-anything wooden matches down the muzzle. It fit perfect. So I dropped one down the muzzle and shot it at the ceiling of the living room. It had a plaster ceiling, so when the match hit the ceiling, it was flaming on the way down to the floor. I was glad Mom and Dad weren't home. I didn't do that twice. That was a "don't do it again" moment. No do-overs on this. If Dad or Mom had known, I'd have been skinned alive.

But isn't this human nature? We do things in a hurry without thinking it through and many times the thought comes when we realize this wasn't a good idea and that "this is going to hurt." Or there is a line in "Top Gun": "This is not good, Maverick. This is not good." But down through the years some of the moments I learned from the most have been when I messed up big time. I remember having a 24-by-48 high tunnel full of really nice tomatoes, but the ground between the rows of tomatoes needed to be tilled or hoed. So I tilled them.

It stirred up the dust which settled on the tomato plants, which in turn caused the whole high tunnel to get a fungus. I'll bet there wasn't a single tomato out of the 125 in the tunnel that didn't get fungus. I wished I could go back and redo but couldn't. But I decided to not do that again. Costly mistake, but a lesson learned.

When you mess up, and not if you mess up, chalk it up to lesson learned and don't repeat.