old school

This morning I got the evil eye from a crossing guard. As I was trying to edge my way through an intersection, the light turned yellow. Having no room to shoot forward, I just stayed where I was, with a few inches of my car’s nose poking into a crosswalk. As the crossing guard ushered people through the intersection (what, suddenly adults are incapable of safely crossing the street without the help of a crossing guard?), she glared long and hard at me. Okay, first of all, when I began trying to work my way through the intersection, I didn’t know that the light was going to change and leave me stranded there. Second of all, does it really kill people to have to walk five inches out of their way to walk around the front of my car? I don’t think so.

This got me thinking about the Safety Patrol in elementary school (I never joined; I couldn’t be bothered, and besides, the only perk was an end-of-the-year trip to the circus, which didn’t interest me), and from there I began mulling over something I noticed maybe a year or two ago: the replacement of most of my elementary school’s metal playground equipment with dumbed-down plastic versions. The rocket ship filled with years of scratched names and insults is gone. The giant wobbly disc thing that I was too scared to jump from is gone. It’s always sad to see a part of your childhood disappear, but it’s even more depleting when you realize that those disappearing childhood elements fall into a larger societal pattern. There’s this push to swathe modern day kids in a cocoon of safety so thick, they can barely move. Y’all know what I mean. Gone are the days when kids could race around on bikes and skates without wearing helmets and kneepads. Gone are the days when they could scramble across the playground equipment that was probably quite deadly.

Oh, safety is important—I know that. I certainly don’t want to see my two-year-old niece get injured while playing. But I lament the fact that modern kids won’t get to ride around untethered in the back of a pickup truck, like I used to do in my dad’s truck, and play on swingsets that are so poorly affixed to the ground, they lift into the air when the kid swings high enough (as was the case with my backyard swingset). I never wore helmets or kneepads or anything and I was fine. One time I got injured while playing chicken with a bunch of neighborhood kids (Doug Peiffer mowed me down on his bike), and my knees were so ripped up, I was unable to kneel in church (causing me to fret that I would burn in hell for being unable to kneel properly). But I survived. I fell off my bike and fell while rollerskating and I survived. I pitched off the front of my sled and subsequently got run over by it—and my best friend—but I survived. My sister and I had tank-like bikes—huge metal monsters that were ferociously heavy (quite a change from today’s light models)—and one time she fell off her bike and subsequently got run over by it. She was so battered, our lackadaisical school actually took the time to rein in my parents for a conference, to ensure that they weren’t beating their child. Note that this took place in the days when teachers were allowed to slam kids against walls and build cages for them out of desks in order to control them (this actually happened to a kid in my second grade class). My fourth grade teacher never even spoke to my parents about the disturbing stories I so often wrote, which involved murder, blood, knives, and dead children. She never felt the need to say, “Hey, are you subjecting your kid to satanic ritual abuse? Because this ain’t normal.” So that’s how you know my sister’s bike-inflicted bruises and bumps were big: the school actually did something about them. But hey, she survived.

Hell, my family’s car—the one we had until I was 12 years old—didn’t even have seat belts in the back seat, and the front seat only had lap belts. And we survived.

I just feel sorry for modern kids who, while better off than my generation because they’re less likely to die of a playground-inflicted head injury or whatnot, won’t really get to know the freedom of hopping on a bike without first having to adjust a helmet, or ride around in the back of a pickup truck, or swing so high their swingset lifts off the ground.

And in a ridiculously different vein, many thanks to Debbie Stultz for pointing me in the direction of Lancaster’s annual Whoopie Pie Festival. How I could grow up in Lebanon County and not know about this festival remains a mystery. Yesterday, on her foodie discussion board, she and I had to defend the honor of the humble whoopie pie's origins, since so many people insist that New England, and not PA Dutch Country, spawned these devilishly tasty treats. As I wrote on the board:

I’ve heard whispers of the New England thing before, and, as a native PA Dutch(wo)man, I am inclined to believe that it is all a filthy lie. The pies may have gravitated to New England (although I’ve never seen them there), but I truly believe that their genesis lies in southcentral PA.

Look, we PA Dutch don’t have many claims to fame beyond the Amish and Hershey chocolate. Our accents are ridiculous and our language is bizarre. Even our name is a big fat misnomer (since PA Dutch culture comes from Germany, not the Netherlands). There are clumps of horse shit on our roads. We’re home to the worst nuclear power accident in American history. As a state we have produced the frightful Rick Santorum and infamously bad roadways. So please, don’t take away our baked goods. Let us remain in spirit—if not in fact—the sole progenitor of whoopie pies, shoofly pies, funnel cakes, and fasnachts. Please.

song heard most recently before posting: I’m On to You—Neil Diamond