5 comments

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  SIL

  2 years ago

  When I was 7, my dad bought a canoe and a small gas motor that allowed us to navigate most of the lakes and streams near our house. Every weekend, we\'d put the canoe in the back of the family truckster (hanging out of course, with a flag tied to the back) and head out to explore, fish, eat sandwiches mom made and perhaps most enjoyably when I was younger, I got to pee over the side. There\'s nothing better than pretending your Lewis and Clark with your dad in a boat with worms, PB&J; and \"free peeing!\"
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  JTMarlin

  2 years ago

  My favorite memory from my childhood was camping in my backyard with my dad. We set up the tent, made hot chocolate, and watch the stars. That was 25 years ago and we still talk about it.
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  wahoodad

  2 years ago

  Sometimes when our lawn needed to be mowed, my dad would push the mower in all different directions, making winding paths that went around the house and overlapped each other. He would leave it like that for a while and my brothers and I would run races through the course or pretend we were exploring in the woods. The fact that I still remember my dad taking one of his mundane tasks and making it fun for the boys reminds me to do the same with mine.
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  foodad

  2 years ago

  When I was a kid, we used to go to Winter camp with our dad. It was a place in Pennsylvania called Camp Fitch. We slept in lodges, went snow tubing, snowshoed, ice fishing, rode dog sleds, swam with seals, wrestled and defeated polar bears and did ice sculpting. OK, so some of those probably didn\'t happen, but I remember it being just that awesome.
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  Hero

  2 years ago

  Fantastic! Great topic Noodad! Yes indeed, let boys be boys. As some know, I too grew up on 6 acres in a rural (some say very rural, we had farms next to us) Ohio and my days were spent doing what all American boys love to do - play in the yard. I feel it grounded me, kept me outside enjoying the sun, and allowed me to learn how to entertain myself with nothing but sticks and rocks. It fostered imagination, lacking in so many kids today, which develops into critical thinking skills later in life. So, a few more books to add to your son\'s collection:
  The Boy Scout Handbook - (preferably an older version that hasn\'t been so PCed like the newer ones).
  The American Boy\'s Handibook - written by Dan Beard, the founder of the American Boy Scouts, this is an old-school how-to book for boys with everything from building boats to snow forts.
  As well, build up your son\'s library by buying and having him read some of the classic adventure stories, ones that are not as popular anymore due to the changing times but perhaps have even more relevance because of this:
  The Swiss Family Robinson
  Robinson Crusoe
  The Jungle Book
  The Chronicles of Narnia
  The Adventures of Tom Saywer
  Treasure Island
  Kidnapped!
  Ivanhoe
  The Aubury Series (master and commander)
  the Horatio Hornblower series
  The Merry Adventures of Robin Hood by Howard Pyle
  The Story of King Arthur and his Knights (also by Pyle).
  The Once and Future King
  the LOTR trilogy (do your son a favor and get the books that have the original JRR Tolkien artwork on them, don\'t get books that have cover art from the movies)
  I went on a mission to read these old classics, and found them enjoyable beyond measure. Most are surprisingly easy to read, they are the perfect stories of high adventure that all little boys flock to and remember. Plus, it gets them READING, inspires them build forts in the den and play, not sit around playing video games. Anybody have any other favorites?
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