i was raised in the country. my house was surrounded by fields on all four sides, and i used to hide and play in the bare spots in the middle of corn fields. i drove my 4-wheeler on back roads, rode with my daddy in his 18-wheeler, climbed haystacks, and went "swimming" in trailers full of soybeans.
when i met my husband, he found it so strange that i had never ridden my bike to the minit mart for a coke, never gone door-to-door trick-or-treating, that i grew up without cable tv. minit mart? seriously? the closest convenience store was 10 miles away. if i walked door-to-door for candy, i'd be walking a good 30 minutes from one house to the next. and watching mtv was a treat that i got only when i would spend the night with one of my friends who lived "in town".
but even though i grew up in rural america, there are plenty of things i've never done. i never worked in tobacco. i couldn't tell you the first thing about it. i've never baited my own fishing hook. worms are gross and i prefer not to touch them. i've never shot a deer. i went hunting once in high school, and though i'd practiced for a week shooting pumpkins with a 30 alt 6, i just couldn't bring myself to pull the trigger when the time came. and i couldn't tell you at what time of year one plants beans or corn or wheat. heck, i can barely distinguish one from the other.
so imagine my surprise and delight when mom and dad watched the girls for a couple of weeks and turned them into some little country bumpkins. after the first day, they had acquired the skill of making the best mud pies you've ever "tasted". that weekend, they decided to camp out in the backyard. amazingly enough, they stayed in the tent the whole night. madelyn learned to drive the kubota back on the farm, they chased lightning bugs every night until it was too dark to see, and ella became quite distinguished at the art of frog catching. she named one of them "hoppy".
kids have too much "stuff" these days, and i feel that we as parents are partially to blame. we put a tv in every room, hook a wii or a playstation to each of them, give them ipods and nintendo ds's to keep them occupied on-the-go, and then wonder why they don't listen to us when we tell them to go outside and play. so thank goodness when mine go to gran and papaw's, they learn to enjoy the simple things. maybe we should all take the time to that every once in a while!
