Someone has said: “It isn’t the days in your life that’s important; it’s the life in your days.” That is true if one is speaking about how much joy one can put into a day, and some of us put more joy into a day than others. But on the other hand, there are some days that put more joy in our lives than other days, in spite of our contribution.

January comes in slinging punches at us each year – tax-listing time, Christmas bills, new laws to obey. And this time around, political fervor on the national scene seems to be turning into a nasty dogfight (my apologies to the dog) and is just one more haymaker that January is throwing. It is one that will be with us all year. Pile all of this on top of things that already bug us – things like high unemployment and world disasters – and it’s no wonder that we all need a spot or two of sunshine in our lives, for goodness’ sake, before we all fall into a blue funk of worry and fear.

This is the time I like to think about the days and times that made me happy. Those days usually involved two types of friends – those of the two-legged kind and those of the four-legged kind. Certainly, some (maybe most) of us recall the joy of our wedding day, the birth of our children and grandchildren and other family times that brought us special happiness, but there were other times, too, when we were alone to wander about, sampling life’s simple joys and beauty.

Think back with me to the most joyous times of your life when the happenings of those days made the problems of the world go away, at least for a while, and imprinted memories that you can still recall and enjoy. They don’t have to be elaborate, but simple times with family and friends that lift you and put a polish on your day.

Do you remember what you were doing 25 years ago today that made you happy? I do, not because I have such a great memory, but because I kept hunting journals, of sorts. And January is a good time for me to close out the immediate world for a while and read through those journals. They are not wonderfully written, just scratches in my bad handwriting on whatever kind of notebook I had, that recorded the day, the weather, the time, whom I was with, where we were and which dogs invited us to hunt along with them. Often, there are photos that we took of those days.

I don’t know if you have a dog or not, but a dog’s innate intelligence and ability to learn is outstanding. Sometimes, like people, they are troublesome and require a lot of time. But what they contribute to our lives more than makes up for any trouble.

Dogs have been around for an estimated 13,000 to 20,000 years, and the first domesticated dogs were basically wolves. Today, the way we use dogs to help us, guard us, entertain us, play with us and to work for us makes them an integral part of our lives. They have contributed so much that from them we coined the phrase, “working like a dog.” And it is claimed by some folks that the dogs I have owned have contributed to my growing up, but that I have not yet caught up in intelligence. Therefore, those folks shall not be mentioned in this column.

I stopped keeping the journals several years ago when places to hunt became fewer and finding quail and woodcock became harder, but I still try to bird hunt when I can. Rambling through the Great Outdoors with friends of any kind are still golden days for me and still help keep a world of troubles at bay.

What I was doing 25 years ago on this date is what I am planning to do today, also. That’s right. While you are reading this, hopefully, a friend and I will be quail hunting.

That’s the plan because my dog, reading back through her journal, decided that we need some more training.

Bill Stancil is a freelance writer and former staff member of the Rocky Mount Telegram.

Bill Stancil