I want to share an experience I had last night with yall. First a little history.

My wife is a wonderful woman. Good wife, mother and grandmother. She has been a “mother hen” ever since I’ve known her (29 years). Our house was the place where all the kids came to play and my wife adopted every kid that walked thru the door. :D All our kids are grown and out on their own now but the “mother hen” instinct is still strong as ever and partly why I’m posting this thread.

My wife has been telling me about a young boy that works at the grocery store where she works. He is 18 years old & has been working there since he was 16 to help his mother pay the bills. He has no parents now. He never knew his father and his mother passed away last summer unexpectedly. His grandpaw was his father figure and he also died of cancer a few years back. He was living with his grandma but her health has gone down and she has to have care now so he’s kinda out in the cold so to speak. He has basically been on his own since he lost his mother. If any kid ever had an excuse to turn out bad, this kid’s got one.

He is still in high school and is co-op'n so he can work and pay his bills. He makes min. wage and gets a little SSI until he graduates then it’s all on him. He works 6 days a week and goes to school. Last year he got sick and had no health insurance so he is stuck with a hospital bill he has to pay on. Gov. says he makes too much money for a med. Card or food stamps. He has managed to get a small apartment. When he gets off work he just goes home and sits by himself cause he don’t have enough money to go out and eat & go to the show or something.

My wife just cried while she was tell’n me about this kid. I have to admit it got to me too.

I’ve been with my wife a long time and I knew what she was fish’n for so I told her to invite him over for supper. Her face lit up like a 4th of July fireworks display. :D We set it up for Thursday night. Well that fell thru. He has joined the local Volunteer Fire Dept. and that was his first night of training so we made it last night.

I must say I was impressed with this young man. He’s mature, has goals, morals, integrity, and loves the outdoors. He loves to hunt and fish but has nobody to show him the ropes since his grandpaw died. You shoulda seen his face when I asked him if he liked to crappie fish! Seems his grandpaw was one heck of a crappie fisherman and he told me some stories about their outings. Now I know why he’s turned out as good as he has.

He wants to be a Police officer after he graduates high school and has already completed a “shadow program ” locally. I have a Nephew that is on the local Police dept. and we're gonna do what we can to make that happen for him down the road.

We had a good visit and spent hours looking at hunting and fish’n pictures. I gave him a good pair of insulated overalls and have some other stuff around here I’m gonna fix him up with.

His grandpaw left him a few guns and the old johnboat that they used to fish out of. Right now we’re gonna work on fix’n him up a place to deer hunt and get his Winchester mod. 94 30-30 fixed. Somehow the scope mount and scope got broke.

I see a new crappie rod in his future for Christmas. Yep I’m adopt’n this young man and he’s gonna make it fine.

If any of you folks have any old camo hunt’n cloths, gloves, hats, old bonoculars and such(he wears a lg. tall) or fish’ stuff lay’n around gather’n dust let me know. This young man sure could use it.

I’m gonna give him a good Loggy climber that’s hang’n in the garage. I’m way too old and fat to be climb’n trees! :D Also any of you folks that live around here close that can help hook him up on some hunt’n and fish’n while I’m on the boat it would be greatly appreciated. Heck I’ll even give ya some of my GPS spots so yall can fish’um. Trust me this young fella’s worth spend’n time with.

Thanks, :D
Terry