By DREW GRANTHUM / Sports Writer

As a writer, you’re taught to look at things from a very different point of view. I liken the way I view life to the RCA dog staring at the gramophone. Sure, it’s a bit interesting, but it helps me to notice the beauty in everyday life better, and honestly, that’s what I live for as a writer: To romanticize the beauty of everyday life.

You’re also taught to look inward a lot of the time and examine where you are in relation to the world around you. You look over the faces and places you’ve been the same way a craftsman examines a chair he is building; under a microscope, trying to notice every knot, protruding nail and even the grain of the wood trying to make sure your product is as close to perfection as is allowed.

I was doing such an examination of my life not too long ago, when I came across a startling conclusion:

I haven’t been fishing in forever.

It’s the middle of summer, the perfect time for fishing, and I haven’t even made it out once. This time of year is made for the sport; the days run long, as the sun hangs high in the sky, seemingly taking an eternity to give way to the moon, and even the moon in its fullest in summer provides a lantern for which one more cast can be thrown.

Nothing rejuvenates the mind and the spirit than sitting on or by a body of water, whether in a boat or on a grassy bank, pondering the intricacies of life, the past, future and present, all while waiting on the cork to go under or the line to tighten.

Nothing tastes as sweet as a glass bottled orange soda in the hot summer sun alone, and no joke is as funny as one told with a friend fishing with you.

Few places are as inviting as wood floor bait shops with old, faded Coke signs hanging out front.

What am I doing with my free time? There are so many places like the ones I’ve described in Shelby County that I’ve been to, and I have done nothing to return to them.

I’ve got to go, and soon. I need rejuvenating.