I'm more than thankful for the healthy dose of country life that my brothers and I got. We had the opportunity in Arkansas to run out into the pastures and get lost for the whole day on our own doing country kid stuff. We made forts, slid down washouts in the side of a gravel pit, climbed trees, poked at the curiosities that crossed our path and generally got real dirty doing it. Those were great days.
Growing up in Suburbia wasn't bad, mind you, but in retrospect, there is something about kids that is just drawn to the wild places. Even at home in Rosenberg, we spent a huge amount of our play time at 'the ditch' - a large drainage ditch that ran behind our neighbor hood. We explored the undeveloped fields and climbed any tree that we could find outside of someone's yard.
My recent fishing trip with Isaac gave me a rare glimpse into that part of a child's heart. He didn't want to fish long. Not with friends to run with, hills to conquer and all the excitement of exploring. There is not a lot of that to be done in our neighborhood. Our parks are groomed, fenced and all the play equipment appropriately smoothed and padded. It is a safer world but the kids know there is more. I think that might be why they are drawn to the wild places. And really, I don't think it's just the kids.
4 comments:
Even at the "groomed parks" Isaac finds the tree he can climb and goes at it with gusto. He definitely has some country blood running through his veins!!
Isaac can have some of our "wilderness" if you want to just bring him over to play in our backyard. There's plenty of poison ivy to get into too.
I must say, though, that the ditch behind our neighborhood was definitely pretty cool. I spent probably half my childhood there.
Forgive me for the late response,but... DITTO!!! We were truley blessed to be raised by a dad who thought the best Christmas gift an 8 yr. old boy could get was an "Old Timer" pocket knife and a mother who had the guts to post a sign on the only T.V. in our household that read "NO T.V.-GO OUTSIDE!". I loved the story about Isaac. Sounds like he's following in his dad's foot steps. Jesus was a wild man!..."and as for me and my household..."!!!!!!!!!!!!
Matt (#2)
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