Driving to and from D&R Greenway Land Trust, from my new Canal Road apartment, I am in neighborhoods all the time. And every time I turn around, there’s another snow forecast, another snow event. White dots begin to swirl even as I pen these lines. But nobody’s ever OUT in it! When we were children, in Michigan, we LOVED snow! Snow meant PLAY! Snow forts. Angels-in-the Snow. Once even igloos. The best was ice on top of snow so we could walk and walk on the crust without ever breaking through. Snow was simply fun! Each November, my father’d somehow pour water at the perfect moment - while water still ran from the hose. He’d aim it into our side yard, where he’d built short earth mounds around it to hold in the water. This would freeze in the night. The next morning, all the neighbor kids, –bundled in ugly woolen faded (wartime) snow clothes–, would skate round and round and round. Our skates were ugly, especially the boys’! Although some lucky girls’ feet had grown, so that new white figure skates might come with Santa. There was an art to tying those skates -otherwise we’d have ‘weak ankles.’ Some of us barely knew how to stop. A few could skate backwards. We’d try to pirouette like Sonja Heine (sp?) but we couldn’t really. Nobody could do figures. Even so, until the the too soon dark, we’d all circle and swirl in the falling flakes. The world always turned more silent in snow, our high-pitched child-voices somehow arriving from a distance or through a fabric, other than those thick half-wet ‘mufflers’ tied behind our heads, covering our chattering teeth. Our mother, never an eager cook, would nevertheless bring out hot cocoa with big fat marshmallows, in thick cups. Part of its purpose was simply the warm sweetness speeding to cold tummies. Part was to warm our hands inside woolen mittens that didn’t REALLY work, but it didn’t matter, because somebody’s aunt or grandmother had made them with love. They’d use thin bright yarns, also needed to decorate our Christmas trees and wrap the gifts (often in newspaper) of wartime. Fathers or grandfathers had built high wooden sides onto Flexible Flyer sleds. Taller children could then tug smaller ones around and around in the white miracle, –wool baby blankets tucked around tiny brothers and sisters, tight round knitted hats pulled down over little ears, so they could be outside too! Of course there was snowball throwing, but never fights. Snowball time was funny - we laughed, right out loud, a lot… Outdoors, it wasn’t true that “children are to be seen and not heard.” Best of all, when we had PACKING SNOW, we could build snowmen. No, no snow women. Nor snow dogs. Snowmen. With coal eyes - where did we get the coal? Carrot nose. Twig arms. Sometimes coal buttons down the fat snow tummy. Somebody’s long striped scarf around a nonexistent neck, the bright colors blowing in wind and flakes. But, I realize, –driving the empty snowed streets of Princeton in the 21st Century–, play as we know it is extinct. There is no more being outdoors without a schedule, a coach, a soccer mom, overhead lights, a goal, victory and defeat. As I make my way to Rosedale Road, there are no snow wings flanking chubby snow body imprints on any of the front yards. No dad’s pulling a child round and round, let alone across a side-yard ice rink. No snow tracks from metal sled runners glint in thin sun. As Richard Louv alerts in Last Child in the Woods, children aren’t out in summertime, either. There is no more mysterious, hilarious Hide and Seek, no Tapping on the Icebox extended until the streetlights come on. Children aren’t out at random in autumn, either, –jumping high, then plummeting with audible hilarity, into cushy-crispy leaf piles. Partly because there are no more leaf bonfires to spice the autumn air and lure us irresistibly outdoors. Partly because cacophonous leaf blowers blast all romance from that season. We used wield tall fan-shaped rakes of something very pale brown or actually yellow, a substance like bamboo, which would swish and swish in the noisier leaves, as we built piles for our play and our parents’ bonfires. It felt good to be helping dads tend to the lawn and driveway, even though the top of the rake was far above our heads. 21st century driving reveals there must have been a “Last Child in the Snow”. I wonder when… (Skiing doesn’t count - all that gear and lift tickets and competition and snowboarding.) By ‘play’, I mean the quiet games, not competitive. The play that cost absolutely nothing, out in the snow –reddening the cheeks and brightening the eyes, strengthening young bodies and filling the snappy air with laughter. Making indelible, multi-sensory memories. And, O, whatEVER happened to snowmen? I can’t even find an evocative photograph to insert into this post - only cartoons. I did discover pages of description, on-line: “How To Build Your Snowman.” I guess there aren’t snowmen any more, not outside in the snow. Until our Christmas Cape May journey. All of a sudden, –between Goshen and Cape May Court House–, Janet and I began to discover yesterday’s snowmen. Sun, which we basically missed on our pilgrimage, must’ve been out the day before. Because all the snowpeople (yes, there were snowwomen and snowdogs) were tipping the same way, to the south and west. Lumpy and funny. Adorned with vivid eyes and quirky hats. Flapping scarves and lumpy noses and various forms of buttons. Yes, snowpeople actually kept Janet and me company on that long empty winter road to the beach, to New Jersey’s Land’s End. One house even had a snow family, three tipping snowcreatures, leaning toward sundown. I was going to call this post, “Whatever Happened to Snowmen?” And I still do, in my heart. What a tragedy that, –except in South Jersey–, nobody plays in snow. There really must have been a Last Child in the Snow. I wonder when. I wonder who… What are you going to do about that? Join Children and Nature Network? Go out and play in the snow? Let me know…
Comments:
