inner-tubes and pallets, twisted out of their clothes, and pushed off
the bank of the Green, heading to the confluence. They had baggies of
gorp, a couple of jars of peanut butter, some water jugs. The water
was calm on this stretch, and they were living the life. Just a couple of
hours into the three-week trip, they got pulled over by a ranger.
Fortunately, this was before the days of a required permit, fire pan
and chemical toilet. But the naked boys were short one lifejacket.
They were so busted. The ranger hauled them off to a county judge,
who fined them, made them buy a lifejacket, and sent them back
down the river (always better than being sent up the river). Those two
guys are my brothers-in-law. This story has entered our sizable family
canon of misadventures-by-uncles. But it seems ages ago that such a
story would even be possible. Two college boys alone in the
wilderness, having the time of their lives, able to make it weeks
without civilization, minus a trip to a judge. Yet these two barely
have gray hair; it was only a generation ago.
The dramatic loss of nature-based exploration in our children’s
lives and in our own has happened so fast we’ve hardly noticed it,
much less remarked on it. “We evolved in nature. It’s strange we’d be
so disconnected,” said Nisbet. Most of us don’t know we’re missing
anything. We may have a pet and occasionally go to the beach, so
what’s the big deal? Well, what is the big deal? That’s what I wanted
to find out. And if something serious is missing, how do we recapture
it?
As a journalist who writes frequently about the environment, I
often end up writing about the way environment hurts our health,
from flame retardants getting into human tissue to air pollution’s
effects on the developing brain. It was both a pleasure and a
revelation to consider how, instead, our surroundings can also help
prevent physical and mental problems and align us with the World
Health Organization’s definition of health: “a complete state of
physical, mental and social well-being, and not merely the absence of