Feeling Free At Night

This column originally apperaed on June 24, 2007

Last night, something called the Great American Backyard Campout occurred — presumably, since the National Wildlife federation has been promoting it vigorously — in communities across the country.

The purpose of the event is to acquaint, or reacquaint, American children, with nature, by tuning off the Xbox, turning on the flashlight and dropping off to sleep outside where they can see the stars. It’s supposed to be a time when parents and kids and neighbors and communities can all converge upon one another and bond for a few hours in the presence of trees, grass and a firefly or two.

I’m not certain how this all works in the urban world of downtown Coatesville, but I’m not here to pour water on the campfire, so to speak. Hearing of the event simply made me shake my head once again at how different things have become since my childhood.

In August 1969, Danny Biehl, Bernard Frank — my two best friends since nursery school — and I did not need any national organization to tell us of the pleasures of a sleeping bag on a summer’s night.

We had been pestering our parents to let us sleep out since the summer began, and they let us do it not for any high-minded purpose, but simply because they were sick of hearing us ask.

That is the difference between then and now. About as close as we got to exploring the ways of nature was picking green tomatoes off the vines in Danny’s next door neighbor’s garden. And if our parents had suggested that the whole family would join in the night’s activities, we would have called the whole thing off immediately. Bonding with nature or our families was not the point.

The purpose behind our campout was to finally experience a world we had been waiting for all our lives — the grownup world of the night. We wanted a respite from the supervision of adults, a liberation from normal rules, and, most of all, a chance to stay up late and walk around in the dark.

We got all we had hoped for.

After seeing the lights in Dan’s house go out, we made our way off the property, flashlights in hand. This was dangerous territory, being outside on the street after the world had gone to sleep. It was as close to crime as we had ever come, and it felt great.

We prowled the neighborhood, shining our lights at unsuspecting windows. We broke off tree branches and whacked each other as if in swordfights. We jumped behind bushes at the sound of a car engine and sight of headlights, believing that any adult would have rounded us up and turned us in to whatever authorities existed that governed midnight rambling by 12-year-olds on a moment’s notice. We had fun with an exclamation point.

I am certain that the memory makes the conditions that night more idyllic than they truly were. I doubt that the night was as starry, that the moon was as full, or that the air was as warm as I think of it now.

But I am convinced that the laughs we shared were as loud, the excitement was as tangible, and the sense of freedom was real as I remember.