Date: Wed, 25 May 2005 08:19:19 -0700
Reply-To: Jeffrey Earl <jefferrata@YAHOO.COM>
Sender: Vanagon Mailing List <vanagon@gerry.vanagon.com>
From: Jeffrey Earl <jefferrata@YAHOO.COM>
Subject: Last Westy in the Woods
Content-Type: text/plain; charset=us-ascii
Heard a good piece during my morning drive, on NPR's
"Morning Edition", which reminded me of recent talk
here on the list about how the Vanagon/Westy is the
perfect vehicle for getting kids (even grown-up kids)
out into the woods. It was an interview of the author
of a new book titled "Last Child in the Woods: Saving
Our Children from Nature-Deficit Disorder".
To quote a Publisher's Weekly review:
"Today's kids are increasingly disconnected from the
natural world, says child advocacy expert Richard
Louv, even as research shows that "thoughtful exposure
of youngsters to nature can... be a powerful form of
therapy for attention-deficit disorder and other
maladies." Instead of passing summer months hiking,
swimming and telling stories around the campfire,
children these days are more likely to attend computer
camps or weight-loss camps: as a result, Louv says,
they've come to think of nature as more of an
abstraction than a reality. Indeed, a 2002 British
study reported that eight-year-olds could identify
Pokémon characters far more easily than they could
name "otter, beetle, and oak tree.""
Personally, I can clearly trace part of my own
appreciation for the Westy to the many cross-country
station-wagon roadtrips my family made when I was
young. We had no laptops or DVD players, so were
compelled to keep our minds busy by inventing stories
to explain the origins of the many landmarks we saw
along the way: Dead Horse Creek, Old Woman Bay, Indian
Trapper Hollow (was he an Indian who was a trapper, or
a trapper of Indians!? And why was he hollow?).
I'll never forget how my dad jolted us out of our
backseat boredom one day by screeching to a halt on
the shoulder of a lonely highway and making us
scramble up a Montana hillside with him to discover a
few chunks of petrified wood. Even then, at the age of
10, with my entire life stretched out ahead of me, I
was struck by the realization that it would only be a
sliver of time compared to the million-year-old relic
in my grubby little hand. Now, when workaday worries
threaten to drive me mad, I can glance over to the
artifact sitting on my desk and know that in another
million years, none of it will matter. So I go
camping.
How does YOUR Vanagon help connect you to the larger
natural world? What recent experiences might your kids
look back on with fondness many years from now, and
how was your Westy uniquely qualified to offer them?
Listen to the NPR story here:
http://www.npr.org/templates/story/story.php?storyId=4665933
Check out the book here:
http://www.amazon.com/exec/obidos/tg/detail/-/1565123913/qid=1117027337/sr=1-1/ref=sr_1_1/104-0565249-0686353?v=glance&s=books
Jeffrey Earl
1983 diesel Westfalia "Vanasazi"
http://www.vanthology.com/
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