Free The Children
The farm and orchards filled our childhood days with endless adventure. The nights were brief and our days were long offering plenty of space to create and nurture our imagination.
"I leave the worthy Author to tell his own story, and so bid you heartily welcome to a participation of some of the Fruits to be gather’d from this Orchard" – Abbey 1847
When we were young, we cut our hands and fingers with the sharp knives while cutting the fruit in the back sheds. What happened to dangerous jobs for kids? Not dangerous enough to harm, just dangerous enough to learn to deal with the world.
We pushed each other in flimsy cardboard boxes down the staircase and often hurled to the ground. We slid into muddy ditches that reacted like quicksand and had to stay calm to push out. We chased bats out of the house and got caught under a blanket with them. We caught flies with our bare hands for competition (talent). You have to think ahead of the fly. We burned the tips of our fingers on sparklers and ran from mean ass dogs. We hid stray cats in our bedroom and tried to tame them before they escaped. (Now that gets labeled as torture).
Nothing was scheduled. Most times we were bored to death. So what did we do? We expanded our imagination and learned to work through problems.