Tomorrow, more than a few Maine sportsmen will honor not only their fathers but many other men deserving of Father’s Day recognition. If you’re a native son, I’m sure you can relate to that. Particularly if you began purchasing hunting and fishing licenses when this century was middle-aged.

At that time, it was practically impossible for a boy to grow up in this neck of the woods without being exposed to hunting, fishing, trapping and the accompanying fascinations with the wondrous world of nature and wildlife. And because of the prevalence of those sporting traditions, young, aspiring sportsmen naturally learned much by association. However, their fathers and father figures also provided them with conscientious instruction and ample opportunities to acquire knowledge from the greatest teacher of all, experience.

For the most part, young sportsmen were taught by what could be described as a family faculty that included fathers, grandfathers, uncles, cousins, and older brothers. Also, there were boyhood friends whose families had their share of outdoorsmen willing to make room for one more whenever they could. And let’s not forget the Sports camped around town who knew that Ned’s or Dan’s boy would jump at the opportunity to lend a hand seining shiners, recanvassing a canoe or catching pigeons for training a bird dog.

Judging from my own experiences, it seems that sportsmen of that era took more youngsters under their wings than did their modern counterparts. Granted, the importance of the many group-instruction programs offered by sportsmen’s clubs and organizations cannot be overemphasized. Furthermore, such programs are essential to the future of Maine’s traditional outdoors recreations. But I have to say that if the choice were mine I’d opt for the father-son outings in which a boy’s growing pains were relieved by therapy with rods and guns.

Could be you recall those firsthand lessons as being simple and succinct, involving no pretense or posturing. Usually they went something like this: as you and your father arrived home after a morning of bird hunting, he said, “Check that gun and make sure it’s empty before you take it into the house.”

“I checked it before I got into the car.”

“I know that. Check it again.” To this day you won’t bring a firearm into the house without opening the action to be sure you’re sure.

Perhaps it was on one of your first coastal duck hunts that, after hiding the boat and hurrying back to the blind, your grandfather asked, “You put the anchor out?”

“Uh-uh. I hauled the boat way up on the shore. It’s OK.”

“I suppose it’s OK that we’re on the new moon and the wind’s out of the south, too.”

“What’s that mean?”

“Big tides, which also means go back and put the anchor out.”

You’ll no doubt agree it was an education just being around men like that. Sure, they were a little rough around the edges. After all, savoir-faire wasn’t a by product of Maine’s paper mills and shoe factories. But the majority of the blue-collar outdoorsmen I hunted and fished with were honest, dependable, fiercely proud and independent individuals whose characters and senses of responsibility were as solid as Maine granite.

For example, as a boy did you ever have to roust your father or grandfather out of bed on the morning of a planned hunting or fishing trip or, in later years, have to wait for him to show up at your house?. In fact, I’m willing to bet that even now, when according to plan you stop by the old homestead to pick him up in the wee hours, he’s waiting in the driveway with his fishing or gunning gear. Work or play, never being late was a matter of pride with the men of his era.

And great teachers, they were, who knew well the value of compliments made casually but within earshot of young men striving for acceptance into the sporting fraternity: “Billy can shoot like hell. Put a deer by him and it’s a good bet you’ll have liver and onions that night.” “Young Eddie ties flies as good as you’ll find anywhere.” “Jimmy’s boy is as smart with a canoe as anyone I’ve seen.”

They were kind and considerate men, the fathers, grandfathers, uncles and others who were role models, mentors, heroes and friends to the likes of you and me. Yet they were tough when they had to be and gentle when they should be in teaching us respect, responsibility and accountability. You may not agree, but I’m convinced those disciplines so important to shaping the lives of young people are being eroded continuously by the liberalism pervading this country.

I consider myself lucky in that tomorrow my thoughts will focus on the many fathers whose trails I cut and followed a long time ago. Being guides, farmers, woodsmen, foresters, coastal fishermen and such they were, of course, the salt of the earth. Needless to say, they didn’t own a lot of hunting and fishing equipment and never had a lot of time to use what they had. But they always managed to find enough of both to share with me. For that I will be forever indebted to them.

Happy Father’s Day.