I spent last weekend hunting.

Nothing much special about that, a lot of people were out trying to fill their deer tags.

The best part was not that it was my boy's first deer hunt, it was the fact that I got to be there for it.

Life's short. The older a person gets, the quicker time seems to go by - it bounds and leaps. Too many times it's easy enough to say I'm too busy or there are other things that need doing.

Don't.

Cherish what you have and make the most of the time you have with family and friends and kids. There will be plenty of time when you get older to look back and remember. Or maybe not.

I miss my dad. A lot.

Even though I'm pushing 50, there are so many things I could still learn from him.

I get this way every year around Thanksgiving. It's my favorite holiday - other than Flag Day.

Flag Day is tops because you don't have to go anywhere, you don't have to get a card or a gift and it's the best time of the year, fishing season.

Thanksgiving is about being with family and really taking stock of what we have.

It's easy enough, I guess, to get bogged down in what we don't have or what we think we need. But life is kind of like fishing, in a way. There is no catch and release with time.

When it's gone, you can't put it back like a 14-inch walleye.

Part of this I'm writing for my dad and part of it is for others in my life. A big part is for me. I need to remind myself from time to time about the blessings I have.

Maybe the most valuable thing I learned from him was patience.

Granted, sometimes it seems to be in short supply. But there were times, especially later in my life, where dad was kind of like my therapist.

He was always on call, it seemed. I called him once and asked when the last time was he went fishing.

"I can't remember," he said.

"Then we're due," I said.

We went out in his boat that day and honestly, I don't remember what, if anything, we talked about. Might have been nothing at all. It was one of the best times I think I've ever had. Don't even remember if we caught any fish.

Doesn't matter now. It didn't that day, either.

My dad died young - 56.

He missed out on watching his grandkids grow up and me becoming a grandpa myself.

We missed out on a lot more. But when you keep someone in your heart, they are never really gone from your life.

I have no regrets. He loved us and we knew it, and we loved him and he knew it.

I thought about him a lot as I watched my boy as he hunted with us last weekend. I think he would have really loved my kids and my grandson like I do.

I think he would have liked to be there with us. Then again, I'm pretty sure he was.

(Reach reporter Brian Gehring at 250-8254 or brian.gehring@;bismarcktribune.com.)