When I was a kid, I loved to fish. Fishing was pretty much my favorite thing. I loved baseball, football, riding my bike and fishing.  My mom and dad used to make the joke that if it wasn’t for class pictures, there wouldn’t be any pictures of me that didn’t also have a fish in them. (Likely taken with one of my mom’s super sweet disposable cameras).

I could tie my own line and bait my own hook by the time I was nine years old, but I still needed my parents to help me out with all the times I got hung up on a rock or cast my line into a tree. My dad never got to fish because he had to do this for all four of us kids. We all fished and he ran around yanking, pulling and swearing. This is something I came to a better understanding of once I took my kids fishing.  Kids fish while parents run around fixing everything the kids screw up.

I used to collect aluminum cans and take them to the recycling plant in order to get some money to buy more fishing equipment. I wasn’t old enough to get a job, but my parents and their friends all drank beer, so there was a constant stream of potential revenue. I think my biggest can exchange was around sixty dollars. That’s a lot of money for a kid that doesn’t have any expenses beyond fishing equipment, baseball cards, comic books and tire tubes for his bicycle. I crushed and bagged a lot of cans that summer and felt like I hit the lottery when they handed me all that money.

The summer before my sixth grade year of school is when we moved from Austin to Johnson City-located in the Texas Hill country.  Prior to moving to the area, we would spend weekends camping out on the banks of the Pedernales River (located just outside of Johnson City).  My parents fell in love with the area, so we moved out that direction and they commuted the hour or so into work every day.

I’ve now been in the public eye for more than twenty two years, but it was on the banks of the Pedernales River where I got my first taste of “fame”.

There was a show called “Fishing Texas” and it aired on TV on the weekends. I would get up early in the morning to see where the Warren brothers (the hosts) would be fishing that week. True to the name of the show, they would travel all around Texas looking for the best places to fish, but it was the last 5 minutes of the show that I was the most interested in. This is where they would showcase some of the pictures they received from viewers. If your picture made it on the show, you would get a Fishing Texas prize pack!  That pack included a sticker, a fishing lure, a couple bags of Zapp’s kettle chips and a jar of salsa. It also came with the bragging rights that your catch made it on TV and you could show it to anyone that came over to your house to watch it off the VHS tape you recorded it on!

The summer where I set the aluminum can recycling record was also the summer that I caught a nearly four pound catfish off the bank of the Pedernales River (probably was smaller, but as the legend lives on, the fish gets bigger). The biggest fish I had ever caught by that point in my life! I was going to be famous!  Months after sending my picture in to the TV show, I get a letter from Allen Warren himself telling me that my fish made the show and I would be receiving my Fishing Texas prize pack!  I savored every bite of those kettle chips and I didn’t (knowingly) share a one of them with the other three kids in the house. (I am confident they stole from me!). I was famous!  Anyone that would be awake that early on a Saturday morning would see the picture of me holding that big catfish!  I’d probably get my own fishing show because of it or something? Maybe the Warren brothers would ask me to go fishing with them and show them all the fishing “hot spots” I knew about? Well, they didn’t. Nobody saw it besides my family and I couldn’t tell you where the VHS tape is these days, but there is a solid chance that someone taped over it.

As you get older, life starts taking away the things that consumed your childhood. Much like someone taping over your first taste of “fame”; interests that consumed your adolescents are replaced by life and growing up. Your bicycle becomes a car. Your recycled aluminum can collection and fishing tackle purchases turn into a career and a mortgage payment. Life has a funny way of taking and giving, but it’s all part of the process.

As a father, I try to share with my children the things that I loved as a child. Not with the intention that they fall in love with the activities that I appreciated at their age, but rather to give them an understanding of history and perhaps an appreciation of something new. Maybe even a life skill. Like my dad showed me, I will teach my kids how to tie a fishing line and hopefully they will do the same with their children....right after they teach them how to get past Five Nights at Freddy’s or something as equally important.

#Tryharder to understand the importance of teaching and giving to the next generation. If you hold your knowledge and skills hostage, we can never truly move forward. You have a lot to offer the world and those who listen will benefit from your teachings. Understand that your unique knowledge is priceless. My children may never need to fish or hunt to survive, but they will at least respect and understand the process. Sure, life has a way of covering up and recording over certain events, but the important building blocks of knowledge and understanding should remain. It is your responsibility, parent or not, to share your unique knowledge with the next generation.