“Pops, kids today can handle adrenaline, they’re all video gamers.”
Naturally, the oldest boy said it in a way that it dripped with the derision reserved for adults.
On the good side, he was there with me working on the tree stand Wednesday afternoon, and talking.
I had enlisted the help of his long arms and 6-foot frame to help me firm up the base of the tree stand, and put back one wall that came down.
Sometimes, it simply enough in dealing with teens to have them around and talking.
Though I wasn’t too sure I made any sense of his theory that kids today aren’t as likely to get what we used to call “buck fever” when I was his age, or nerves when a deer approached during deer hunting season.
His reasoning was that kids are used to extended heightened adrenaline rushes from playing so many video games.
As theories go, that one is a doozy. But it almost makes sense.
Is it possible that playing video games makes kids today better hunters because they don’t get the yips as easily as kids of my day did?
Something tells me that somewhere somebody has studies the impact of video games on adrenaline in kids or teens.
Crazy theories or not, it was good to have him along to tidy up the tree stand. Weather didn’t let me get at it earlier. So this afternoon after he got off school, we ran out and got to work.
And he enjoyed surveying the scene from up there.
I walked around below afterward so he could see how shooting lanes would set up if he came with his bow and hunted here.
For me, I am already fired up waiting for the opening of the first firearm season in Illinois on Saturday.
I have hopes for some reason this year.