MORNING SENTINEL • September 22, 2021
Silas’s top priority when he gets to our house is to go into the woods and look for deer poop. When Silas and I emerge from the woods into the backyard, there’s usually a fair amount of pine pitch, moss stain, humus smudge and plain old muck on sneakers, pants, shirt, legs, hands and face to deal with. Success! Silas was willing to take a bath with his dinosaur toys, but wasn’t having the face washing. “OK, OK, Poppop,” he said. “But you don’t do it. I do it.” This is the self-reliance Thoreau, one of the original libertarians, and his straight man Ralph Waldo Emerson were talking about. The necessary ingredient in freedom is responsibility. To yourself, sure, but moreover, to your family, your neighbors and your woods, meaning all of nature. Silas, only 4 years old, figured out what needed doing, and did it on his terms. ~ Dana Wilde