Blogging for Delta? Fred made me do it

I blame Fred Greenslade.

I blame Fred Greenslade for all the time I don’t have to fly-fish and hunt; for all the time I don’t have to read my growing stack of books, and for the all the time I don’t have to pursue an adequate social life.

Fred is Delta Waterfowl’s award-winning photographer, genius webmaster and my good, good buddy.

He works long, long hours for Delta, doing many, many things, including bugging the *&#$ out of me on occasion.

“You should start a blog,” he emailed several months back, his first salvo in a carpet-bombing campaign to steal away what remains of my already-limited free time. “You’d like it. God knows you have a lot to say. Besides, it would be fun. You need to do this.”

I didn’t respond. I thought he was nuts, insane, mad. Another crazy Canadian, I mused. Way too much on my plate already. Too many “opportunities.” Start writing a blog? Fo’get about it.

A few days later another email popped happily into my inbox, the subject line of which read: Blog. I spiked it. Then the voicemails started: “Hey man, about that blog…”

But I was getting weak, and I think Fred sensed I was starting to buckle. Like coerced interrogation, Fred was, slowly but surely, wearing me down. Indeed, his relentless rhetoric started to wither my resolve like a raisin in the sun. The upshot: I finally succumbed.

Truth is, I liked the idea of writing a blog, and Fred’s persuasion-as torture finally pushed me over the edge.

Thanks buddy!

I don’t know much about blogging, but I'm about to find out. Writing is writing, I figure: You start with a blank page, come up with an idea or two, whack the keys around a little bit, and hope you come up with something somebody likes.

Or hates.

Either way, I hope my blog provokes some sort of emotional response from time to time. More importantly, I hope to start a discussion about the important and increasingly complex issues affecting our North American waterfowling culture. Along the way, I’ll do my level best to inform, educate and even entertain.

If I don’t, well, you have my permission to blame Fred Greenslade, my good buddy. I know I will.