A Sense of Curiosity...

The other day my son Brendon and I were taking a drive somewhere or maybe we were coming back from somewhere (sometimes I don't know if I'm coming or going) and as is often the case here in the Ozarks we were treated with a beautiful view of the hills that make up our part of the Ozark Mountains. Now I'm not generally a very good judge of distance when looking out over the landscape but I do know that generally speaking, we can often see "for miles".
I enjoy this part of living in the Ozarks almost as much as anything else. So as we were driving along I did my best to check out the scenery as best I could without diverting too much attention away from the road.
"Brendon," I asked."Do you ever look out across the forest and pick a spot and wonder what's at that exact spot in the woods?"
"No."
"No?!" I guess it took me off guard because I really thought that everyone did this.
"No, not really."
So I began to try and explain to him how I feel about being in the woods and how the unknown excites me. So much that I feel like I have to know what's there. What's around that next bend or in that wooded area up ahead.(especially the wooded areas!) I told him about how, as kids, my brothers and I (and our neighborhood buddies) would hike and explore all summer long, no matter how many times we had explored it before. We actually camped down on the creek on spots that were 3 or 4 miles from home when we were just kids! We were probably Indians in a war party or maybe cave men hunting a very dangerous T-Rex! And sometimes, maybe more often than not, we made the trek back home somewhere around dusk and still felt like we were explorers.
Times have changed, though and what was once normal behavior for kids has become probably a little too chancy to attempt. So as much as would like Brendon to have a little more explorer in him maybe it's just as well that he doesn't- for now, anyway.
Don't think for a minute though, that I won't continue to try and encourage his a sense of curiosity about places and people and things because once we quit being curious we become nothing more that just sediment at the bottom of the puddle...