Carving out a
homestead is a fantasy of many a young boy. Even now, when Saturday
morning programming does not include anything like Davy Crockett or
Grizzly Adams, there are still young boys whose dads and granddads go huntin’, fishin’, and card playin’ up at the lake or river. Chances are, that those young boys have
a sister or two, and the girls may be harboring similar fantasies.
Lucky is the gal
whose dad takes her along on these treks to the woods and fields.
Luckier still
is the gal whose MOM takes her fishin’ and teaches her to bait her own
hook.
I was a child
of the late ‘50’s and early ‘60’s when men were Men, and women raised
them. June Cleaver kept her house immaculate and always wore pearls and
heels to BREAKFAST for Pete’s sake. The moms from Happy Days, the
Partridge Family and the Brady Bunch did the same. Heckfire, even
Samantha on Bewitched who could do her housework by wiggling her
powdered little nose didn’t do much else all day long.
Oh sure there
was Marlo Thomas, you know, That Girl. And Mary Tyler Moore. And Laverne
and Shirley. THEY had jobs. But THEY were single. They were allowed.
And it was always inferred that once they snagged a man, they’d be
quitting that (whisper and spell it out) j-o-b, and having babies and
simonizing the whole house along with the rest.
I was luckier
than most as I was a Girl Scout back when scouting was still about
camping and learning outdoorsy stuff. When I was a scout, we
earned badges for fire making and knot tying, and our high school troop
saved up for several years to go to the big Girl Scout camp in Wyoming
for a week of primitive camping. Little girls loved riding the big hot
stinky school bus to day camp in the summer where I was first a
counselor, and later the camp director. We taught them how to lay a
trail, build a fire, make stuff out of sticks and we ate s’mores and
drank “bug juice”.
By the time my
daughter was a scout, badges were not stressed as much, and had been
altered to be more “relevant” to this new world (I was too depressed to
even look to see what they changed them up to) and her high-school troop
saved up for a trip to Europe, where they stayed in hotels and shopped.
The one time I volunteered to be camp counselor in this new age of
scouting, the girls were delivered individually by moms in minivans and
sat around complaining that it was hot, there was dirt, and they looked
down their tiny perfect noses at me with scorn when I referred to the
Kool-Aid as bug juice.
As a whole,
Americans are a whole lot more urban than they used to be. This is no
surprise to anyone, and for the most part this is looked at as a GOOD
thing.
If you are a
contemporary American couple looking for the simple life, it’s hard.
Your family and friends will suspect some sort of brain-damaging food
poisoning. You will be looked-at with amused and bemused affection and
the barely-concealed suspicion that it’s a passing phase that the male
half of the couple is instigating to make up for some sort of failure in
the corporate jungle. It is the female half of the couple’s job to
either talk him out of it, or go along with good humor till the phase is
over.
And a lot of the
time that is exactly what happens.
Sometimes a single
male, perhaps after a divorce, will take off into the wilds to ‘find
himself’. This is accepted, even encouraged self-therapy.
“Do the boy some good to get a little dirt under his nails. Build up a
few muscles. Work out of the emotional doldrums” etc. etc. etc.
Here’s where it
gets weird.
Say you are a
single FEMALE, perhaps after a divorce. If you announce to your
family and friends that you are going to move out to the sticks and
apply yourself to the pursuit of a simpler life, they will be coming
after you brandishing anti-depressants and a straight jacket.
How will you live?
Won’t you be
lonely??
Who will take care
of you???
Just smile sweetly
and tell them it will do you good to get a little dirt under your nails,
build up a few muscles and work out of the emotional doldrums.
There are a lot of
resources on finding the right property. All those are unisex and depend
not on gender for relevance. Sometimes you have to be a little more
cautious depending on the realtor- some will think they can pull the
wool over a ‘little filly’s’ eyes on a place, but no more so than any
other city slicker they see coming down the pike. The advantage of being
female is that you are used to this attitude in most of life anyway and
can smell a rat from a mile away.
