I acknowledge much luck in my life. I was born into a supportive family, I had a meaningful career, and I have a beautiful posse of friends and family. And growing up in rural Michigan during the 1970s was another stroke of luck, with experiences that I am thankful for.
During our childhood, we were set loose to roam our farm fields and woods, mostly without adult supervision. Writer Margaret Renkl, who also explored nature untethered during her youth, uses the word “feral” to describe this freedom and closeness to nature she and her brother experienced in her book “The Comfort of Crows.”
I would not use feral, but, like Renkl, once we followed the “you kids get outside and play” directive from our mother, we were free. We were very active, curious, and creative.
Renkl described woodland experiences, examining bugs, climbing trees, and exploring wetlands. While my brothers and I also scoured the woods and ditch banks, unlike Renkl, we were magnets drawn to hazardous activities. We couldn’t help ourselves. We were like lovable elementary age “Mayhems.” We suffered a few calamities, but the adventures I love to recall were the rescues: our simple luck that an adult, usually our dad, intervened before disaster.
One Christmas, my seven-year-old brother Scott received a toy archery set: toys, yes, but the child-sized arrows had sharp metal tips which we shot into a paper target.
Television viewing was limited, but one of our favorite shows was “William Tell” which opened with a great song and William shooting an apple off the top of someone’s head—KERTHUMP!–with a crossbow. It was amazing! And as we felt our archery skills improve, our discussion evolved to expressed confidence in our own ability to shoot an apple off someone’s head—specifically our five-year-old brother Steve’s head. As all five-year-old little brothers, he was trusting and willing to participate in whatever we suggested. And one March morning, He stood bundled, adorable and rosy cheeked, in his little coat and wool hat. He held an apple, patiently awaiting our instructions.
My dad’s parenting was mostly hands off. If we sassed our mother, were disrespectful to people or property, or if we experimented with foul language, he intervened. Firmly. Otherwise, he was busy doing chores and farm tasks, and we were left to play and figure things out when we were out of the house, away from our mother’s more direct supervision.
It was perfect. We loved it.
In one of his trips past us walking from one barn to the other, he must have witnessed our holding of the apple, our grip on bows and arrows, and our little brother’s absolute compliance. Suddenly, Dad’s hands were on our shoulders, his disapproval and concern clear. It was a miracle—perhaps a guardian angel, if you believe in such a thing — that we didn’t complete our William-Tell feat.
That day, we avoided the potential trauma of receiving or inflicting injury. Dad was firm in his redirection, unusually stern in his words and left us to our paper target practice.
Lucky.
We had many more perilous adventures and made it to adulthood without major mishap, often with our dad’s miraculous interventions.
It’s a Fine Life
