Letters to the Editor
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When I Was A Kid, I, Indeed, Did Put Things In My Mouth...
...I was about 8, 9, maybe 10 years old ...we lived next to a wonderful big field and an even bigger hill. The neighborhood kids and I collected seeds, toadstools, puffballs, milkweed seeds, hickory nuts, horse chestnuts, and any number of wild plants, sometimes plants out of gardens that looked like asparagus or lettuce, put them in empty coffee cans, and played 'Store'. We dug a huge hole that collected rain and snow melt and played 'Fishing'. We walked across town to a see the cows in a pasture and ate watercress out of the creek running through the property. I occasionally ate (though mostly tasted out of curiosity) any number of plants, the sweet bottom stems of crabgrass, every color of berry on any plant, a toadstool once, and we ate snow, ice, and icicles like little Brandon and Emma sip mini-bottles of spring water. Yes, it's a wonder I'm still alive! I don't remember ever getting sick, by the grace of God. I look back and realize my deep love of the natural world began then. Poor kids today, hooked up to videogames, iPods, laptops, shuttled in minivans from McMansion to soccer field to day care. They'll never have that, and while the world goes to shit, they won't care.
I never did run across the dreaded Oleander, though.