By Bill Miller
This “Around the Campfire with Bill” blog is going to leave you shaking your head and thinking, “Miller needs to see a shrink. He’s crazy!” Though I’ve written and said, “I have the best job in the world,” more times than I can count, I’ve decided after nearly 28 years with North American Hunting Club it’s time to move on down the trail or at least around the next bend.
Nothing has changed in my belief that what I’ve done for all these years is the greatest job in the world. However, one major requirement of this gig is if I’m not on a “work hunt” I have to be in the office. (Those of you who have been in camp with a writer or TV camera understand there’s a huge difference between “work hunts” and “personal hunts.”)
Staunch in my beliefs of self-discipline and detailed financial planning I vowed never to permit myself the luxury of a “midlife crisis.” Yet, I’m sure some of you are going to believe that’s what this is. So be it, but there’s no Corvette, no motorcycle, and no 20-something-blonde. In fact, there’s not even a hand-crafted 20 gauge side-by-side involved, of course, that could change at any moment mid-life crisis or not.
Of my career, I’ve always said, “All I ever wanted to do is be an outdoor writer.” In all my years at NAHC I’ve gone a good ways down that trail, but there remain many miles to trek. Having been “inside” the hunting industry for so long I realize there are many things I still want to do that I’ll never accomplish in an office.
I want to be a cook in a hunting camp somewhere for at least a season. I want to watch and document my young Lab “Callie” retrieving 1,000 birds in the field in one year – which will mean I’ll need to hunt and guide a lot in many states and Canada. I want to spend a winter in Port Menier on Anticosti Island “catching up” on put-off writing. I want to “go home” to hunt for 10 days, or even a month, at a time rather than squeezing in a couple of harried days between “work trips.”
For the immediate future, I’m going on the Outdoor Legends Tour you read about in the last “Around the Campfire” post. Then I’m going to do a big bunch of turkey hunting. And when that’s over, I’ll figure out exactly what it is I want to do when I grow up.
Of course, little of that will put gas in the truck let alone pay the mortgage! So I know we’ll be seeing each other down the trail. The guts of the shows for the 2012 season of North American Hunter TV are already in the can so you’ll be seeing me there. I’m counting on the NAH web and magazine editors to let me write blogs and magazine pieces now and then. And, of course, I plan to continue the “Around the Campfire with Bill” blog as long as the folks at NBC Sports will have me. And that’s just a start. I have many miles to hike before I hang up my boots or my guns. So no doubt, I’ll see you down the trail…just around the next bend.
