Learning About Natural Things

Sitting on the patio at Starbucks this morning, the sun was warm on my back. Another of the early morning coffee drinkers was across the table looking as if he also needed that first cup of the day.  I noticed his fingers gripping his cup. They were large, puffy and had old dirt under his broken nails. I thought that he probably was a mechanic or at least a man that worked with his hands. Our conversation began with the normal "how are you"  followed by a remark about something that headlined the morning news, then I asked what his vocation was. As I suspected, Old Dan had been a farmer most of his life. His hands had seen a lot of bruising hard work over the years. He had sold his farm not long ago and, contrary to so many small farmers of the day, Dan had closed down and retired wealthy enough to be comfortable in retirement.

I told him I had spent summers on a Minnesota farm as a small boy, and he interrupted to reply that he too was born and lived on a farm in Northern Minnesota. In his case the nearest town was a few miles west of Mil Lacs Lake. In my case the nearest town was Grand Rapids just north of Mil Lac Lake. From that shared Minnesota root  we talked for an hour about our early experiences on the farm.

I remarked that on Joe Koch's farm all plowing, root pulling, plowing and cultivating was done with a pair of horses. Large white horses. While at work each had a collar with two wooden risers on top. One horse, the one harnessed on the left, was "Fritz". The other was "Hans" who was always harnessed on the right. Fritz was the calmer and older of the two, and Hans was a "biter" and liked to kick and buck now and then. I was about 4 years old when I had my solo horse ride on Fritz.

Joe lifted me and sat me just behind the harness collar and told me to hold on tight. We the left the barnyard and headed toward a field that needed cultivating. I held tight on to the risers on Fritz's collar. My felt hat was too big and kept falling over my eyes. The two horses settled on a fixed and slow speed and clippity-clopped along with me bouncing away on  Fritz. Joe was driving the pair from his seat on the disc machine. We soon left the narrow dirt road and headed into a field of dry scatter-grass that had been lying fallow for a couple of years. Joe stopped the rig and we placed a galvanized water bucket and dipper under a tree at the side of the field. Joe asked me several times if I wanted to stay with the water bucket or get back on Fritz and go plowing. I wanted to stay on Fritz and go plowing. Within about two hours of going back and forth cultivating with the discs, I was thinking that I had made the wrong decision. My bottom was sore and my arms were about to fall off.  Joe called to me and said he thought I was turning red too, so we stopped for drink in the shade of the tree. I was sunburned bright red on every part of my anatomy that was exposed. That ended my first ride for the day and was told to stay in the shade until we started back. Joe finished the last row about noon and with me in his lap we clippity-clopped back to the farmhouse for lunch .

 Dan then related a similar little story about his first ride. When he finished, one of us, I don't know which, mentioned that most kids today are not exposed to a rural lifestyle and miss the delight and complexity of nature. Our conversation drifted on that tone for a while and then concluded that the pace and demands that kids face today have changed radically. It is so much different for them today. 

• Young people today don't have a "first horse ride" experience,
• they never milk a cow,
• wring a chicken neck,
• smell the hay in the loft,
• repair a harness,
• get water from a well,
• or muck out a barn.

One hundred years ago most young children were somehow connected to farming and the natural world. The majority of today's children have no connection whatever. In fact most of them no longer live even close to that environment. They can hardly learn from it.  I told Dan it was a shame and he pointed out that it was only one "shame" of many.

RELIGION used to play a role in teaching young people how to live
                     with one another.  Today, the churches are empty. 

FAMILIES used to be a basic and strong social unit and tended to have
                     clear-cut roles for each family member.

FATHER was the boss and the wage earner. 

MOTHER was the child bearer and the home maker.

CHILDREN were expected to mind their parents and assist the family as directed.

BOTH Father and Mother would insist on attendance at school and church going.

For many years the teaching of manners, morals traditions and ethics was passed on to the children by their parents, teachers, church, and Sunday school. They learned these things from family traditions, a grounding in history and the teachings of their religion.

Today, the family unit is rapidly being changed or replaced, family traditions are being lost, history has been downgraded in our educational systems, and as science advances there are more people leaving religion and trying to replace it with "no religion". So where are children and young people learning manners, morals, ethics and traditions?

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