At a very young age, my Dad and Grandpa introduced me to the outdoors.
I was hooked from that moment. We did all the hunting you can think of and constantly went fishing when hunting season was over. So, as every hunter knows, with hunting comes target practice. That got me started in my love of guns. I loved how fun they could be on a range or a course, especially one built to your liking.
From then on, I wanted to start learning more about guns and start my own collection. I did this with my Dad throughout my high school years, and like every 18-year-old right out of high school, I started thinking about what I wanted to be when I grew up. What could I do to make money but still love what I do? That is when I made the decision to become a hunting guide.
After looking into some schools and talking it over with my parents, we agreed that I would go out to Montana to guide school.
Hopefully, I would do well enough to get placed with an outfitter and become a hunting guide. Long story short, I was offered a guide position with an outfitter in Howe, Idaho right after getting my certification.
After I had been out in Idaho for about 3 months, my family wanted me to come home for the holidays. I had been offered a guide position in Texas, scheduled to start in January – so it was the right time to come back home for a month or so to see my family.
I never made it to Texas.
After I was home for a few weeks in Tennessee, I was accidentally shot in the neck on Dec. 10, 2018 with a .38 revolver. Someone else’s momentary negligence left me paralyzed from the chest down with a 1% chance to walk again.
At that point in my life, I was lost. No clue what I was going to do or where to go from there. I felt that everything I knew had been taken from me – for as long as I could remember, I had dreamed of being a hunting guide and nothing else. I knew that I wasn’t going to be able to go back to guiding like I used to, which made me furious. But I had always been taught not to let setbacks stop me from continuing with my life. I thought, “I have to do something and I’m not going to let being paralyzed stop me.”
Back to my Dad again, with his good advice.
During a conversation, he suggested that I get my FFL and start selling guns – the other love of my life. I had already been prepared for this journey and wasn’t even aware at the time. Now, I am having more fun in the gun business than I had when guiding.
If you’ve gotten to this point, this may be helpful to you …
Remember: “You may not always end up where you think you’re going, but you always end up where you are meant to be. Life is too short to not live it! Keep moving forward.”