Those 60s

Good Times and Chemicals

When I was a kid in the 50s and 60s, we always took camping vacations. We’d often meet up with some relatives who were close, get sites across from each other, and spend those few weeks Dad got off from work, sleeping in a tent, cooking on either the campfire or the Coleman stove, fishing, hiking, swimming, boating and just having outdoor fun. It was a good time.

One night while we were all sitting around the fire, a Dept. of Lands and Forests (as they then were) truck came by with some sort of machine on the back. It wended its way slowly over the camp roads blowing this fog into the air. I asked my mom what it was. “DDT,” she said. “It’s ok, it won’t hurt us.” It was supposed to just kill mosquitoes and not harm anything else. In those days, it wasn’t at all unusual to hear the call of the whippoorwill in the woods. I heard one as I drifted to sleep in the sleeping bag that night. I still remember it vividly, because there was something even more poignant than usual in the sad cry of this particular bird. Its call sort of ended on a questioning note.... an unusual inflection, as if it was wondering what this white fog was. It was prophetic.

DDT has indeed harmed many other forms of life. I won’t go into too much detail, because if people care they can look it up. Suffice it to say that chemicals that kill bad insects, kill good ones as well... beneficials such as bees, lady bugs and more. They also do damage to healthy reproduction of many species, including fish, frogs, birds, and humans. True also of lawn chemicals being marketed by chemical companies that lost their cash cow with the end of the war. They had to reinvent themselves, and they did, by vilifying the humble dandelion, one of the Earth’s most useful wild herbs. They convinced home-owners that nothing short of a green carpet for a lawn would do. Many people continue to swallow this nonsense, hook, line and stinker, despite increases in chemically-induced asthma, cancers and more in pets and kids especially. I mean, it’s simple enough: chemicals designed to kill, do. Or they do notable damage.
Rachel Carson

It was during the 60s that Rachel Carson wrote Silent Spring, which attempted to educate us about how we are part of nature, and that everything together is a web of life that’s inextricably interconnected. She pointed out the mistake of poisoning our environment with farm and lawn care chemicals, insecticides, etc., and what these toxins would eventually do to everything in their wake. She was attacked by the big money chemical companies for her views, but of course, history has borne her out.

This was the birth of the Environmental Movement, but of course, the 60s was a particularly busy decade, with the Viet Nam war, the terrorist activities of the IRA, the British music invasion, women’s rights, the assassination of J.F. Kennedy, civil rights and the “I have a dream” speech of Martin Luther King, the birth of pop culture, Woodstock, and so much more.

It’s difficult to tell myself that our world is unfolding as it should though, when we had the knowledge to do better. We just didn’t bother. I wonder why. I haven't heard the call of a whippoorwill in a very long time. They aren't extinct and this should be part of their range still. I wonder if I'll ever hear it again.

All cozy in my sleeping bag,
soft voices outside the tent
were a kind of summer lullaby,
along with the gentle summer breeze,
the poignant call of the whippoorwill
and the faint rustling of the trees.
And drifting across the distant lake
came the haunting cry of a loon,
fading away as I drifted to sleep,
into dreams of shimmering images,
now condemned to fading memories
from days of old it seems.