Issue link: https://www.e-digitaleditions.com/i/554642
S P O R T I N G C L A S S I C S 2 3 courtesy of stork-power at 2:44 a.m. of 14 May, 2015 . . . where one day he'll catch his first bass. His Gran'pap, William Webb, who's been up in the stirrups nine-months-a- waitin', posts fond warnings: "While I would dare not consider influencing his life to detriment in any way," he writes, "he will have a seat in the big John Deere at 5, a fly rod at 8, his own Elhew pointer at 10, and a Parker 28 double at 12. He needs balance in his life. "I will not spoil him, but I would love to be there on his first covey rise and sipping trout, and I hope to reveal to him a world beyond a computer screen. "If I persevere to an appropriate age in his life, I hope, as well, to introduce him to single malts and Irish whiskeys. It is important to occasionally view the mist as it rises from the heather. "Otherwise, I just wish him health and happiness." God will it so. Helping boys at being boys. "I've dreamed of this for four years," he tells me later, beaming when he shares the picture. Know what busts my buttons the most? He and his dad and gran'pa went to a big gun show not long ago. They let young Jack, who shoots a 20-gauge 870, look around for something he wanted. There were a lot of new and shiny guns in that show, but you know what he picked? All by himself. Over all else. Rushed it home, proudly to show to me. An almost pristine Winchester Model 12, sweet sixteen. There's that golden bridge back across the life-stream of our sporting years, and, even now, young Jack is beginning— with a gentle nudge from us long- beards—to cross the fabled waters. H elping a boy be a boy. It can as often begin as a dream-wish, beneath a wondrous note of anticipation. On those wings, let us herald upon the planet—Larkin Wallace Webb, eight pounds, eight ounces—deposited by my notion at the Webb Farm Stick Pond, He's already killed his first deer, holding out for a nice eight-point, and I helped him into position to kill his first woodcock this past fall, over Stella, his German shorthair. Know how good that felt? Well . . . sure you do. Though, well, he won't like me telling this, but he missed a big bobcat that was awful high on his wish list at about 80 yards with his .243 the other day. "But now," I tell him, "it'll be all the sweeter when it does happen." He looks at me doubtfully. He's not strongly into philosophy yet. But he's got the lean; I can tell. And he got his gobbler this spring after several seasons of trying. This time, the Ol' Boy gobbled and strutted all the way in, textbook. Jack killed him cleanly at 12 yards. Regretably, I wasn't there that morning to see it. It was just he and his dad. But that's okay, probably as it should be. Though it feels toe-tickle good to know I kinda helped them a bit to get there.