Lost childhoods

I watched a TV show recently about hunting in Miami. Not near Miami, but in Miami. Florida, U.S.A. Most of us have heard about introduced, invasive Burmese pythons wreaking havoc in the Everglades. But this was not the Everglades.

The hunters on the TV show were actually boating down canals in the city of Miami and shooting three invasive species: iguanas, Muscovy ducks and Egyptian geese. Apparently hunting with “regular” .22s or shotguns is not allowed in the city but air guns are OK. These guns bear little resemblance to my fondly-remembered Daisy Red Rider BB gun. These were .25 calibre air rifles that killed the lazy lizards as dead as if they had been gophers on the farm outside of Lethbridge or snow geese in Saskatchewan.

Outdoor activities: then

Hunting in Milwaukee County “back in the day” was forbidden if you used traditional firearms. There were archery seasons for small game, Al Damitz told me, but none of his friends had enough money to buy hunting bows, so they carried sticks and snare wire. They set the snares at holes under old cement in the industrial parks; they beat the weeds and poked around under rusty machinery until a cottontail rabbit raced to its shelter and . . . well. . . Hasenpfeffer for dinner.

In a different small town, boys pretended to be beavers and made a dam out of mud, rock and sticks on the open ditch that ran through backyards. One would pretend to be a mink, another a beaver or maybe a muskrat, and the drama of nature ensued. The dam didn’t last because Mrs. Turner’s beloved little boy got his feet wet, so she tore out the dam with furious whacks of her hoe. The ‘beavers’ hid behind the garage and sang “The Old Gray Mare” about the furious mom who wrecked their fun.

I remember a small beaver marsh just behind Canadian Tire in Smithers, B.C. A school teacher took his class – studying pond life – to the marsh to find beaver-gnawed sticks. They found out that pushing each other into the muck was quite enjoyable, too. They returned from the ‘study’ with sticks they had found that resembled drumsticks, guitars and saxophones (it took some imagination) and then performed an air band show with their instruments.

Another game from my childhood was Kick the Can. Hide from the ones who were ‘it,’ sneak closer and closer to the can, attack en masse. When it got too dark, one parent or another shrieked or whistled, and children reluctantly returned to their homes.

Outdoors: now

In Milwaukee today, industrial sites have fences and security cameras to keep out vandals, thieves, and would-be rabbit slayers. Most small-town backyard ditches are now encased in culverts, buried with smooth, green lawns planted above. Can you imagine a class taking a trip to a mudhole today? In our era, backyards are separated with ‘good neighbour fencing’ and people are fussy about children racing around through others’ yards anyway.

We have encouraged or allowed or participated in creating a culture in which children’s spontaneity, self-directed fun, and contact with nature have been stolen. It’s not only computers and personal ID that have been hacked.

And as to those Miami hunters, at least they weren’t out clubbing, or playing online poker, or – heaven forbid – watching hunting shows on their TVs or computers.