I might add: whittling; and how to sharpen a knife.
Posted on 08/09/2017 4:50:01 PM PDT by vannrox
There was a kid-belief around that a penny on the tracks would derail the train. Sort of like the belief that you would get “blood poisoning” if you got stuck with an indelible pencil.
I was just stubborn, and not that bright. I had a lot of desire, drive, and persistence, but I didn’t think things through, got frustrated and angry easily, and got even more stubborn with each passing attempt.
It is odd to think on it. The thrill I got when I could navigate two obstacles...then three...then...wipeout. I just wanted to experience it so badly, to succeed at it...such a trivial thing. Now, I have a quarter-sized patch of scar tissue on the outside of each elbow from that series of days.
What probably did save me from fracturing my skull or worse was the fact that the skateboard would not stay together. I kept trying to fix it when the wheel assembly would come off. As an adult, I see how it works. As an 11-12 year old, all I could see was the desire to do it.
But I was stubborn. If you indulge me in this story below, it illustrates probably where that came from.
When I was perhaps 4 or 5, my mom served real mashed potatoes with raw chopped onions. I couldn’t believe it. It was the most disgusting thing I had ever eaten in my short life. The food made me actually gag. No way I was going to eat that. But I tried and tried. I cried. I hung my head and stared at the steaming pile of mash. I thought I was going to actually die, sitting there at the table, staring at those lumpy potatoes.
It turned into a struggle...a mental wrestling match between me, those animate potatoes, and my mother. I do not know how long in my life we fought, the three of us. My mother was trying to do what was right for me...I am pretty sure she thought that making me able to eat nearly anything I was served would make me grow, or something. So when she served them, I was expected to eat them. They would be added to my involuntary plate, and begin to take shape, peering back at me threateningly like Mount Suribachi.
I would eat everything around the potatoes, carefully leaving any contaminated foods exactly where they lay on the plate. Using a knife, I would surgically free the main body of the hamburger patty from the small edge that had unfortunately become ensnared in the base of the white mound. Any food so soiled was lost forever, completely inedible. Mom would watch me surreptitiously...carrying on normal conversation with everyone else, keeping one eye on my plate, on the potatoes. As long as there was some other tidbit of food on the plate, or a mouthful of some liquid that could be sipped...confrontation was avoided.
But I could only sip at a glass of milk, each sip smaller and smaller than the previous one, until finally it was me in one corner, and the potatoes in the other. I would settle in, hunch my shoulders for conflict, and lower my head. Body language transmitting at high frequency, the signal flags were raised, and the battle was joined. Slowly, everyone else would finish dinner, dessert was served, and plates were removed. The lights would go down, and soon it was just me under the white light which shone brightly down on the potatoes. The sentries were posted on the ramparts, and the long siege began.
There were many times I tried to avoid this standoff. Occasionally, I would attempt to stealthily feed them to the dog under the table. I thought this was a brilliant idea until I tried it. The problem is, dogs just do not enjoy mashed potatoes with raw chopped onion. To avoid a real conflagration, I would have to retrieve the uneaten lump of dog-proof potato on the floor before my mother saw it. I would put it back on the plate, secure in the knowledge that now I really WOULD have to die before I would put those drool covered potatoes into my mouth.
Another time, I attempted to conceal the potatoes in my mouth and transport them into the bathroom during a sanctioned toilet break. There, I could drop them in the toilet, flush, and be free of...a mouthful. What then? Next time, I would fill my mouth until I must have looked like a chipmunk with mumps before I went to the bathroom. The basic, insurmountable flaw of this approach was that the mere act of putting the onion laden mash into my mouth was very nearly just as disgusting as chewing and swallowing. The gag reflex under that much pressure made for a memorable potato pyrotechnical show. That was a dead end.
As I got more experienced, I attempted mind over matter. It was me and the potatoes. As we stared each other down, I would get angry. I began to work myself up. I could do this. I could do anything. This was easy. I found that if I did not chew them and experience a nausea inducing crunch of raw onion between my molars, I could actually attempt to swallow them without chewing. This seemed like a good thing to try until I actually tried it. My mother would stare at me in amazed horror and disgust as I gagged.
But she made me sit there until they were gone. So, I would settle in for the long haul. I would hunker down, and stare at those potatoes. Life would go on. Television was watched, toys were played with, pajamas were put on, and eventually my mother would take the plate and send me to bed. I was never so happy in my life at that point. This went on time and time again for years.