4 Comments posted on "LAST CHILD IN THE SNOW?"
Mike Vandeman on January 4th, 2010 at 2:23 pm #
Last Child in the Woods –– In this eloquent and comprehensive work, Louv makes a convincing case for ensuring that children (and adults) maintain access to pristine natural areas, and even, when those are not available, any bit of nature that we can preserve, such as vacant lots. I agree with him 100%. Just as we never really outgrow our need for our parents (and grandparents, brothers, sisters, uncles, aunts, cousins, etc.), humanity has never outgrown, and can never outgrow, our need for the companionship and mutual benefits of other species. But what strikes me most about this book is how Louv is able, in spite of 310 pages of text, to completely ignore the two most obvious problems with his thesis: (1) We want and need to have contact with other species, but neither we nor Louv bother to ask whether they want to have contact with us! In fact, most species of wildlife obviously do not like having humans around, and can thrive only if we leave them alone! Or they are able tolerate our presence, but only within certain limits. (2) We and Louv never ask what type of contact is appropriate! He includes fishing, hunting, building “forts”, farming, ranching, and all other manner of recreation. Clearly, not all contact with nature leads to someone becoming an advocate and protector of wildlife. While one kid may see a beautiful area and decide to protect it, what’s to stop another from seeing it and thinking of it as a great place to build a house or create a ski resort? Developers and industrialists must come from somewhere, and they no doubt played in the woods with the future environmentalists! It is obvious, and not a particularly new idea, that we must experience wilderness in order to appreciate it. But it is equally true, though (”conveniently”) never mentioned, that we need to stay out of nature, if the wildlife that live there are to survive. I discuss this issue thoroughly in the essay, “Wildlife Need Habitat Off-Limits to Humans!”, at http://home.pacbell.net/mjvande/india3. It should also be obvious (but apparently isn’t) that how we interact with nature determines how we think about it and how we learn to treat it. Remember, children don’t learn so much what we tell them, but they learn very well what they see us do. Fishing, building “forts”, mountain biking, and even berry-picking teach us that nature exists for us to exploit. Luckily, my fort-building career was cut short by a bee-sting! As I was about to cut down a tree to lay a third layer of logs on my little log cabin in the woods, I took one swing at the trunk with my axe, and immediately got a painful sting (there must have been a bee-hive in the tree) and ran away as fast as I could. On page 144 Louv quotes Rasheed Salahuddin: “Nature has been taken over by thugs who care absolutely nothing about it. We need to take nature back.” Then he titles his next chapter “Where Will Future Stewards of Nature Come From?” Where indeed? While fishing may bring one into contact with natural beauty, that message can be eclipsed by the more salient one that the fish exist to pleasure and feed humans (even if we release them after we catch them). (My fishing career was also short-lived, perhaps because I spent most of the time either waiting for fish that never came, or untangling fishing line.) Mountain bikers claim that they are “nature-lovers” and are “just hikers on wheels”. But if you watch one of their helmet-camera videos, it is easy to see that 99.44% of their attention must be devoted to controlling their bike, or they will crash. Children initiated into mountain biking may learn to identify a plant or two, but by far the strongest message they will receive is that the rough treatment of nature is acceptable. It’s not! On page 184 Louv recommends that kids carry cell phones. First of all, cell phones transmit on essentially the same frequency as a microwave oven, and are therefore hazardous to one’s health –- especially for children, whose skulls are still relatively thin. Second, there is nothing that will spoil one’s experience of nature faster than something that reminds one of the city and the “civilized” world. The last thing one wants while enjoying nature is to be reminded of the world outside. Nothing will ruin a hike or a picnic faster than hearing a radio or the ring of a cell phone, or seeing a headset, cell phone, or mountain