Personal
Never a dull moment
Feb 03,2007 12:54 AM | Permalink
I remember years ago seeing the
title of a book by the Foxfire publishers called
"I wish I could give my son a baby raccoon". I
was too young to "get it" then, probably about
15, browsing in a book store at the mall. I had
some vague sense that it was anti-establishment,
or just nostalgic for a time when a larger
percentage of young people had a chance to split
wood, milk goats, drive a tractor, and see
stars. Ok, maybe that's just me, superimposing
my own anti-establishment bias on a casual
spotting of a funny book title I had seen as a
kid.
Foxfire books are collections of stories about families in the Appalachians living in a world little changed over 100 years of technological progress. We take our high-speed internet, air conditioning, hot water, hell, running water, and relative immunity from mother nature for granted. Life is easy. For most of us, we can have what we want, when we want it, and we feel like we might be guilty of child neglect if our kids don't get what they want, when they want it.
When all of our needs are met in abundance, our biggest priority becomes how to stay entertained. We watch hours of TV, per day, and spend more time planning our Superbowl party than how we want to be remembered. We spend hours analyzing what options we want on our new car, but almost none talking with our kids about what they want to be when they grow up. We buy MP3 players on credit and take them with us on vacation (also paid with credit) with our family so we don't have to listen to each other. We are a culture of narcissists, each wrapped up in our own amusements, avoiding self-examination.
Four years ago our family of 5 moved from a comfy home in the suburbs to 18 acres with an old pole barn and a borrowed camper to start building our dream home on a farm. It's been a hard experience and we learned how little we knew about so many things, but we haven't given up. In this space I intend to share some of our experiences, from losing everything we own in a massive fire, to building our home with our bare hands and a few great friends. We even have a pet raccoon. They don't make great pets, by the way. Maybe our purpose in life is to be a warning to others. Maybe someone will be inspired to do something similar. I hope to hear from you, either way.
Thanks for tuning into our first entry.
Kevin & Cathy
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