At some point in my life, my mom gave up. I truly cannot say if the war lasted one month or six years. I have no idea. In any case, I think it was a very good truce for both of us. It freed her in some way, and I was able to sit at the table and enjoy meals. And I love her dearly for it.
To this day, my older brother says: “We thought you were amazing, you were so stubborn, and would just sit there for hours staring at those potatoes until mom would finally give in. We really admired how stubborn you were!”
I might add: whittling; and how to sharpen a knife.
Hahahahahahaha! The infamous splintering plywood ramp!
Heh, for other kids, I am sure they could look and say “That ain’t gonna work!”
But to me, I was absolutely surprised every time it failed, which made the collisions with trees, fences, the ground, and other kids all that more painful. I could never, ever prepare myself in advance for failure, so I was always “unexpectedly” hurt!
As an adult, I realize now I simply couldn’t think 60 seconds into the future to consider what it might hold should something go wrong.
Now, as an adult, when I hold that small screw over a carburetor throat, a voice says “Ummm...you should probably put a piece of tape or something over that in case you drop the screw...”
In the past, I was always astonished to see that screw slip out of my hand and disappear into that dark bore!
Everything but the sled before 8. Seriously. I’m 40 and have never been on a sled
In my rock and fossil collection I had (still have) a large asbestos rock with all the fibers sticking out everywhere. Brought it to school and passed it around as per direction by the teacher (early 1960’s)
Oh my God, I thought I was the only one!
I absolutely HATED mashed potatoes (still do). I was always afraid they would make me throw up. Baked potatoes are almost as bad.
I went through the same struggle with my mom, not quite as epic as yours, but a struggle nonetheless.
Re the screw and the carb—I thought I was the one who ever did that!
HAH!
Was able to get it out though. Phew!
I did all these things as well. You need to be able to handle danger without going all ‘snowflake’. The only way you can learn to handle danger is by handling danger.
I’m a girl, and I did a lot of those things. Add to the list: swam in a creek in the summer, and skated on it in the winter; built a stage out of lumber hauled home from a construction site and rammed a screwdriver into my hand; rode my bike everywhere. I sat in a lot of trees.
I’m going to start referring to myself as a “free-range kid”.
Well,if you grew up in Louisiana or Hawaii that's understandable.But most Americans know sledding.Yes,it can be dangerous (I had a few narrow escapes) but God it's fun!
You’re off to a wonderful start.
Can you take him fishing; dig the worms and learn how to put them on a hook. Gut the fish....and pan fry them?
I would get him a jack knife; even if his parents won’t let him take it home; leave it at your house and build on those skills each time he comes.
Mumbley-peg. :)
Yeah, the clamp-on roller skate - turned skateboard. I think that idea goes back to the pre-WWII years and although California is likely the home of the first such contraption, they seemed to spring up in any port city that handled citrus fruit. There's a picture of my dad with a citrus crate scooter (orange crate, label and all, nailed atop the skateboard as a "handlebar") near the river in New Orleans, where he grew up. Some woman that lived up the street would scatter gravel on the sidewalks to keep the noisy metal-wheeled scooters away, but they figured out how to attach an angled board to the front, skimming low over the sidewalk, that would shove all the gravel off of the concrete.
Most are fine but most constructions sites are locked up tight now days for reasons of liability.
Ping
I’m seventy years old. I don’t know how I survived childhood. I should have been dead or blind before reaching the age of 14.
But then it taught us to be careful!
When was the last time you saw K-6 kids, boys and girls with a scabbed knee or elbow or two? A black eye?
Back in the day, if during the summer you hadn’t scrapped your knees several times then you weren’t serious about having fun nor playing hard enough.
A black eye didn’t always mean one was fighting, sometimes caused by rough housing, a missed ball or whatever.
Got our minor wounds and continued on with the games. Come supper time moms would take inventory of the wounded, apply iodine and band aids as necessary before sitting down at the table.
Cliff diving...For some forgotten reason my pre-school cohort had taken to dropping from the sides of outdoor stairs...not steps but full one story high. We’d climb over the railing, hang from the platform and drop. That was it. Run back up the stairs and do it again. Exhilarating overcoming the initial fear No broken bones, maybe a twisted ankle or two. Now days a police patrol would be called out with a suicide counselor telling us not to jump, parents would be investigated by social services and local news crews would be “concerned”.
I did every one of those things as a kid except riding a bike off of a ramp. I rode a bike into a swimming pool, we did not have a bike ramp.
I did too. We built our own ramps.. Didn’t jump off a cliff though. Jumped off roof instead..
I let my sons do lots of boy things. We lived surrounded by woods. They had a lot of fun and learned as well.
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