Aliens in Creation - Just Go Play Outside

by Randy on August 5, 2008 · Comments

“What’s that smell Mommy?” Doris Day looking lady looks down at Little Billy and says, “why honey … that’s what we call fresh air …”

… A recent conversation brought a troubling development into focus. A man told me that he had bought a home with some measure of reluctance, fearing that the location of the house so near to a neighborhood playground would mean too much noise. As it turns out, he needn’t have worried at all. Very few children visit the playground at all.

The troubling development is that many children never play outside. They prefer to play computer games, surf the Internet, or update their Facebook pages. Their parents are increasingly afraid to let them play outside, scared by the constant barrage of news stories about crimes against children. These children and teenagers are accustomed to air conditioning, sophisticated entertainments, and lack of physical activity. They are aliens in the outside world.

[From Aliens in Creation -- A Generation of Nature Know-Nothings]

I had a run in with nature today. I climbed into my car and was pulling out to go down the street and I noticed the spiders had returned. A nicely designed web was formed from my drivers side door mirror to the door itself. The light wind created by my reversing out of my parking place tricked the spider into thinking that maybe it had caught a meal. It hurriedly scampered out onto the web. When I saw that menace from hell, I decided to take it for the ride of it’s life.

The thing is, with our new offices only being two miles away from my home, the ride of its life never got above 35 mph and involved a few red lights.

During one particular stretch, the spawn of satan looked like an astronaut hanging by a rope in a Cat 5 hurricane. It was awesome! However, by the third red light I had had enough. The nice web, now just a messy rope, allowed the dastardly demon to climb back on to the mirror. As he caught his breath, my window rolled down and I flicked him off.

Did you like that play on words? If it did, that was very juvenile … and you should repent, like I will … eventually.

Poor Spider, he survived all that only to be skyrocketed off his perch with blunt force. I imagined a very high pitched “wheeeeeeeeee!!!!” as the spider went flying off the mirror, arched in the air and then went tumbling into the grass on the median. Again, the word awesome comes to mind.

Of course this has nothing really to do with the above quote. Let’s get into that.

Growing up we moved into a heavily wooded neighborhood that you would never know of today. Today it is a very wealthy area full of middle to upper middle class homes, nice manicured lawns, clean streets and swimming pools. That’s all nice but a part of me missed the fact that the woods I had so many good years of running around in were gone. What once was a rather huge creek that was completely wild, even dangerous when it rained, was now sanitized and reigned in. Where thick woods full of animals, swinging vines and danger for two little boys to combat was now simply ornamentation that complimented the housing development.

I saw lots of playground sets but no kids. That stood out to me then and especially stands out to me now after reading this article.

Recently a friend and I were kayaking a river in North Carolina and we were trading stories of being raised around woods and the misadventures/adventures of young boys in the south hunting craw daddies, throwing crab apples and swinging on vines. Being able to escape into the woods meant a lot to me on a number of levels. I always remember those experiences with fondness and am sad for children who are not allowed or have no desire to interact with nature.

Did/do you ever play outside? Why or why not? If so, what’s your favorite memory or story?

