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Tip o' the Day

(This tip could be construed as unusual, but you can be comforted knowing it's appropriate for this day)

It's heavy work maintaining a working compromise between man's twin cravings for (1) outdoors adventure and (2) matrimonial harmony. There are pedantics who claim those masculine drives to be irreconcilable. Cataclysmic crashes, they say, are inevitable for the simple outdoorsman who strives for wedded bliss. However, I'm not one of those doomsayers. And I vehemently refuting their premise of mutual exclusion. So listen up and I'll share insight on the whys and hows:

First, I work quite hard at mending matrimonial fences in the off season. By great good fortune, my off season extends from December to April (when flowers bloom and bears emerge). So how do I implement effective spouse pacification?

There are benefits and liabilities to my strategic compromise. One major liability is the duration of the wilderness siren's song that so captivates me for eight months. But the benefit is it's the single siren to which I listen -- except when Jane tells me to take out the garbage. Yet four months of garbage toting affords credits only the meanest of fishwives could ignore.

Four long months, despite their noteworthy numbers, are even then barely enough. Pity the ice fisherman or trapper or houndsman who tramp the winter's snow. Survival for them dictates atonement during summer or fall -- unthinkable when cutthroats rise or elk bugle.

Why is marital atonement necessary for the outdoorsman? Only those who've freshly stumbled over the nuptial threshold would ask. In my case, it's because I regularly forget both my wife's birthday and our wedding anniversary (one comes in mid-summer, the other during elk season). But I usually atone for those lapses by purchasing a nice card for Christmas and by picking a handful of daffodils on Mother's Day.

And I never forget Valentine's.

There's something about February hearts and impish urchins in diapers shooting arrows that causes Jane to overlook a lot of summer dust and fall mud, as well as an absent husband who gives her only an absentminded peck every ten days during the busy season.

Atonement need not mean servitude. There's nothing wrong with carrying out garbage, but it is menial work for a big, tough, outdoor-bred mountain stomper. Thoughtful surprises are far better though because they keep the helpmate off balance enough to put a benign face on your next fishing trip.

Tell you what -- why don't you really surprise her this Valentine's Day? Call her from work and invite her to a candlelight dinner at some quiet, romantic place.

 

WILL YOU BE MY VALENTINE?

The earliest I recall these things called valentines was during my first year in school. Each first-grade girl's name was dropped into one basket, boy's names went into another. Then we drew. It all sounded exciting until I looked at the name on my slip of paper and threw up. The one I really wanted was that LuAnn Nockelby. True, her hair was stringy and she wore glasses and her knees clattered together when she walked. But she had this wonderful attribute, see? Her mother and father owned the country store near our country school. And that country store had a really big candy counter.

Instead I drew the name of Lorelei Saffelmeier -- the lound one who chased after boys and kissed them in order to watch 'em blush.

I would've played hooky that whole month of February in order to avoid the doomsday valentine swap, but a domineering mother and sadistic teacher dug in together to thwart any escape.

I've mellowed over the years, for Valentine's Day doesn't conjure up the same frightful images. Oh, I still draw a girl's name from a basket and I always buy that girl the prettiest card I can find. But today's basket contains only a single name and the girl who packs that name can chase and kiss me anytime she wants.

That girl and me, we've run in the same harness for over half a century, and I wouldn't complain too loud if we log another half-century before climbing our last divide. We might do it, too, for both of us enjoy good health, the will to learn, and a zest for life. We attribute much of our good fortune to the fact that we seek outdoors adventure together.

- We try to hike on the mountain in front of our home a couple of times each week.

- We crosscountry ski, float rivers, look for fossils, identify wildflowers, glass for wildlife, or spend a day partaking of any other of the many fine outdoors pursuits our country offers.

- Last year we hiked Nebraska's tall grass prairie, houseboated on Lake Powell, visited the Haleakala Crater on Hawaii's island of Maui, hiked in New Mexico's Gila Wilderness, and Utah's Dark Canyon Wilderness, visited Big Bend National Park, and Palo Dura Canyon in Texas, and spent a month viewing fall colors in Pennsylvania and New York.

- Though we no longer have horses of our own, we took two extended packtrips into the Bob Marshall Wilderness.

Clearly, physical regimen has become a way of life to us. And we've been able to meld it's habit-forming benefits into our mutual love for the forests, mountains, rivers, and plains found throughout the West. But as beneficial as is physical regimen and exercise, we do not credit our good fortune so much to it as we do to the fact that we exercise together.

Neither Jane nor I have degrees in psychotherapy, but we both recognize our love-relationship has been immeasurably strengthened by doing fun things together. If those fun things also develop physical elan and tend toward mental repose, so much the better. I suppose doing fun things together could be attending concerts or visiting Disneyland or the Metropolitan Museum. But this seems an appropriate place to make a pitch for all our known friends and unknown friends to take a long look at what they've got just outside their back doors.

I recall a lady from Buffalo, New York who was visiting Montana some years back. She was nice enough, I guess, but I'll never forget how horrified she was at finding our access to cultural exposure so limited. "What on earth do you people do out here?" she asked.

"Do out here?" I murmured. "DO OUT HERE?" How could a man ever love such a woman?

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Roland Cheek wrote a syndicated outdoors column (Wild Trails and Tall Tales) for 21 years. The column was carried in 17 daily and weekly newspapers in two states. In addition, he scripted and broadcast a daily radio show (Trails to Outdoor Adventure) that aired on 75 stations from the Atlantic seaboard to the Pacific Ocean. He's also written upwards of 200 magazine articles and 12 fiction and nonfiction books. For more on Roland, visit:

www.rolandcheek.com

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