Re: what would they be like today?


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Posted by Alex Forbes on July 03, 2003 at 07:11:28 from 67.75.200.35 user Pitsligo.

In Reply to: what would they be like today? posted by Jonathan Labaree on July 01, 2003 at 19:27:25:

For whatever it's worth, I grew up on an island in Maine, off the coast of Mt. Desert I., no electricity, lots of boats. I'm 33 now, I learned to sail when I was 5, and read S&A that same year; got my first boat, a 9' dinghy, when I was 9 (still own her); soloed my father's Beetle Cat when I was 10; was skippering the island's "ferry", a 26' lobster boat, when I was 13; was turned loose in a borrowed 28' Friendship sloop when I was 15; and owned my own Friendship when I was 16. I was always off camping on my own, somewhere else on the island; no cell phone, just check in every day or so. I always had matches in my pocket. The two rules were to wear a lifejacket while alone in the boat (I always had a comfortable one) and to never carry a lighted kerosine lamp (a Molotov cocktail waiting to happen, where you can step on a dropped candle). My father's policy, so he states, was one of "benign neglect", and I know for a fact that he lived by "better drowned than duffers." I've had a few narrow squeaks, but nothing that harmed anyone, and all of them educational.

Could I do it today? I left the island in '96, but I know that that year, and the year previous, we had a delightful group of five young children --I think the eldest was 11-- sail out the 1/2 mile from the mainland in their Newman skiff (a 12', fiberglass, gaff-rigged skiff), and come ashore to camp. They had all read S&A, were the most polite and wonderful kids I've yet met, and were utterly responsible in a way that would have made Mrs. Walker sleep easy at night.

It was a cooperative effort, to let them have their own S&A. They lived a combination of fantasy and careful responsibility; those of us on the island saw their efforts, encouraged them, and provided a support network.

The next generation of Ss, As, & Ds are out there, every bit as good as we hope they are. The environment, with its predators and its regulatory handrails, just makes it more challenging, not impossible.

I think any kid who reads S&A, really reads it, and takes it to heart, is well ahead of the game in making it happen.

Alex


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