I don’t know if you can be a parent and not lament at least a little bit for the world in which your kids will grow up. Maybe it’s simply because of the aura around our own youth made it seem like there were no troubles, or at least that there was always someone around to handle those troubles for us. Maybe it’s because, as adults, we see so much more potential for all the nasty things going on in the world to affect our lives. Maybe those are the same thing.
I have fond memories of my childhood. Between the ages of 5 and 12, I probably spent a total of 100 hours inside, most of that sleeping. There were a lot of kids in the neighborhood, so there were always things to do. As a bonus, our house backed up to the eastern city limits; beyond the fence at our back yard were seemingly endless farm fields, woods, and streams.
Ralston Creek, which ran past our back door about 60 yards away, was the big draw. It seemed we were always damming, rafting, fishing, or skating it.
Here I am with my friend Mitch and a pretty big bullfrog. Bullfrogs are difficult to catch. If you can manage to sneak up on one, you then have to grab the slippery bugger and not let it go as it squirms and kicks and wriggles to free itself (you can see we have a pretty good hold on this one). After we let this particular frog go back to the creek, I think it hopped off upstream somewhere and never came back. Can’t say that I blame him.