bike. I’ve been enjoying nature for over 60 years, and can’t remember a single time when I felt a need for any of these items. It’s clear that we humans need to reduce our impacts on wildlife, if they, and hence we, are to survive. But it is repugnant and arguably inhumane to restrict human access to nature. Therefore, we need to practice minimal-impact recreation (i.e., hiking only), and leave our technology (if we need it at all!) at home. In other words, we need to decrease the quantity of contact with nature, and increase the quality. References: Ehrlich, Paul R. and Ehrlich, Anne H., Extinction: The Causes and Consequences of the Disappearances of Species. New York: Random House, 1981. Errington, Paul L., A Question of Values. Ames, Iowa: Iowa State University Press, 1987. Flannery, Tim, The Eternal Frontier — An Ecological History of North America and Its Peoples. New York: Grove Press, 2001. Foreman, Dave, Confessions of an Eco-Warrior. New York: Harmony Books, 1991. Knight, Richard L. and Kevin J. Gutzwiller, eds. Wildlife and Recreationists. Covelo, California: Island Press, 1995. Louv, Richard, Last Child in the Woods — Saving Our Children from Nature-Deficit Disorder. Chapel Hill, N.C.: Algonquin Books of Chapel Hill, 2005. Noss, Reed F. and Allen Y. Cooperrider, Saving Nature’s Legacy: Protecting and Restoring Biodiversity. Island Press, Covelo, California, 1994. Stone, Christopher D., Should Trees Have Standing? Toward Legal Rights for Natural Objects. Los Altos, California: William Kaufmann, Inc., 1973. Vandeman, Michael J., http://home.pacbell.net/mjvande, especially http://home.pacbell.net/mjvande/ecocity3, http://home.pacbell.net/mjvande/india3, http://home.pacbell.net/mjvande/sc8, and http://home.pacbell.net/mjvande/goodall. Ward, Peter Douglas, The End of Evolution: On Mass Extinctions and the Preservation of Biodiversity. New York: Bantam Books, 1994. “The Wildlands Project”, Wild Earth. Richmond, Vermont: The Cenozoic Society, 1994. Wilson, Edward O., The Future of Life. New York: Alfred A. Knopf, 2002.
Susan Van Dongen on January 4th, 2010 at 6:50 pm #
Carolyn, I’ve talked to other folks my age and they say the same thing. “We’re can’t get our kids to go outside. We were outside all the time!” And snow was a special occasion. We have pics of the whole neighborhood (circa ‘65, ‘66) standing around a snowman we had just built in our yard, pics of my sister, me and our friends and our sleds, pics of me throwing a snowb all at the camera; seems like my dad was always there to document our play. And sometimes he’d play with us too. (While my mom tended the hot chocolate you mentioned) As for the most recent snowfall, there might have not been many kids out playing in the snow up your way, but I am happy to report that Bordentown/Btown Twp have a couple of prime sledding spots and they were loaded with happy kids. I wanted to join them!
JoAnne Stransky on January 8th, 2010 at 1:03 pm #
Thanks for the trip down memory lane. For the record, recent snowfalls were not the “packing snow” necessary for successful snowmen as my young neighbor discovered.
Gwen Southgate on January 11th, 2010 at 1:10 pm #
Like your father, my children’s Dad flooded the low area of what, as a newly arrived immigrant to Chicago from the UK, I had learned to call ‘our yard’, as opposed to ‘our garden’. And on that small patch of ice, all the neighborhood small fry, those too little to cross a busy road and join their older siblings on the big rink (a similarly flooded baseball field), spent countless happy hours honing their skating skills–with very varying degrees of success! We too, enjoyed a couple of igloo-suitable winters, once in Chicago with our children, once in Kingston, NJ, with grandkids. Unfortunately, the NJ igloo melted away in a day or two, but the Chicago one lasted until the beginning of May-one of the best toys our kids ever had! But the flat terrain of the Chicago area was a major challenge when it came to downhill winter sports. The steepest slope in our neighborhood was almost imperceptble drop in elevation from our back door to the end of our yard. The kids augmented this drop by packing snow, of which there was no shortage,at the ‘high’ end made themselves a sled run which made up for its lack of drama by its extreme durability in Chicago winters. Thank you for triggering so many happy memories of kids playing in snow! Post a comment
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