Where Nature is Still Literally Within Reach
- By: Paul Doiron
My first job was working as a paperboy in Scarborough. Writing that sentence makes me feel like a walking, talking anachronism. Even worse for my ego, the paper I delivered was the Evening Express: the long deceased sibling of the Portland Press Herald.
I’m saddened that tossing newspapers from bikes is something kids no longer have the opportunity or inclination to experience. It was a cool job. One house I used to visit, for instance, had a resident porcupine. The spiny rodent just sat on the lawn all afternoon eating weeds. The highlight of many stressful days was observing him or her peaceably grazing. I collected quills I later found in the grass.
In fact, I consider my years devoted to poking around the Maine woods time very well spent. Recently, a co-worker rushed into the building to report that a large brown snake was coiled beneath his car. “Oh, it’s probably just a northern water snake,” I said (which it was). “I’ve been bitten by a lot of them.” (On the aggression scale, northern water snakes fall just short of fourteen-year-old boys.) I offered to remove it, but my co-worker decided to wait for the serpent to finish sunbathing before running his errand.
My favorite pastime as a kid — and I will admit it now that the statute of limitations has expired on this misdemeanor — was backyard live trapping. I used to bait a Havahart box trap with peanut butter and bacon to see what I could snare. My most surprising catch was, of all things, a blue jay: which I released, unharmed but irate, back into the wild.
I am not advocating for the harassment of God’s creatures, but I do believe that my experiences in the Maine outdoors inspired curiosity and taught me that the natural world is a transcendent place that only answers questions with more questions. Lately, I’ve been reading Richard Louv’s Last Child in the Woods: Saving Our Children from Nature-Deficit Disorder, and I recommend it highly. Every summer I seem to have the experience of watching an urban child spot a first whale [page 74] or catch a first toad, and the sight always affects me with a feeling of gratitude. How lucky I am to live in a place where nature is still literally within reach.
People ask me where the Real Maine is, and I say, “Over there in that alder swamp, the one with the water snake and the scolding blue jay.”
Paul Doiron
Editor in Chief
editorial@downeast.com
- By: Paul Doiron
Throwing papers and mowing lawns . . .
I love your column.
I also threw papers as a kid back in the mid-60s. When I got a little older, I moved up to mowing lawns. Nowadays, its strictly adults mowing lawns and throwing papers -- and kids today rarely have to work for money, as they expect an allowance from mom & dad, or worse yet, their parents simply buy them whatever they want (if they can afford it).
I also wandered in the woods as a child, many times alone. I think Child Protective Services would come calling if they heard I allowed my kids to do that today.
When my son was in the fourth grade (he's in high school now), we started a tree house in the backyard as a father-son project. Of course the neighbors objected and the neighborhood association told us to take it down.
Is it any wonder kids lay-about indoors all day after sleeping 'til noon, rather than go outside and risk being told they can't do whatever it is they might otherwise do?
Where are the packs of kids on bikes that I recall from my childhood? Where are the pickup baseball games?