Low Moments in How-To History

[codinghorror]

@halloween_jack_

my childhood gang, who planned, designed, and built a new fort in the woods every summer, which involved not only scouring our small town for materials but, one year, even encompassed the building of a booby-trapped “false fort” to foil the rival kid gang that tore ours down the previous summer

Sounds like someone needs to create a new discussion topic here on bbs with some details and invitations for others to share!

[knoxblox]

Imagining a universe where a tongue depressor could actually crap on my tongue

[halloween_jack_]

That would probably be a good topic… for someone with pictures or a better memory than me. This was about forty years ago, more or less, and most kids didn’t have a camera of their own, let alone take it with them everywhere they went. Other things that were different then:

1. I think that there was more of a DIY culture still going on, so there were more tools in the average household and someone who knew how to use them.
2. There was definitely much more of a “free range kids” thing going on, so several kids hauling tools and scrap lumber out to some unattended bit of woods wasn’t considered unusual, let alone an intrusion on someone’s property rights.

[Donald_Petersen]

@halloween_jack_

There was definitely much more of a “free range kids” thing going on, so several kids hauling tools and scrap lumber out to some unattended bit of woods wasn’t considered unusual, let alone an intrusion on someone’s property rights.

God, I miss those days. I remember reading Stephen King’s IT during the fall of 1986 and being nostalgic (even as a kid of 16) for the fun, free-ranging days just gone by. Half of King’s book is set in 1958, and the kids build forts, dam a stream, have epic dirt-clod battles, ride their bikes all over creation, and coincidentally battle monstrous incarnations of some evil presence that haunts their town every 27 years or so. I did all those same things (except the monster-fighting) circa 1981 in a sparsely-developed suburb of San Diego. My friends and I built a suicidally fast go-cart out of two-by-fours, scrap plywood, rope, nails, and some spare bicycle wheels, and just about broke our necks driving it down a steep residential street. (Brakes? Didn’t occur to us. On its maiden flight it flipped on a curve, bending an axle and ending its career while giving my buddy Cuong some serious road-rash.) I never actually wondered why we never got in trouble for any of our misadventures.

We used our toy guns (not an orange tip to be found among them!) and played war down the street at an actual abandoned dairy. There was a well shaft that was covered by a fairly rotten piece of 3/4" plywood, but after taking an investigative peek, we knew to steer clear of that spot. We trekked through a storm drain tunnel underneath a eight-lane freeway and frontage road to emerge at an undeveloped wilderness on the far side, where we climbed rocks and rode our bikes like wannabe BMX riders.

One time we got caught too far out on a hike by the sun going down and one of our number couldn’t see to climb down a particularly steep rock… so we spent the night outside on that rock, over a mile through the undergrowth away from the nearest house, during a dry electrical storm. One of our dads came near enough with a flashlight to establish where we were and that we were okay… and left us there for the night. And it seemed like a perfectly reasonable reaction (he wasn’t even mad or anything, just rolled his eyes a bit once we finally got home).

All these memories are precious to me, and seem like they were fundamental factors of who I am today, emotionally and artistically. I cannot imagine growing up in the walled garden even my own kids inhabit (and I let them off the leash lots more than is fashionable these days). I can’t imagine what I’d be like if my only day-to-day outdoor play took place in the “designated greenspace” of a suburban housing development, rather than in storm drains and atop trees.

[shaddack]

I now regret that I was such a coward of a kid. Missed on opportunities like these. Oh well, not everybody is born brave.

The next generation that lacks these experiences will grow yet more fearful and yet more intolerant to those who want (and try to have/give) these experiences.

There should be some safeguards in place to protect the risk-takers - from the undue attention of the risk-fearers. Some way to restrain/limit the do-gooders that want to spoil the other people’s fun.

[Donald_Petersen]

@shaddack

Some way to restrain/limit the do-gooders that want to spoil the other people’s fun.

Now, I’m a parent myself and I don’t want my kids to get badly hurt (or killed) any more than anyone else would. But at the same time, I find something really insidious in the mindset behind such phrases as “if it saves even one life, it will have been worth it.”