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Viewing 11 Comments

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    Man, o man Randy. Your comments about you [and I’m assuming your brother] playing in the woods, swinging from vines etc. brought back a slew of memories. My family moved from the Metro-Charlotte area to the suburbs in 1967, the year I started first grade. Mint Hill was way out in the boon docks then, and we lived in a small neighborhood, a cul-de-sac surrounded by ponds, cow pastures, farms and miles of woods. I remember my younger brother and I [who is less than a year younger than me] had many cow patty wars. We must have built a dozen forts and tree houses. I used to love to go walking in the cow pastures in the fall, walking through the broom straw and picking up “hitchhikers” [little brick-red colored seeds that stuck to clothing like Velcro]. The smell of the decaying leaves and dying grasses was intoxicating.
    There were huge holes [resembling a funnel shape] dug into the ground in a ½ mile area, where miners in the 1900’s mined for gold and anything of value. There were old liquor and wine bottles, old glass milk bottles, old rusted tin mining machinery and tools. We found all kinds of treasure to adorn our forts and tree houses. There were a lot of farms around us also. In the fall my brother and I with some friends would make our annual trek to a farm about a ¼ mile away to pick out our pumpkins for Halloween [with permission]. Although, the “pumpkin wars” [dodge ball with pumpkins] that followed didn’t! We were constantly trying to fish in the surrounding ponds while escaping the eye of the landowners… which was part of the fun. We were constantly trying to build some type of boat to float out on the pond so we could catch that big fish.
    My brother and I built one boat out of an 18-wheeler inner tube, with plywood tied onto it. I was the one to take it out on its maiden voyage. My brother push me out into the water and I went spinning around in circles. As I tried to stop the spinning I realized we failed to make a paddle! I freaked out. And wouldn’t you know it, my mother started calling us to come in for supper! I had to lay on my stomach and use my hands to paddle toward the bank. I eventually had to get in the water, in order to get out of the pond, soaking wet shoes and jeans. And yes, my brother and I got the belt, no matter how good the explanation was[…”you could have drowned!”, “you could have fallen off that thing and drowned!”, “you could have been stuck out there all evening… and drowned!”
    There was a large creek about ¾ of a mile down the “main” road from us where we would ride our bikes to and play under the bridge. We found small fish, crawfish and yes snakes!
    My brother and I almost caught an acre lot next door on fire one day while playing war. We have made balsa model airplanes, and created a huge army of little plastic army men. We collected primo dirt clods that “smoked” when they hit something. The war started and so did setting the tails of the balsa airplanes on fire and crashing them into enemy battalions. But that wasn’t enough for this firebug, I started striking wooden matches and flicking them onto the ground. Well before long my brother and I were trying to stomp out flames with our tennis shoes to no avail! We had to run to our house and stretch out the garden hose and soak down the entire lot. All of our army men were lost!
    I must have had dozens of “pet” box turtles. I’ve crossed the paths of snakes, been chased by cows, bucked off the backs of horses, pecked by angry mother birds, and I wouldn’t trade anything for all these experiences!
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    I grew up in highly entrenched suburbia (ie, the city I live in has no wilderness to speak of). What I kind of regret about growing up is that we didn't have that whole 'neighborhood gang getting together to play until the streetlights went on.' I happened to live next door to a school with a big playground that was accesible after school hours, so I got in lots of running around and exercise, but it was always with my siblings or one or two good friends, and it was usually under supervision.

    Once, however, when the school was putting in new trailer classrooms, I was over there with my best friend, both of us commited tomboys, with nobody watching us because my parents had left us with a babysitter. There was a giant pile of dirt next to the construction site, and the two of us decided to go over to check it out. We wound up playing king-of-the-hill, and were soon joined by our brothers and sisters, our other friends, their friends, and kids we had never met before, all attempting to pull each other off of a giant pile of dirt while clambering our own way up to the top, and getting covered with dirt in the process. It turns out that there is nothing more fun.

    Of course when the babysitter noticed we were all missing, she came and rounded everybody up, sent people to their respective homes, and made us take baths. And looking back I seem to remember a lot of broken glass, nails, and wood scattered around the dirt pile, so it's a miracle none of us got impaled with anything. But that was one of the funnest afternoons of my life.

    Of course, now the school has put a fence around the whole campus, so nobody can play on their playground after school hours. And they ripped the old one out because it didn't follow state safety guidelines (they had only built it when I was about four and tore it out when I was about fifteen). So nobody else will have memories of playing there.
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    @Greg P. -
    I really like your response. I did many many similar things. One was my brother and I crossed a rushing creek, in a storm and he fell in ... near the bank ... but was *covered* with mud. This was an hour before my parents got home. 1) we weren't supposed to be outside 2) much less in the rain 3) near the creek 4)especially not *in* the creek.

