Lessons From The Forest House

The original Smith family to move from NYC to Willow Street, ventured even further into the wilderness this weekend. Kris, Aiden and myself spent a few days here. I hope you will click on the link and look around a bit. It's really a remarkable place. I'm not foolish enough to think that the past few days for us constitute "roughing it". It was for us, however, as close to the camping scene as Kris will ever go for. Nevertheless, the surroundings did bring with it much space to think, lots of wildlife and a great deal of perspective. Time to get on the edge of your seats....

1.People used to live their lives in a place like this. We did it for a few days with the aid of a GPS and a car. We brought our (organic) food with us. In the past, homeowners here would have gone out into the forest to get theirs.

2. The walls of a log cabin are hopelessly porous. The concept of personal space and privacy must have been very different to the occupants of these homes. Few people, if any "went" anywhere on a daily basis. Nobody "went" to school. Nobody "left" to go to work. The nearest store for us this weekend was 15 miles away via car on paved roads. For settlers of this area to venture out to a nearby town or to a general store would have been an all day or two affair. I'm sure such trips were often treacherous and taken only when necessary.

3. These homes were not built for luxury. They were meant to sustain and protect the family. No settler ever built a four thousand square foot home with a finished basement. To do so would have been an exhaustive waste of energy and a poor use of the forest's resources.

4. The land and the home were everything to people who lived in the forest homes of years ago. As such, the family spent every waking moment caring for the land, seeing to the needs of the home. Nowadays, I'm of the opinion we use the land around us to satisfy our wants of excess rather than our needs.

5. Many, many activities that are innocent and seemingly harmless serve to keep families apart all around us. Things like football or softball practice or games three times a week. Or how about soccer games or band practice. Church is another common culprit, pulling the family in many different directions based upon how old each family member may be. Life in the forest homes of the 1700's 0r 1800's had no such distractions. Back then, you better learn to love your family and work HARD alongside them. You would likely be spending 12-18 hours of every 24 with them nearby. I wonder if that was such a bad thing. I wonder how many valuable life lessons were learned from a parent or older brother. Those same lessons are now farmed out to a coach, teacher, or other complete stranger to teach our family.

So as I sit here in my home theater watching "Baby Mama" on my 50 inch television typing on a laptop with no wires attached, I'm aware that I enjoy many of the conveniences that are readily available in modern times. I'm not arguing that many great things have come along with the progress that mankind has made. I am suggesting that we should take care not to forget the driving principals that got us where we are. We should not discard these principals in lieu of the bounty they provide.

Side note:

As we drove around our 15 miles of country roads to the general store, Kris made the remark that this area seems like a place where people kidnap children and off them. Yeah, I know... what a dark thing to say. As we drove back to the cabin we saw the sign pictured at the bottom of this page, maybe a mile from where we were staying. Kris can spot a shady person or a shady area of town from miles away.