Sometimes the best lessons come from the most unexpected moments. This camping trip taught us all something about fairness, determination, and how things don’t always turn out the way you plan.
One of our family vacations was a week camping in a tent on a lake in the Adirondack mountains. It was sunny the day that we arrived and the day we left but it was rainy every day in between. Dad had borrowed a large army surplus tent from the boy scouts which accommodated all of us.
Either Tom or Joyce (I think that it was Tom) was a baby at that time and Mom had an awful time washing and drying diapers with constant rain but she managed.
One day Dad decided to take me fishing out on the lake in a rowboat. He did not feel that it was safe to have two small boys out in a boat with only him to rescue us if anything went wrong so he told Jim that he could not go. I expect that he would have taken Jim out on another day but I don’t remember that being discussed. In any case, Jim was angry.
Dad and I were out fishing all day and never caught anything. In the meantime, Jim cut a branch to use as a pole and found some fishing line and a hook and went down to fish from the shore. When we got back, we discovered that Jim had caught a nice lake trout.
From that time on, Jim was the fisherman in the family.
Sometimes being left behind turns out to be the best thing that could happen to you. Jim’s disappointment that day led to him discovering a talent and passion that stayed with him for life.