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.