Notes From My Knapsack 5-14-06
Jeff Gill

Begin With a Single Step

Sidewalks, bike paths, trails, even the wider shoulders of some roads; strollers and bicycles and walkers of all sorts are out and around in this glorious spring weather.
True, we could use a little more rain, but just as in Camelot, Licking County has been receiving her liquid precipitation between midnight and 5 am for the most part.
Cool nights, also known as "good sleepin’ weather," with sunny days make for idyllic mornings and evenings, perfect for taking a nice walk.
Most health and weight loss advice boils down to this: get a move on! Better nutrition, smaller portion sizes, colorful platefuls of veggies are all important. But somewhat counterintuitively, a bit more exercise makes your body "ask" for more of that stuff, and plenty of fitness leaves your internal cues all pointing to the good stuff. If your muscles and bones are doing real work, they want real food and they know how to tell your foolish brain what the score is.
Kids present slightly different challenges, because they can want crud with their consumer-soaked brains and the veggie-dairy-healthy stuff with their bodies, and eat both with room for more. Limiting (or for some, banning) snack food is a task in its own, but children still respond best to their own physical cues with fitness driving better nutrition.
Where to run around, though? Running around in the car, of course, doesn’t count – let’s not even think about the drive-up windows you go by, or don’t. Our busy schedules of team practices, games, and rehearsals or lessons may actually have less real exercise in them than a long afternoon of running amok . . . if you have somewhere to do it.
A recent book proposed "Nature Deficit Disorder" as a form of illness afflicting American kids, and while I loathe the tendency to make a disorder of every little quirk of life, you can’t really dispute that roaming free in the wilderness ain’t what it used to be.
What did it used to be, anyhow? Is it another one of those golden glowing "good ol’ days" that doesn’t stand up to scrutiny?
My folks opened the 60’s by building a house on the edge of a town/small city, where farm fields could be seen from some upstairs windows and nearby woodlots from most. When we got kicked out of the house, joining other refugees from indoors into the banishment of "go play outside," that’s where we headed. A mowed field behind a church and next to corn was the ball diamond, and a ravine down the block held years of tree forts and scrap board clubhouses.
I suspect that there are some issues with increased fear (if not reality) of liability and lawsuits, with the accompanying fences and signage. The trend to screaming coverage of every pond drowning from Alabama to Wyoming on the local evening news helps generate a climate of fear and anxiety that may press parents to keep kids closer to home, let alone the "stranger danger" epidemic.
But I wonder how much has to do with family size. I was oldest of four, and my mom probably wondered where I was some afternoons, but after yelling my name out the back door, she was chasing another flapping diaper, and just couldn’t obsess about it. (Ground me for getting my sneakers muddy when I got home, she could do that, and ask "where did you get so dirty?" but I’m not sure she heard the answer.)
There was a six pack o’ kids around the corner, and three blocks down a twelve; some families were two and three, but four wasn’t unusual and five wouldn’t draw stares.
My dad was youngest of six, his dad was sixth of nine; great-grandfather was one of two, but that had more to do with his father’s service in the Civil War and then death not long after – he was youngest male of nine, we think, but the records are unclear. Coulda been more, but children who died young don’t always show up on paper.
The Little Guy is one of one, and is quite common in that state; his parents started late and got slowed down by a great deal of moving about. We didn’t really plan to have an only child, though his mother and my mother are exactly that themselves. We try not to be overprotective, but . . .
When you have one kid, you watch them more, if only because they’re the only show in town. You just can’t supervise four kids the same way. Whether or not you think kids should ever be out of your eyeshot or hearing unsupervised is a different debate, but average family size probably has a lot to do with why they rarely get there anymore.
The upside: since even adults should get out for a ramble regularly, just all go together. Stick to paths or climb a fence or two, as long as you’re keeping on the move.
And then have a healthy family dinner!

Jeff Gill is a writer, storyteller, and supply preacher around central Ohio; share your favorite family hikes through disciple@voyager.net.