    Like you I have a TON of stories. I appreciate you sharing those stories. Lots of fun.
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    @Ellie -
    That is an awesome story. Sounds like complete fun. It reminded me of when my brother and I on his Big Wheel and my Green Machine were playing crash 'em up derby with two other boys. Within an hour there were at least 15 or so more Big Wheels and their kin out there just tearing up the street. Even Tracy with her pink Big Wheel type contraption was out there. The teens were watching and cheering.

    I mean, we were SERIOUSLY plowing into each other and get this ... it was a weekend and not a single adult made us stop until different voices of parents started calling their kids in for dinner.

    GREAT memory trails going on here :).
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    Ok, how did you two survive childhood, what with swollen creeks and playing with matches? Actually it reminds me of the book Bridge to Terebithia, which is just wonderful. If you haven't read it you should (it's pretty short, so it won't take long). Actually, you could watch the movie too, that was faithful to the story, and it was still really good.
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    I was raised on a farm in Western Oklahoma and my playground was creeks, ponds, waterfalls and small hills that we affectionately call "mountains."

    About twice a year, a handful of my friends join me for a weekend camping trip to the farm where sometimes we climb the "mountains" and walk the creeks. One of my favorite things to do is go walking barefoot late at night on the country dirt roads. The feeling of the cool sand squishing between my toes is delightful! Of course, sitting around a campfire and listening to coyotes, cattle, frogs and the occasional fish jumping out of the water to catch a bug are sounds that make the trip too.

    I take great pride in sharing the family farm with them because they know no one else who has one and it really is an experience the city sandbox or amusement park cannot offer.
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    @Ellie -
    Great recommendation Ellie.

    The grace of God is all I can say that spared us from an early death. Seriously. I remember once, my brother, another of our local friends and I crawling into a drainage pipe ... over rocks, nails, metal cables... all kinds of stuff... until we didn't have any light left.

    :) ... it was scary but awesome. Of course now I shake my head about how stupid that was (helloooo.... snake? ... spiders? boogy man?) it was the boogy man that cause us to freak out and scurry back toward the light and made us talk about him to all the other kids :).
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    @Joseph T -
    I agree Joseph. It's kind of like that with me and the swimming pool as opposed to the beach. The pool is great relaxation, nice, clean ... no stinging jellyfish and limb eating sharks. BUT, the beach is a whole other world that is an *experience* that I find just as relaxing (or more so) but much more of an experience.

    That may not be a good metaphor but I agree with you comparing your outdoors experience to not being the same as a city sandbox.

    Great reflections too. Thank you for taking the time to add them :).
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    @Ellie - I agree, Bridge to Terebithia has a lot of that imaginative adventure we all seemed to live while growing up... and hopefully continue to live. :)
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    My grandparents place was on 'Forest Lake' in Maine. Huge parts of summer in particular found us there (instead of Boston) hiking through the woods fighting all sorts of imaginary enemies (and each other).

    The lake was my favorite part, and it was rare I was not in it when allowed. There was an island in our cove we would swim out to and play on chasing 'daddy longlegs' and various other critters (did you know spiders think daddy longlegs are a waste of time?).

    We were allowed to feed the spiders along one portion of roof at 'Grammy's' place and I adored feeding grasshoppers, ants and any other 'bug' I could find. Once the parental units discovered how big the spiders were getting (oh, I became quite proficient at catching mosquitoes, too) they burned most of them down and only let me keep one 'pet spider' at the corner of the house!

    They had a nice little hill that went down into the woods, too, on which we tobogganed and such....

    *sigh* Well, back to the air-conditioned reality of the office. It's too humid to play outside, anymore!

    <abbr>ChaplainChas.s last blog post..A Tale of two Firebirds on ... http://chaplainchas.blogspot.com</abbr>
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    @ChaplainChas. -
    blech... I have always not liked bugs. My cousin and brother would pick the legs off of grand daddy longlegs.

    the war against spiders is long standing with my family.

    Although, I have never heard anyone who was proficient at catching mosquitos. That's ... somethin'.
 

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