Return to Banta 2 (Unsupervised)

In today’s world, children exist in a bubble. Practically everywhere they go and everything they do is supervised; if not a helicopter parent there is some adult within their line of sight tasked with watching over them. Rarely are kids trusted to travel even short distances alone now. Even the walk to the corner to catch the school bus typically involves an escort. Is it any wonder Millennials feel entitled? Most have spent their entire lives with a personal security detail with them whenever they leave the house.

As kids of the seventies, we were largely unsupervised, so our opportunities for fun, adventure and potentially fatal incidents were more frequent than my own daughter would encounter thirty years later. In this post I’ll share a few tales that illustrate what I’m talking about. Continue reading “Return to Banta 2 (Unsupervised)”

Return to Banta 1 (Bloomington, Indiana)

When I was a child, I spake as a child, I understood as a child, I thought as a child: but when I became a man… well, not much really changed I guess.

Before continuing North from Bean Blossom, I decided to take a brief day trip Southwest to Bloomington, Indiana. I’d not visited the college town in decades, and besides I told myself I needed to restock the pantry at a market a bit larger than a Dollar General or IGA anyway.

Continue reading “Return to Banta 1 (Bloomington, Indiana)”

Kentucky Backwoods 3

Traces of the Past

When you’re exploring America’s back roads, you often encounter reminders of an older era. Sometimes you are confronted with a full-tilt anachronism like this:

Amish farmer with a horse drawn hay rake in the rear view.

As I cruised out of the National Park into private lands, I passed a farmer baling hay. No big deal… except this chap’s hay rake was propelled by only two horsepower – as in two horses.  Pretty unusual to see such an old piece of mechanical farm machinery actually doing the job it was made to do a hundred years ago.

I was dawdling at the stop sign at the corner of his hay field, trying to figure out if I could get a photo of him without disturbing him, when the moment got even better. This Amish guy turned his team out onto the road behind me and started coming up on the truck. I turned the corner, and he came right along with me. When I glanced ahead I saw why. Continue reading “Kentucky Backwoods 3”