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Monday, March 03, 2003     Page: 1B

OPINION
Back in the good old days when ignorance was bliss, I used to fantasize
about living off the land.
   
I figured I could pull it off – just like Daniel Boone and Davy Crockett
and Lewis and Clark and all the other legendary explorers who fished and
hunted and otherwise managed to survive and make a contribution to society.
    I entertained such thoughts at random moments back in the days when I held
no reservations about sticking my face in any cool, clean-looking stream to
slurp great mouthfuls of refreshing water.
   
It was when I would eat as many fish as I chose that were taken from any
waterway I could get access.
   
It was at a time when I couldn’t fathom why some city folks thought
pheasant under glass was fancy eating – we ate pheasant under CorningWare
throughout the autumn hunting seasons.
   
And it was when our family recipe for Welsh Rabbit (referred to in some
cookbooks as Welsh Rarebit) actually contained goodly chunks of meat from
rabbits hunted in neighboring fields and woods.
   
It was when a mosquito bite meant a red bump and an itch would likely
result, not a regime of antibiotics after a trip to the doctor for a test for
West Nile Virus.
   
And it was at a time when ticks were something produced by an old gray
aunt’s cuckoo clock, not nasty, biting insects that injected hapless victims
with Lyme Disease. Yes, back in the old days, full of youthful ignorance and
blissful naivete, I actually thought I could transform into a woodland
philosopher, a modern-day Thoreau.
   
Concerns lead to slim pickings
   

   

   

   
Boy, was I a flaming fool.
   
I was lectured time and time again that with age would come wisdom, and as
an aside I better start aging real quick.
   
Now that I’m more mature (I won’t say older) and possess a little of that
highly touted wisdom, I know for certain I wouldn’t last a year fishing for
trout, hunting deer and otherwise trying to etch free meals and a living off
the land.
   
If the diseases spread by insects didn’t kill me, or at least send me
packing back to civilization, the contaminants in our environment most likely
would.
   
Consider that pollutants such as mercury and PCBs are mucking up our
waterways and the aquatic life within them.
   
Consider that a modern Thoreau must weigh the consumption advisories placed
on certain fish in certain waterways by the federal government as well as the
state.
   
Right now, nationwide, folks are advised against eating more than one meal
per week of any recreationally caught sportfish.
   
A man in the woods would grow lean following that mandate.
   
And he could get hungrier making no more than two meals per month of
smallmouth bass from the Susquehanna River in Luzerne County, or one meal per
month of walleye or channel catfish, as the consumption advisories suggest.
   
This wannabe philosopher wonders if staying indoors and ingesting a steady
diet of soft drinks and fries is not to be preferred.
   
Smith can be reached at 829-7230 or at georges@leader.net.