Major influence?

[Joe S.]

Was there any one particular experience or series of experiences in your youth that had a major influence on your love of the outdoors? For me it was my uncle taking me fishing regularly.

 

[Betty]

It was a series of things. My mom got me involved in Camp Fire Girls when I was 10, and my dad and grandfather always took me fishing with them. I went on a canoe trip to the Boundary Waters when I was 13. I still do all that stuff!

 

[Lorax]

my grandparents were big canoe campers and outdoors people. My parents also love the outdoors and always encouraged us to be outside (maybe they just didn't want us in the house?) so we grew up outside doing everything you can possibly do.

It just stuck with me. I never knew or wanted anything else.

 

[Bambi]

I grew up in the mid-west. When I was a college student, I had a chance to go on exchange to a school in Idaho. From then on I was smitten! I graduated from that school in live in Idaho now.

 

[Yogi]

My grandfather was a fisherman all his life from a young age. From when I was a young age he always included me in his fishing.

 

[Geordie]

My dad moved the family to be with his family on a farm that the family owned. Having spent my first several years in the suburbs of a major city center, I was blown away by the rusticity of it all and the practicality & self-sufficiency.

Those people had an expectation that me and my siblings would learn and do as our cousins did, and quickly.

We did.

 

[oldsarge]

I remember family Bar B Ques out in the forest preserves near our home as a kid. I had an Uncle who took me and one of my cousins out in the woods hiking after my father had passed. It was a special time for me. I always enjoyed being out in the woods, I had another uncle who took us camping a few times with our cousins. Again, special times! Then it happened...I joined the Army, I remember the recruiter saying "Son...you like camping, how about guns...you like them too...well...have I got a place for you!!! Spent the next 11 years carrying my house on my back, spent way too much time giving my weapon that special attention morning, noon, and night. Camping you say? Well, if you call living in the field without a fire, good cigar, cold drinks and conducting all your conversations in a whisper camping...well ya, I camped, The Army way! Up before dawn at the ready, then walk all day as we conducted training. I had an old Paratrooper from the 82nd Airborne who was my platoon sergeant tell me, "you know what I'm going to do when I retire?" "I'm going to go in the woods, build a fire, drink beer, smoke a whole carton of cigarettes throughout the night and yell my ass off", then sleep in till the crack of noon!!! I'm following his lead...they always said Airborne leads the way!...or was that the Rangers...aw who cares, I'm going to the woods!

 

[steves]

I would say growing up on the edge of a state forest,and parents that preferred I played in the woods to hanging up town.
Then a great scout troop all the way thru the ranks and on to a Jr. leader.Complete with annual week long camping trips, and at least 1 weekend every month.

 

[YogiBear]

My dad was a major influence on me. He was a real mountain man you might say and took me all over Tennessee camping, hiking and rock climbing.