Written By John Caverhill
I started public school each fall with two new pairs of overalls, the standard garb for most farm boys back in the 1940s. Mom’s hope, seldom realized, was that one pair would stay clean enough to be worn the whole week.
The following Monday, laundry day, the dirty pair would be washed and I would wear the second pair that week. Two factors combined to make mom’s plan all too seldom realized. First, I was a normal young kid with a kid’s curiosity about what is going on around him. Second, fueling curiosity was Bear Creek, from which our school got its name. Bear Creek parallels the north side of Ivan Drive on which we walked to school each day. It turns and crosses the road and continuing west, crosses Bear Creek Side Road, continues west a short distance, then turns and re-crosses Ivan Drive. Our school on the northwest side of the intersection of the two roads nestled comfortably within the large loop formed by the creek.
Those of us fortunate enough to walk Ivan Drive to school knew that creek like the proverbial back of one’s hand. Afternoons on our way home from school the bridge on Ivan Drive became a sort of club house. Except in flood season, the water under the bridge was low enough for us to walk along the creek banks on either side. Poking around, one was literally overwhelmed by the variety and the amount of aquatic life contained in and above the slow-moving water. There were no large fish in the shallow water, but schools of minnows swam so densely packed they hid the creek bottom. Big water spiders lurked along the water edges while out in the sun water-striders, their long hind legs trailing behind them, jerked themselves in a series of glides across the water’s surface. Huge dragonflies, their iridescent wings flashing in the sunlight, zoomed over the water. If you moved slowly and quietly you would see turtles sunning themselves but they slid into the water the instant they saw you. In spring overwhelming all other aquatic life with both numbers and sound were the frogs. From all swamps, ponds and streams rose the tiny pulsing waves of sound, that was the chorus of the frogs called spring peepers. A single voice would be scarcely noticed but thousands of voices combined to create a soft din loud enough that you had to raise your own voice in order to be heard. Today, if one listens closely, one may hear just a thin vestige of sound, a faint reminder of the chorus that used to be.
When Rachel Carson caught us by surprise with her book Silent Spring back in 1962, we, the public shook our heads at our own folly, but we didn’t really take her warning to heart. While she was referring more to birds, the same situation applies to turtles, snakes, toads and frogs. When I was young, they were commonly seen everywhere. Now if a frog or toad is spotted in our garden it is an event that we call anyone within hearing to come and see. As for snakes, I cannot remember seeing one in our garden in this century!
No chemical weed sprays or insecticides have been used on our place for over thirty years and composted grass and leaves are dug in each fall. There is no lawn, only a grass strip down one side of the back yard that is cut with a trimmer. Natural growth, within limits of course, is encouraged. Now when digging in the garden I do see one major improvement from the 1990s. Then, one saw at most one or two or no earthworms per shovelful; now every shovelful contains some worms, not as many as there should be but still a marked improvement.
Unfortunately, the factors mentioned above coupled with the alarming drop in bird populations are only a few of the indicators that bear out Rachel Carson’s prophecy of a ‘silent spring’.
Of course when we kids were investigating a crayfish tunnel or scooping up tadpoles with a tin can we were on our knees, and the knees of a clean pair of overalls acquired a sticky, swampy-smelling layer of clay. Mom, bless her heart, would somehow send me off to school each day in clean overalls with no mention of the extra work required to keep me presentable.
I hope in the years to come kids will still be able to get their knees dirty investigating the wonderful world of a healthy Nature.
