Remember When Inhaling Insecticide Was Fun

Ah, the nostalgia of those summertime DDT showers:

My friends and I would dash along behind the jeep, running in and out of the gassy cloud, breathing in the strong odor of the insecticide as droplets condensed on our clothes and skin.

This is an indelible memory for many baby boomer Americans. I once heard John Opie, an environmental historian I studied with, recall a similar boyhood experience–he and his friends running under a lowlying crop-duster as it delivered its DDT payola.