Don’t be fooled by the headline. You are not about to get words of wisdom about playing Fantasy Football.

I don’t play the game but several people in the office play it. I don’t play it because it requires time and concentration if you are to play properly and have a chance of winning the pool. If I concentrated on Fantasy Football the way some people do, I wouldn’t have any time for anything else.

The amount of time it would take to study last year’s teams and players to make intelligent choices in the draft would put an end to my favorite sedentary pastime of reading history and murder mysteries.

I can’t have that. I read to relax and I can’t imagine relaxing studying player statistics and assorted inane information. Also, how can you relax when you have a few bucks riding on the outcome of the season, or the way some folks play, the outcome of the weekend?

No, I’ll stick to reading

In a similar vein, a couple of fellows at the coffee shop asked me the other day if I played golf. The answer to that question is also no.

I have three favorite outdoor pastimes, none of which do I get to pursue very much. If I played golf, that would be just a fourth I couldn’t pursue effectively.

As terrible as it is for a fisherman to say this, I have been fishing only once since the storm and that was when I was the fly-fishing pond ornament for Crosby Arboretum at its Wildlife Day back in March.

I bought a new climbing deer stand several years ago. It is one of those easy ones where you sit down and stand up to make it climb, unlike the one that had me chinning my way up trees for years. I think I have had the opportunity to use it maybe five times since I bought it, and in only one year did I get to use it even twice.

My two “big” little gardens have grown weeds all summer. Fortunately, I have this secluded little bed where I was able to put a few tomato, cucumber, eggplant and pepper plants. Very few, like two each, well three tomato plants. I haven’t had the time to take care of them properly, either, so the harvest has been scanty. They are there though, and when I’m desperate for a little mental massage, I can go look at them and do a few things to pretend I’m really gardening.

My friends, and they are friends, asked me if I play golf. I gave up that game as a teenager after trying it once and determining that if I took it up, it would take too much time away from fishing. Fishing grabbed ahold of me when I was about three years old and has never let go. Hunting and shooting entered my life at about age five and I don’t remember about when gardening grabbed ahold of me because I can’t recall ever not following one of my parents or grandparents in the garden with a little spade or hoe.

To give up golf was a wise decision. It would be really tough to have to only wishfully pursue golf along with fishing and all these other outdoor activities that I don’t have time for these days.

The more I watch the folks at work and other friends spend their time on Fantasy Football, the more I think I made a wise decision in not taking up that game, also.

Sometimes choosing not to do something that you are sure will be harmless and fun can be a wise decision. I know some folks who have so many pastimes I wonder when they find time to make a living.

Sometimes I feel that way about myself, only in reverse. I have all these pastimes and so little time to pursue them, especially the ones that lead outdoors.

My reading these days, especially my serious reading, is confined to the few pages I can read while eating lunch. My fiction reading is confined to the few pages I can read before falling asleep at night.

No, I’m not complaining. If I had the time to do all these other things that I want to do, I probably would have too much time on my hands and might try to take up things such as Fantasy Football and golf.

I just wish I had a little more time to pursue the hobbies I already have.

Have you ever noticed how important children are to the pursuit of hobbies? When you are trying to teach a child a favorite pastime or two or three, you find time to do them because that is the way in which the teaching is done. However, when the children are grown and gone, you find work and honey-dos taking up all the time previously spent hunting, fishing and gardening.

I guess if golf and Fantasy Football were your pastimes when the children were young, you would spend time teaching them those games.

The more I think about it, I’m still glad I’ve given a pass to those two games. All the people who play them seem so intense as they go about it. I can’t imagine being that intense being very relaxing

Yes, some folks are as intense about hunting, fishing and gardening, but most hunters, fishers and gardeners I know are fairly relaxed about what they are doing, at least more so than golfers who seem to continually argue this aspect or that aspect of the , especially scores, that I don’t understand.

The folks who play Fantasy Football, have you ever taken a good look at their faces on a Monday morning after a weekend of games? Some are truly desperate for Monday Night Football to pull them out of a hole. All the others, except maybe the one or two who did well, are in a blue funk. I don’t consider that relaxing.

No, I think I’ll stick to my mostly ignored pastimes and leave those others to theirs.