One of the saddest commentaries on our times comes from “A Report on the Movement to Reconnect Children to the Natural World” by the Children and Nature Network.  It quotes a fourth-grader from San Diego: “I like to play indoors better ’cause that’s where all the electrical outlets are.”

I guess we shouldn’t be surprised by such a comment, since that’s the reason most of us adults play and work indoors.

Even though as a kid I lived in town, my friends and I hardly played indoors except for rainy weather and deep winter.  Actually that was true until Dickie Andrews’ family purchased the first television in the neighborhood.  Before TV, we all played outdoors after school until we were called inside for dinner.  Then came Kukla, Fran, and Ollie, Howdy Doody, and Tom Corbett, Space Cadet. And I can remember, just as depicted in the movie “A Christmas Story,” waiting impatiently for my own magic decoder from Ovaltine—and being disappointed that it was not as exciting as it looked on TV.

But come summer, daytime TV could not compete with the woods, the pasture, or the creek.  The moms of  we “OAK Boys” (Ohlman, Andrews, Kenfield) typically asked us in the morning, “Are you going to be home for lunch, or do you want me to make you a sack-lunch?”  If the choice was sack-lunch, it came along with the admonition to be home by supper-time—an admonition that was often fruitless, since none of us had a watch.  Sometimes what we were doing was very well worth coming home to a cold supper for.

I truly grieve for my grandchildren today—for their not having the opportunity to experience the joy we Oak Boys had of almost total outdoor freedom, of tree houses in the woods, of shinnying up and bending down trees, of pulling apart stumps searching for a possum, of trying our hands at milking farmer Kelly’s cows in the field, of catching “hair snakes” in the creek, or of finding and keeping track of fledgling growth in a robin’s nest—at the risk of being beaten on the noggin by the mother bird.

I even grieve their loss of such risk: risk of a dunking trying to cross the creek on a wobbly log or launching a poorly constructed raft, risk of getting a poison ivy rash, risk of getting a nasty pinch grabbing crawdads, risk of getting stung throwing stones at a paper wasp nest, risk of getting sprayed by daring to be the one who got closest to the skunk before it cocked its tail, and even the risk of falling through the ice on a shallow muskrat pond—one we had grown familiar enough with to know that it was not deep enough to drown in.  Life itself is a big risk, but it is less risky when we learn from having taken smaller risks—risks that often result in scratches, cuts, burns, bruises, slivers, rashes, and barked shins. Pain is not only a great teacher, it is also a great behavioral change agent—the whole point of spanking!

Author Richard Louv has written a valuable book that goes into all such matters and offers us adults a great challenge: to get our children and grandchildren back outdoors: Last Child in the Woods.  Louv also spearheaded the formation of the Children and Nature Network that seeks to perpetuate the ideas, concepts, and precepts he suggests in the book.  With spring coming on (the male red-winged blackbirds are back!) take time to examine these valuable resources and motivate yourself to be active in the fight against NDD: Nature Deficit Disorder—and CKD: Creation Knowledge Disorder.  If we worship the Creator, should we not become intimate with His creation?

See you outdoors,

Dean