Book excerpt: Scott Irwin grew up in a time when children did chores that instilled a hands-on work ethic, but there was still time to explore the wild things. Armed first with a slingshot carefully crafted from a forked box elder limb and powered by pre-WWII red rubber inner tube strips, he was soon using a Daisy BB gun to hunt backyard critters. He also enjoyed small-water fishing. By age twelve, he was stalking squirrels and cottontails, and it wasnt long before hed mastered a tack-driving Remington 511 .22 with five-shot clip that thinned out the jackrabbits that swarmed southwest Kansas in the 1950s. Later, hed buy a Winchester Model 12 that opened up a whole new realm of wing shooting. It was a love affair that would continue through marriage, graduate school, and a distinguished career as a public school and university teacherall the way until retirement. Hed also write a popular column about his outdoor adventures for The Emporia Gazette, and he shares his greatest, wildest adventures across the Kansas Flint Hills, Nebraska, Missouri, Arkansas, South Dakota, and West Texas in An Outdoor Sporting Life.