Believe it or not, I was once part of the "in crowd" - the coolest, hippest, with-it group around. I knew everything, knew the most awesome people, was a day ahead of the latest fashion. I had the one key that is crucial to the acceptance in this crowd - I was a teenager.

I have since lost that one crucial element to being the world's smartest, the brightest, the most intelligent individual on earth - I got older. I thank the good Lord daily for allowing me to survive those years without too many photographs.

Fortunately, my friends who also survived idiocy know that I have as much embarrassing memories of them as they do of me. No one mentions them for fear of retaliation.

Even in those days when teen was king, I spent my spare time in the woods, and more often than not I was camping.

From the earliest Old Testament accounts up to the automobile surge in roadside camping, someone's always been under the stars.

But I seriously wonder about tomorrow's generation. I see scary trends in today's youth that don't appear to bode well for the outdoors men and women of tomorrow. Scouting troops ban gas lanterns so their Cubs won't get injured. There's battery lanterns for tender fingers and faces. C'mon! Those are flashlights! When we were kids, we wouldn't be caught dead carrying one of those things.

Heck, it was survival of the fittest. If you got burned -- you learned. You learned to keep your eyebrows away from the top of that lantern if it hasn't lit in the first four or five seconds. That second click of the lighter will be a doozy.

Today, video games are creating more couch potatoes than Frito Lay. The result is you have kids who wouldn't know a bald eagle from a bass fiddle. Oh, but they can sure play a mean game of "kill the neighbors in one blow" or "outrun the cops" -- more points if you hit the little old lady with the grocery bag. That's going to come in handy for their adult life.

Do kids even go on a simple hike with their class anymore? I wonder who'd get permission in order that they won't get sued for the kid who got a briar in their little finger. Forgive me if I don't break out the bass fiddle in sympathy. I'm too busy admiring a bald eagle flying over, concentrating hard not to say something to offend "sensitive" ears.

I got briars in places I can't even mention here because of a sense of manners and respect for readers of the more feminine persuasion. And, I got all the sympathy in the world from my camping partners if you count their rolling around on the ground in tears of mirth beating the ground with their fists.

Somewhere last week I read where the zoo was sponsoring a class to introduce reptiles to our military. Someone came up with the notion that our military may actually have to go into the woods. I kid you not.

But in the outdoors, I learned that life isn't a bowlful of bubble-wrapped amusement. I learned about nature and, in turn, learned lessons about life.

It's a big irk to me that kids these days are missing an entire world out there, and it's right behind the TV screen, just outside the window, if they'd only look.

T&D Staff Writer Richard Walker can be reached by e-mail at rwalker@timesanddemocrat.com or by phone at 803-533-5516.

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