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A Peculiarly Dutch Summer Rite: Children Abandoned in the Night Woods

nytimes.com

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Re: A Peculiarly Dutch Summer Rite: Children Abandoned in the Night Woods

#31

Post by oska »

rauhl wrote: post #8

> ‘It shows you, even in very hard times, to keep walking, to keep going,’ [Stijn] said. ‘I have never had to do that before.’ I recently read Dinner of Herbs and Going to the Wars, two books by a fellow who was a British commando in the Second World War who was captured by the Italians, escaped and had to make his way across country, living off the land and thanks to the kindness of local peasants. One of the things…

I found the book you mentioned - A Dinner of Herbs by John Verney. Looks good.

Somewhat confusingly there is another book called Dinner of Herbs by Carla Grissman which is also a travelogue describing close contact with 'peasants', but this time in Anatolia in the 60s. It also looks good.

(There's even another book with the same title, but it's a fiction novel by Catherine Cookson).

Edit: I've just found that the title is a reference to Proverbs 15:17, ‘Better is a dinner of herbs where love is, than feasting on a fattened ox where hatred also dwells’, which explains its multiple use.

Re: A Peculiarly Dutch Summer Rite: Children Abandoned in the Night Woods

#32

Post by pacaro »

We regularly did this in Scouts in the UK in the eighties. We would have map and compass and know where we were supposed to get to, but there was general disorientation and disinformation about the starting location. IIRC we were always dropped somewhere such that the obvious path would lead us away from roads and there were certainly adults and/or venture scouts (16-21?) keeping some kind of track of us, but usually done subtly enough that we weren't aware that they were around

Re: A Peculiarly Dutch Summer Rite: Children Abandoned in the Night Woods

#33

Post by Gustomaximus »

cure wrote: post #23
c1sc0 wrote: post #3

I too have fond memories of droppings in my boyscout times (Belgium) ... I remember a particular one where we had to find our way through a forest before midnight ... it was then followed-up by midnight (catholic) mass at an abbey close to the edge of a forest to calm us down (bummer) ... another one was a multi-day thing where we had to find our way in small groups. As described in the article there were adults obse…

Yeah same here, fond memories of the 'droppings' I did as a kid. It's probably worth pointing out that Belgian (and Dutch) woods are relatively safe: it would be difficult to get truly lost. The wooded areas are never more than a few km from civilization. I wonder if there is a spot that is more than 10 km from the nearest road/house/suburb. Also, there are (almost?) no acutely dangerous animals. The only thing we we…

We did 'escape and evasion' orienteering courses that ran 12hrs from 6pm to 6am from about 13 years old in the 90s. This was through bush and farmland in Australia.

There were always incidents like cases of hyperthermia, being chased by wild pig, running into things blindly etc. But the 1000's of kids partaking always ended up ok at the end.

Re: A Peculiarly Dutch Summer Rite: Children Abandoned in the Night Woods

#34

Post by andrewem »

RandomBacon wrote: post #21
ilamont wrote: post #18

U.S. scouts have a special society known as Order of the Arrow ("OA", https://www.cityonahillpress.com/2008/04/10/the-secret-behin... ). There are various ceremonies and rituals involved, but I remember the trial my father described to me -- being sent out into the woods overnight with an egg, a single match, and not much else.

Acitve OA member here. To provide an update to the article: The OA is removing Native American references and imagery from its program.

Do you have more information about this? I'm wondering what the new program will be like, given as a member says in that article from 2008, “OA is very Native American-based”.

Re: A Peculiarly Dutch Summer Rite: Children Abandoned in the Night Woods

#35

Post by Uhhrrr »

oska wrote: post #31
rauhl wrote: post #8

> ‘It shows you, even in very hard times, to keep walking, to keep going,’ [Stijn] said. ‘I have never had to do that before.’ I recently read Dinner of Herbs and Going to the Wars, two books by a fellow who was a British commando in the Second World War who was captured by the Italians, escaped and had to make his way across country, living off the land and thanks to the kindness of local peasants. One of the things…

I found the book you mentioned - A Dinner of Herbs by John Verney. Looks good. Somewhat confusingly there is another book called Dinner of Herbs by Carla Grissman which is also a travelogue describing close contact with 'peasants', but this time in Anatolia in the 60s. It also looks good. (There's even another book with the same title, but it's a fiction novel by Catherine Cookson). Edit: I've just found that the tit…

Going To The Wars on Internet Archive: https://archive.org/details/goingtothewars027493mbp

Re: A Peculiarly Dutch Summer Rite: Children Abandoned in the Night Woods

#36

Post by brians »

andrewem wrote: post #34
RandomBacon wrote: post #21

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Acitve OA member here. To provide an update to the article: The OA is removing Native American references and imagery from its program.

Do you have more information about this? I'm wondering what the new program will be like, given as a member says in that article from 2008, “OA is very Native American-based”.

When Canada wanted novel ritual for their engineering schools, they hired Rudyard Kipling. He adapted the story of Martha, Mary’s sister.

The Masons too fictionalized the story of Solomon’s Temple.

I think the OA could do worse than to hire Gaiman or similar to produce them a ritual set with historic resonance and good meter.

Re: A Peculiarly Dutch Summer Rite: Children Abandoned in the Night Woods

#38

Post by namenotrequired »

oska wrote: post #29
ar-jan wrote: post #16

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Of course in a proper dropping you're not allowed to have a cell phone. There's got to be some challenge in it.

I approve the provision of a cell phone for that age group (early teens). Provided it's a dumb phone with only call service available in case they really need to call for help. I'm much more dubious about giving them GPS. It's a lot of fun figuring out where you are on a map and GPS takes that fun away.

We always received an envelope with a dumb “emergency phone” and were expected to hand it back in closed afterwards unless we had used it to call them.

Re: A Peculiarly Dutch Summer Rite: Children Abandoned in the Night Woods

#39

Post by function_seven »

microcolonel wrote: post #25

> with only a primitive GPS to indicate the right direction. They have GPS ? That's not even navigation, it's just a hike. Why bother to blindfold them if you're then going to give them a reliable device which will tell them their location within a few meters?

I imagine "primitive" may mean a device that shows you longitude and latitude only. Or keeps a track of where you've been.

Without maps, you'll still need some knowledge of how to use the thing. Yeah, not as difficult as a compass and topo map alone, but also not as easy as Google Maps.

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