Imagine

What’s the best song ever written? For the folks sitting around your campfire this weekend, a song from Haggard, Hank Jr. or David Allan Coe might come to mind.

Who knows why, but this morning I got on the internet and searched ‘Best Song Of All Time.’ Don’t do it, you might be disappointed. One song that comes up at or near the top of all the lists is “Imagine” by John Lennon.

Imagining… it’s a fun concept. Like, imagine if you won the lottery, or if the Braves won a World Series.

Or imagine if Lennon’s song wasn’t against religion, against countries having borders and against people having any possessions. No possessions? Like that shirt on your back right now, not yours. Your home, belongs to anyone and everyone.

You may call me a dreamer, but I imagine lots of things, too. But what I imagine comes out quite a bit different than what ol’ John Lennon and Yoko dreamed up in that upscale, high-dollar New York penthouse they were living in when they wrote their song.

Imagine if every 18-year-old who believes the United States should be a socialist or communist country—like John and Yoko believed—must spend one year in a socialist or communist country. They can choose which country… Venezuela, Cuba, China. But they don’t get an allowance from momma, and they don’t get to start their year with any benefits they or their family might have garnered by living in the United States.

Imagine if every 18-year-old who thinks this country sucks must spend one year in any other country.

See, imagining is fun. And limitless.

Imagine if the main-stream media covered stories with no knowledge of who the subject was or what political party they might be affiliated with. Think about that one for a minute… Reverse the political candidates right now—what is being covered, what is being ignored. Can you even begin to imagine if Trump Jr.’s laptop fell into the hands of CNN? There would be bombshell story after bombshell story, even if literally nothing nefarious was on the computer.

Imagine if politicians who have been in office for decades had to give a detailed explanation for how they have multiple million dollar homes while earning the modest salary of a senator or congressman. How is that possible?

Imagine if someone killed a buck or caught a fish and not one single jerk on social media had to show his or her rear end and make a negative comment.

Imagine if people spent 10% less time every day on social media, and instead used that computer in their hand—it is actually a phone—and dialed up a friend or a family member and had an actual conversation.    

Imagine if it didn’t take five years to get drawn for a duck hunt on a Georgia WMA.

Imagine if there was a duck hole and a dove field on every WMA in the state.

Imagine if DNR celebrated a teacher every year who did the best job of telling the magnificent story of Georgia hunters, about how we fund and propagate the best conservation model the world has ever seen, instead of the teacher with the best butterfly garden.

Imagine if there were answers to why wild turkeys are declining, and solutions to improve the situation, other than telling turkey hunters our season has to be much later and much shorter.

Imagine if for every 100 longleaf pine trees that are planted by state and federal agencies, they planted just one oak tree. Just one.

Imagine if for every 100-acre block of longleaf pine trees they plant, they put in a line of trees that is a mix of white oaks, red oaks, water oaks, persimmons and crabapples. Goodness, imagine that. Think that might be better for wildlife than a monoculture of pine trees? Heck, it might even be better for woodpeckers and tortoises.

Imagine if that strip of hardwoods was protected by a firebreak, so when those longleaf stands are lit up with controlled burns every other year, huge blocks of woods aren’t being hit with super hot fires.

Imagine if folks could read a silly editorial like this and nod in agreement with the lines they like, and scoff at those they don’t without getting so sideways they can’t see straight.   

Imagine. It’s easy if you try.