Let me tell you a story! A story of a childhood memory of playful exploration, on the surface the story is just of a great memory, however today I find a deeper meaning and significance of Life Exploration, Parenting, Discovery and Learning about ourselves and others.

The Memory, The Story

One of my childhood friends, DAN, live on a large parcel of land in Roseville in its early days of development of urban sprawl, land with plenty of areas to explore and horses that after we cleaned the barn we often rode.
We built a tree house because we could. This rustic shelter became a guy’s sanctuary from Dan’s little sister. The most magical memory of this backyard, howewever, was that it butted up to a lake as I saw it, but in reality it was a weedy, mucky swamp that begged to be explored.

One of our other friends Dad was a “big deal” (as I remember it) at a trucking company. His dad had delivered to the house 6 used large oil barrels that we were going to use to build a raft, that required our own engineering and need to figure out “how are we going to do this?”……how interesting it is to think, here we were late elementary/early Jr. High and our Parents thought it was cute that we were building a raft to explore this swamp, not once do I remember the statement “where is your life jacket?, or be safe? Or I do not think you boys should be doing this!” how this world has changed in how we parent and view risks and dangers.
We were adventurers, nice boys that just wanted to explore. Every parent just wanted to know how the experience was, as opposed to worrying and deluging us with warning, fear and discouragement.

To the contrary, our  Parents encouraged our exploration, adventure and learning. As you can tell from my writing and posting, I survived!

What a great childhood series of memories as we used scavenged branches that we “widdled off the bark and limbs” with our pocket knives to make poles for navigating the “lake” on our vessel. We actually had a pocket knife, (I am sure my parents bought for me), that we used to clean off the branches and make things….called widdling!, kind of a funny name as I type this.

We were a current version of Huck Finn, not on a river, but on our own small swampy body of water that allowed us to explore, eat bag lunch that our parents made for us as we drifted and polled our way around. I recall that we wondered what was lurking below us in that mucky body of water and were sure that all the other neighborhood kids were amazed and envious of our floating craft and adventurous childhood play.
As I write this, I now am wondering if this was my first experience of being overly prideful, or just proud of our ingenuity, adventure and wholesomeness fun. I sure hope it was being proud as being “prideful” is not healthy and not representative of a healthy persona and personality.

Why this story and this rambling post? It was a great childhood memory and there are some interesting observations and challenges for all of us;

•   Importance of letting our children explore and learn with encouragement and   support
  • Children can be remarkable resourceful and creative if given the opportunity
  • Continue to try and remain engaged in our children’s life and let them do what they want with this encouragement and love
  • Remain vigilant in their safety as the world is not as it was in the ‘60’s. Help them understand street smart awareness of the world around them.
  • Vigilance never stops as our children will always be our children and the love, care, concern never ends.
  • Encourage being proud, not prideful of accomplishments in those around us as self-assurance is a marvelous self-image
  • Exploration and creativity is a powerful trait to allow to be developed at any and all ages
  • Responsibility and street smarts are invaluable
  • Friendships (healthy friendships) can foster emotional, spiritual and life success
  • Life is short and fragile, embrace the adventures that are available to you “now” as “later” is undefined
  • Exploration is not just earthly endeavors, but should include faith and our relationship with God

Thank you Huckleberry Finn for bringing forth this memory and the reminders and lessons it has for us today.