Outdoor Life taught them as did every hoary sporting rag stacked in the dentist’s office.

Mark Trail lectured us from the funny pages offering woodsy advice ranging from trapping and skinning the neighbor’s cat, to shelter and fire construction; yet despite all the accumulated lore and it’s many sources,  you never passed on those skills for fear your kids would ignite the garage and hillside behind, and never realized that slapping snot out of Junior whenever he was in the same room with matches might make the poor lad a food group.

Instead, you left his education to me and mine …

Madison Avenue confused us all about the woods, equating skills and lore for carbon footprint and “green” – so you gifted the kid a Prius instead of teaching him which end of the match to scratch on the box. Now that “Lumpy” is at the mercy of the elements and unable to navigate a stack of scavenged timber and cold fire ring, have you given thought to your role in his lack of knowledge of the woods, and the paltry outdoor legacy you’ve left him?

He’s neither predator nor Hunter-Gatherer, he lies wide eyed under the stars fearful of every noise …

Somewhere among the countless hours of Babysitting via Nintendo should have been the audiobook for “Two Little Savages”, by Earnest Thompson Seaton, which would have been greeted by a curled upper lip, then hurled into some dark corner of the closet in disdain. Now that the manly arts and a cold fire pit are all that separates your seed from a hero’s welcome in the warmth of his hastily erected tent, at the bosom of Miss Impressionable Youth, whose physical attributes are rivaled only by a sofa cushion stuffed with marshmallows, whose starry eyes are only for you and the quickly congealing bag of fast food at your feet … and as them giggles slow you know all that’s required … the only thing necessary …

… is to light that log …

And after three days of watching the contents of a national park fumble with matches, showers, uprooting trail signs to burn, keeping themselves fed and the pursuit of relaxation, I can honestly say we’ve no longer got to conserve anything, if we can just keep a couple of fish wet past this generation, we’re good … live humans won’t exist in woods much longer.

I can’t say us trained woodsmen are faring much better, or at least the California contingent of that fast disappearing lot. While the campground host greeted us like long lost relatives, knowing he could count on us sharing woodsy niceties like firewood and a dry match, it didn’t leave much time for chasing fish – given the number of tourniquets applied, knives and spoons loaned, and terraforming necessary to keep the closet cabins from cannibalism.

We pirouetted like gazelles in the lake, righting sunken kayaks and rescuing drowning children, while munching on canapés and Korean Seaweed dusted with Wasabi powder, a Californio woodsy tradition. We counseled the untrained on the merits of going without showers, and how the “five minute rule” for dropped food goes double in the woods.

What with our Registered Professional Forester bringing two year old kiln dried Walnut to burn, aged Scotch, bathtub Gin, and 8 flavors of beer, and our private Chef smuggling Sweet & Sour Stew and homemade Oatmeal Raisin cookies, accented by gourmet space food whose bags contained pellets of C-4, that would ignite and heat the meal merely by rubbing the wrappers together …

Suddenly, the outdoors is cool again, and as Miss Impressionable quits her stream of complaints, as youth no longer needs coaxing to take part.

Unfortunately it’s too late, the great adventure never to be repeated, your child’s grandiose plans of seduction and heroism dashed against cold granite, and colder womenfolk, and his next conquest will be at the beach. Which is every bit as cold as the woods, but he’s forgotten his earlier defeat based on the gal he’s spied in #14, and the arms folded harrumph he’s getting from what was once your daughter in law.