Growing up in right place at right time

This is an article I've been wanting to write for a considerable time now. Like many of you. at this time of year, I'm going through the dichotomous motion of being busy with holiday plans and then finding myself home alone on a quiet day with nothing to do. In this ebb and flow, moments of reflection come flying in through the window.

When I look out said window, I see a classic Niagara-on-the-Lake mosaic. A beautiful vineyard, looking her best even in the depths of winter. I see the woods of the Niagara Escarpment and a collection of houses; some new and massive, some old, historic and quaint. My stomping grounds.

I spent the first little chunk of my childhood growing up on York Road about halfway up the mighty escarpment. We had a view, unknowingly, of where we would soon move down the escarpment and look back up at it one day. The land in between the high ground and low ground, as I look at it now, has turned into a time capsule with an impactful message to all of us.

I wanted to use today's article to speak to all of you —young, older, or anywhere in between. Born in 1992, I have siblings and peers who were the last generation to experience the sweet spot of innocence and adventure in its most organic human form. We were still born to play outside and get scrapes on our knees while technology nudged its way in for an incredible experience of both worlds at once.

Of course, there was little social media until late high school. If you had a phone, it was likely a “pay as you go” flip phone or slide phone. This pocket device was used to conveniently communicate and nothing much else. We didn't stand by our lockers and open our phones only to be pummelled within a split second with images of war and contentious material. Rather, we saw a goofy message that a friend chose to send us. In high school, most of these were inappropriate and quite comical. We had to have a laugh.

 Away from the phones, we occupied ourselves with extraordinary creativity. Is it perhaps concerning that I instinctively typed the word “extraordinary,” when in fact it is in our human DNA to intelligently entertain ourselves and make life exciting?

We have done so just fine for the past 160,000 years as modern Homo sapiens, but have struggled with the last 15 years. Is my bias of that word choice a reflection of how far removed we are now from assembling our own exciting and organic life experiences?

I remember simple things that brought me so much joy as a child in NOTL. Powerful, authentic joy that I would pay anything to have more of now. I recollect sneaking into the Queenston Quarry and climbing all of the massive rock piles and dunes of gravel. When security came, we sprinted into the bullrushes and chuckled while watching the vehicle cruise by, our suppressed laughter in harmony with the toads and red-winged blackbirds calling in the spring.

I recall my experiences with one of three rope swings in the Queenston area, none of which exist now. For this one rope swing, you literally ran with the ropes clenched in your hand and swung out and over an escarpment ledge. I remember my shoes dangling and grazing the tops of other trees below me, knowing I quite literally had no choice but to hang on and swing back. I can still hear the voices of Derek Beatty, Paul Van Der Merwe, Kurt Tiessen and Michael Slingerland hooting and hollering as we tried to swing back to the ledge for safety.

Speaking of the Beatty family, I remember how one night there was a sizeable snow storm, the kind we don't see too many more of nowadays. It was dark and the wind was howling with a devilish chill, and the snow was nearly coming down horizontally. Yet there was ball hockey to be played. Now living below the escarpment, I'll never forget the journey to get to the Beatty's house.

We had a small ATV and massive drive to push this machine and ourselves to the limits. I remember driving the ATV, with my brother Isaac hanging off my back like a chimpanzee. Behind us was a friend sitting on a sled that tied off to the back of the ATV. On top of our friend was a hockey net, pinning him down. We dragged this unusual and precarious arrangement up the unimproved section of Concession 1, which cut through what I have always referred to as the swamp — a place where my childhood buddies and I would fall through the ice and learn how to march back home with icy cold feet while laughing about it.

We plowed through icy, sloppy mud pits, our multiple layers absorbing the smell of the swamp. We didn't care. I don't remember being cold. Yet after crawling up the escarpment with our unusual convoy of children and heavy machinery, I remember an amazing session of ball hockey.

No cell phones. No helicopter parents. Just trust and swimming in a fish bowl of life.

I remember creating maps of the areas my buddies and I would explore. I remember finding an illegal marijuana grow-op and destroying it because I thought somebody was invading the forest, and I felt like a hero. I had no concept of what private property was, and one day, dunking the ATV into a deep ditch in someone's orchard.

To my rescue came half a dozen Jamaican migrant workers, laughing as they helped push the machine out of the water. I remember how after all of these outdoor extravaganzas, that I could go home and plug in the PlayStation 2 and hear the sound of another person's voice online from the other side of the world, and having my mind blown by such a notion. Times were simpler.

This isn’t about comparing one generation to another, as each has its benefits and downfalls alike. That's what makes us human, and I hope that this is a friendly reminder to all of us that we are ultimately rooted in nature and each other, more than we are a cellphone screen.

There's a day out there — go and get it.