We did the real thing, climbing trees, playing in muddy ponds, catching birds... you get the point!<p>

Yep ... setting fire to half the garden, building homemade firecrackers, stuff that in todays scared world would call up more than one SWAT team and land people in jail for years on terrorism charges.

Heck. Many of the engineers I've talked to had a bomb-making hobby at some point (up to having the bomb squad arrive on the scene and giving them a very stern talking-to). Impossible nowadays without going to jail for decades. Ah, the good old times.

How are our kids _ever_ going to learn the "real life skills" ?