[maigret]

Funny, I was basically mobile with bike from age 10 or so. Had some friends I needed the parents for until I got a small motorcycle aged 14.

So living outside a city is not an issue, although I often wished we’d be nearer to a city.

But society has changed a lot since and everyone is scared of the beautiful outside world.

[komali2]

This was the life of my farmland friends in Wisconsin. In Houston if I had ridden my bicycle the mere 2 miles to my friend's house (half mile to leave my neighborhood, half mile to enter his, one mile or so on actual roads), I would almost certainly have one day been killed by a car or truck that failed to expect a kid on a bike.

We didn't have sidewalks. That area is still missing sidewalks actually.

In some ways our beautiful outside world is safer than it was 60 years ago, in others perhaps it's more dangerous.