Shhhhh….confession. I used to walk home from elementary school, drop off my backpack, let the dogs out of the backyard, and head right back outdoors. Then I’d sneak into the neighbor’s backyard and steal her dog, a German Shepherd mix, off his chain so he could roam freely with us for the hours of freedom I had before my mother got home from work. Those were some of the best memories I have…me and a pack of dogs, bounding through the Alaskan woods, scaring up spruce grouse and rabbits. The dogs would mill about while I climbed trees and howled at the wolves that roamed way out in the beyond. Sometimes I wonder if there are any wild children out there still living the way I did, running loose, collecting broken-winged birds and abandoned puppies and feral cats and crowding them all into my mother’s kitchen at the end of the evening. Do kids do that stuff anymore?