I was sitting in my parents' living room after we had finished our ham sandwiches and ruffled potato chips one Wednesday afternoon, when, flipping through a news magazine I came across a little one-page editorial about the last generation to "live on the edge."

It was written by a guy about my age about childhood experiences very much like my own and very much like those of other people I know who grew up in the sixties and early seventies. In it he wrote about the absence of helmets and knee pads (his Daniel Boone hat kept him safe from all serious injury). His mother knew where he was, well, almost never. Not because she was unconcerned, but because he liked to protect her from the truth.

He went on about his childhood adventures in a world without hovering adults, video games, the internet, and with a whole lot fewer rules.

I enjoyed his essay because he unashamedly came down on the side of a natural childhood. I do too, though this has occasionally gotten me into trouble with other parents. But several recent conversations have got me thinking about this subject lately and I thought I might rudely impose my currently unpopular ideas on you.

When I was a kid, growing up in the Santa Clara Valley of northern California, back when the valley was still coated with orchards, cherry mostly, I was out the door before my spoon clinked on the bottom of my empty cereal bowl every morning of every sweltering summer. I typically didn't see my mother again until I saw my dad's car in the driveway, which meant dinnertime.

My first stop would be the front door of the house across the street where I would collect my best friend Shelley. We grabbed our sting-ray bikes and headed off toward the always forbidden La Honda Hills. My bike had a basket in the front for my pet rat Marshmallow (with the weirdest orange dandruff) who went everywhere with us. He survived an amazing number of bike wrecks.

These four things are true:

1) My mother rarely knew where we really were.

2) Where we really were was usually a dangerous place involving somewhat dangerous activities.

3) I had a great childhood.

4) I had wonderful and attentive parents.

Today it would be difficult to make a case for all of those things being true simultaneously, wouldn't it?

Today it is considered child neglect to send a kid out on a skateboard without bubble-wrap. Or to let the kids play in the schoolyard across the street unaccompanied by an adult. Or even to let

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