Don’t stop learning or you stop living

I distinctly remember the last class I attended my last term in college. It was a history class on the pre-Civil War South taught by my all-time favorite professor, Dr. Emory Thomas. The final session was one afternoon in March 1978, and I recall walking back to my car afterwards, thinking, “That’s it; I’m done. No more classes. No more homework. No more exams. I made it.”

Like most people, I found out soon thereafter that, while school and organized instruction might be in your rear-view mirror, you never quit learning.

You quit learning; you quit living.

Now, I like to go to class — sort of. Only I don’t have to worry about gen-ed requirements or electives or how many more hours I need in my major or minor. I attend the “classes” in which I’m really interested, and most of the time nowadays that means hunting and fishing.

This month, I will have two unique learning opportunities, and I plan to take full advantage of both.

On Saturday, March 16, I’m going to sit in on a handful of seminars at a saltwater fishing school sponsored and run by South Carolina Sportsman and its neighbor, North Carolina Sportsman. The school will be held as part of the Cape Fear Wildlife Expo in the Wilmington, N.C., Convention Center, and registration details can be easily found on www.SouthCarolinaSportsman.com.

Some of the top guides in the Carolinas — including Georgetown-based Rod Thomas and Fred Rourk — will serve as seminar speakers on various topics related to inshore and offshore fishing, as well as tackle, map reading, navigation, knot tying and even cooking ­— the latter class staring the magazines’ publisher, Ty Conti, author of the book, Cooking on the Wild Side, and co-author of a column of the same name that runs monthly in this magazine.

Even though I occasionally fool myself by actually believing that I know it all, it takes about 10 minutes sitting along the back wall in a seminar to teach me that I’m seriously mistaken. I never come away without learning at least one thing that helps me improve my fishing.

The next week, I plan to take in seminars at the Palmetto Sportsman’s Classic, the March 22-24 extravaganza the S.C. Department of Natural Resources sponsors on the state fairgrounds in Columbia. Looking over the list of seminars, there’s one I really want to attend: retrievers.

It seems my son has requested as a college graduation present — in lieu of a beach trip or some other useless gift — a Lab puppy. So I have a little to learn. Attend one or both of these events, and I guarantee you will learn, too.