Things I Don’t See Anymore

By Tom Poland

 

I was talking with a woman the other day who told me how much she enjoyed picking wild plums when she was a girl. So did I. Growing up, we had a wild plum tree by the driveway and it would be heavy with large plums that ranged from red yellow, peach, and port red, to amethyst.

We had one in the back yard, too. Ate plums all the time, and the best ones were often on the ground. Right about now is when the plums would start to come in. For some reason Dad cut both trees down. Those plum trees like many things from childhood don’t exist now and that set me to remembering a lot of things I miss today. Most of them got lost in the years and the ascent into adulthood. And then I wondered if today’s kids pick plums? Do they do the things we did as kids? Instinct and evidence tell me they do not.

I came up with an excuse. Sure kids still do these things. It’s just that I’ve lived in the city too long, but then it hit me that I spend a lot of time in the rural areas working on book projects. I travel the back roads all the time. I explore fields, farms, and see a lot of countryside. What I seldom see are kids outside doing the things we did. Some of you may recall the column I wrote last summer, “Picking Blackberries, A Childhood Tradition.” Folks still do that but there are things I don’t see anymore.

Here, then, is a litany of things I don’t see anymore such as kids picking wild cherries. I did. They were blackish-purple and bitter with just a twinge of sweetness. Birds love them by the way. A wild cherry grows near my yard and whenever I see it I think of the cherry tree Mom used to have. Somebody cut it down years ago and just like that, a childhood memory vanished.

And how about this? Down on my Granddad Poland’s farm now and then I’d come across a tree he had girdled. Girdling, also called ring-barking in some places, kills the tree. I believe Granddad girdled trees to get firewood. It generally takes a girdled tree a year to die and it dries out over that time, in essence curing the wood while it stands. Now girdling done just so, in a particular manner, can make a fruit tree produce better fruit. Girdling keeps the sugar from going down to the roots, and that makes the fruit bigger and better. I clearly remember seeing a girdled persimmon tree on Granddad’s farm but nobody I knew ate those sour things. Persimmons are okay to eat I hear if they are not just ripe, but overripe. You try it and get back to me. To this day, memories of eating green persimmons make my mouth pucker and shrivel. I’m sure horticulturists and others girdle trees but I never see girdled trees anymore.

Another pastime we had as kids was looking for four-leaf clovers. I may have found one. Maybe. They weren’t easy to find and with good reason. A little research reveals that there are 10,000 three-leaf clovers for every four-leaf clover. The four leaves, by the way, symbolize faith, hope, love, and luck in that order, hence the lucky four-leaf clover.

We played outdoors all the time and one of the amusements we had was picking a weed that had a bullet-shaped head on it. We’d take the long limber stem and bend it over into a loop and pull the head through the loop and tighten it. A quick snatch on the stem would send the head flying. It was a sort of pistol we kids used to shoot each other. All in fun, of course. I guess if kids did that today they’d end up being suspended.

And, yes, we captured lightning bugs and put them in a jar. Kids I am sure still find fireflies fascinating but I doubt they catch June bugs and tie strings to them and fly them in circles like little airplanes. Heck, today’s kids probably fly drones. We used to crawl under houses before crawl spaces blocked off everything and hunt for doodlebugs, otherwise known as ant lions.

Any time I came across a grove of bamboo it was like going to Heaven. Seriously, it beat going to Disney World. I’d whip out my knife and cut a stalk and make peashooters from it. I made simple whistles and flutes from it as well. To this day, the sight of a grove of bamboo excites me and it brings back great memories. I don’t, however, see kids making toys from the plant like I did.

Another plant I don’t see much of is the maypop or purple passionflower. I always found these plants and their beautiful flower and junior-size “watermelon” fruit fascinating. My sister, Brenda, and I got in trouble thanks to this plant. We hid along the Augusta Highway one afternoon and threw them at cars. Then I got the bright idea of putting a piece of gravel in them so they’d pack a bit more punch. Well, one of our “bombs” hit a fellow’s car “Clink!” and he pulled into Dad’s shop. I hightailed it home and got in bed and pretended to be sick. Brenda stayed in place and was the recipient of some corporal punishment courtesy of Dad. We never did that again.

A more peaceful enterprise was to pick honeysuckle blooms and suck the teeny drop of nectar from it. Now and then I still do that and I think today’s kids do too. Folks warn you that you might get a tiny spider in your mouth. Well, so what.

Now note that all these things I don’t see anymore involve plants, animals, or insects. Back when members of my generation were kids we played outdoors all the time. We dammed creeks, knocked down wasp nests, and fished for bream with cane poles. That’s just not the case anymore. In many areas, no woods exist to play in. Then there are all the digital things such as pads, tablets, and smart phones. Then, too, there is the over-parenting thing where a kid has to dress up like a hockey player just to ride a bike. I can’t speak for you, but I am sure somebody will pay a price for this loss of contact with nature. Why look at a video about bamboo when you can get down to the creek bank and cut a stalk. I am afraid that today’s kids will grow up enamored of technology at the expense of the outdoor world. Could be that several generations of robots are on the way. Thank goodness for the Boy Scouts and other organizations that teach youngsters to enjoy nature and the outdoors. All may not be lost yet.

 

 

 

Visit Tom Poland’s website at www.tompoland.net
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Tom Poland is the author of twelve books and more than 1,000 magazine features. A Southern writer, his work has appeared in magazines throughout the South. The University of South Carolina Press released his book, Georgialina, A Southland As We Knew It, in November 2015 and his and Robert Clark’s Reflections Of South Carolina, Vol. II in 2014. The History Press of Charleston published Classic Carolina Road Trips From Columbia in 2014. He writes a weekly column for newspapers in Georgia and South Carolina about the South, its people, traditions, lifestyle, and changing culture and speaks often to groups across South Carolina and Georgia, “Georgialina.”