59 lines
3.1 KiB
Plaintext
59 lines
3.1 KiB
Plaintext
HAMMOCKS
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By M.L. Verb
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I've been wondering lately where all the hammocks have gone. It's odd the
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things one wonders about when one has time on one's hands, as I recently had
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(but don't anymore, so don't ask me to volunteer for something.)
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I bet I haven't seen a hammock around for 20 years. Except in cartoons.
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Hammocks in cartoons are always used to make some point about laziness. But
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even there they are getting pretty scarce.
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It's possible, I suppose, that the lack of hammocks nowadays has something to
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do with the physical fitness craze, for surely someone at some time declared
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hammocks bad for the back. Nearly everything has been declared bad for the back
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at one time or another -- including things I've never done and things I never
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intend to give up -- so I'm pretty sure, without actually having the offending
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issue of the Journal of the American Medical Association here to cite, that
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hammocks are among them.
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But I don't put much stock in the bad-back theory, now that I've raised it.
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For anyone who's ever spent part of a soft summer afternoon in a hammock knows
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that when you finally do agree to vacate it you feel so good and rested that
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even if your back hurt you wouldn't know or admit it.
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A more plausible answer probably has to do with the demise of trees. You may
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have noticed that when developers build new subdivisions the first things they
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rip up are all the trees. I'm not sure why they do this. Maybe it's because
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without lots of shade trees they can sell bigger air conditioners.
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Whatever the reason, the demise of the trees in this country almost certainly
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has helped hasten the demise of hammocks. Oh, I suppose you could hang a
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hammock between a couple of TV satellite antenna dishes or between the golden
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arches of the fast food joint down the road, but somehow it just wouldn't look
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right. For hammocks you need trees. And, in my experience, at least two of
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them.
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And once you raise a generation of children without hammocks it's almost
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impossible to re-establish the practice. It's a little like losing the art of
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hand-tying a bow tie or making candles.
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I think the last serious hammock I knew about was stretched between two
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monster shade trees in a backyard in Pittsfield, Ill., which is the town you
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have to drive through if you need to get from Louisiana, Mo., to Jacksonville,
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Ill. (Oh, all right, there are other, more circuitous ways to get from
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Louisiana to Jacksonville but only someone being especially contentious would
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even mention it.) That hammock was there the last time I looked, which as I say
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was about 20 years ago.
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Several weeks ago, when I needed to get from Louisiana to Jacksonville and
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beyond, I drove through Pittsfield. I even stopped for some chicken livers at
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the Cardinal Inn or Redbird Cafe or some such (where, says one of my kids, you
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should order the shrimp, not the livers) and I thought about going to see that
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hammock.
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But I didn't. I was afraid it wouldn't be there any more. And a fellow is
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always better off if he thinks he knows where -- if he needs one badly enough --
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he can still find a serious hammock.
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