False Start

We started off a bit late today, we indulged by sleeping in a little. Then when we'd gotten everything packed into the truck, we got a phone call from the relative we were driving to Wyoming to visit. She promised she'd feel better if we didn't drive all the way up there. It's winter already. Six new inches 0f snow on the ground and it's still falling. Bah. So, we thought, well, we'll just stop when we get to Salt Lake City and be there a day earlier than we'd planned.

As we drove out toward the freeway, we passed the air base, where this weekend is Aviation Nation -- the air show featuring the Thunderbirds precision flying team. It was a glorious Nevada fall day. There were two acrobatic smaller planes swooping through the air above us. And...we decided to stay here for Saturday, and drive up to visit our grandson on Sunday. Plus, Cool Guy is leaving from SLC to go back east on Tuesday morning, so this was his last day home.

This afternoon we drove over to the edge of the airbase, just down the street, actually, and parked the bike. Then we walked up a rocky incline to join many others who came to this vantage point to watch the jet show. While we waited for the start, we saw some boys playing in the desert near us. Cool Guy pointed them out. They caught his eye because they were throwing rocks at a can. Then, they were digging, then they found some other cool piece of junk and were messing with it. They were probably 7 or 8 years old. They were doing what few kids in my world get to do: play in the dirt with dangerous stuff. No one yelled at them, either. It was wonderful.

Our children grew up playing in the dirt. I realize from their stories now, that they also occasionally played with dangerous stuff. Cool Guy related how he and his friend went to the town dump at least twice a week and dug around and found fabulous treasures. He'd bring home a wagon full, now and then, to the great chagrin of his father. Who kept busy hauling it back out to the trash. But the point was, digging around in the dump was not forbidden, by law or parents. Well, maybe his dad told him not to do it, but Cool Guy wasn't reknown for compliance.

We agreed that there would have been many fewer toxic products in our small town's dump than would be found in a similar place today. But the point was that many of the generation we raised are tremendously risk adverse and sometimes to such an extreme that their children are really stifled from the creative play that occurs when kids get to go outside and throw rocks, play in the dirt and just explore in the real, sometimes harsh and filthy, world.

So, we will consider our duty to find opportunities for our grandchildren to get dirty and play with odd things and have unstructured time to mess around. We hope to do this without creating too much angst in our children and their spouses. Or getting anyone's fingers cut off.