If You Don’t Stop It…
By BetsyG
I was driving out of my neighborhood this afternoon and noticed some children playing on a snow bank. As I drove past them, the little boy—he couldn’t have been more than 5—stood on the snow bank in a sort of victory dance.
A normal person might think, “Oh, there is a little boy standing on a snow bank,” and drive on. But I drove by exceptionally slowly, pulling as far away from that snowbank as possible, very nervous.
And at the bus stop each morning, I insist that no children stand on the snowbank when the bus approaches. I’m the crazy lady yelling, “Hey, you kids come down from there! Someone could get hurt!”
Why so much concern about snowbanks? When I was growing up, a child in my hometown was killed doing something having to do with snow. My recollection is that the child was standing on a snowbank, slipped and fell just as a car was going by, and was hit by the car. (I asked a classmate—and I’m blessed to be able to do such a thing—and she came out with a sledding story instead, but apparently some child died of something when we were little.) This has forever colored my view of snowbanks, and it’s just one episode that’s turned me into the type of mother who says, “You never know what could happen. When I was your age…” before relaying an obscure horror story.
Another formative childhood experience occurred when I read a book called Follow My Leader. This was one of the sensational books that made the rounds among the girls, like Go Ask Alice (teen drug addiction—there was always a waiting list for this one at the library) and Are You There God It’s Me Margaret, the iconic book about entering adolescence about a strange girl who actually wanted her period. In Follow My Leader, the main character played with firecrackers, which exploded in his face, leaving him blind.
From that point forward, firecrackers became an object of disproportional caution for me. The few times I’ve been exposed to them (they are illegal in Massachusetts), I have stayed a good 100 feet back, not wanting to lose my vision and all. This perhaps (okay, likely) unreasonable fear has leached into my parenting; my children weren’t even allowed out of the house when a friend lit off firecrackers in his backyard.
David Sedaris wrote a piece in Naked, called “Cyclops,” which rags on his father doing an extended riff on “Funny…until someone gets an eye poked out.” In “Cyclops,” his father finds potential danger in practically any object and issues an appropriately ridiculous warning to his children. I can relate. Oddly enough, I had a friend in my childhood who did essentially have her eye poked out when she walked in front of a dart someone was throwing. (By the way, there was just a whoosh of “Oh yeah! I remember that” rippling across Cyberspace, since many of my childhood friends are reading this.) If my children don’t shiver in fear every time they see a dart, I’ve failed as a parent.
I wonder how much of this is handed down through the generations. My father can see potential trouble in the road three miles in the distance. When I was a kid, like any child, I’d stick various limbs out the window. This didn’t seem to elicit much reaction from my parents. But if the head went out, suddenly there was potential to have it lopped off by an adjacent vehicle. A truck provided the most effective imagery for this fantasy. Or, better yet, a freight train. (It could happen.)
When I told my kids to keep their heads inside the car, they challenged me to explain how they could possibly be decapitated in this manner. I admit, I was stymied, but the handy, “Because I said so,” was there to bail me out.
I suppose the dangers we worry about come from our own particular experiences. My ex-husband has a scar above his eye from hitting his face on a nighttable when he was jumping on a bed, so, in our house, jumping on a bed is dangerous. (Personally, I worry more about the damage to the springs; at least I’m worrying about something.) A math teacher at my junior high school was a vehement enforcer of the “no snowball” rule, dashing out of class and into the courtyard to capture any offenders. He had a large scar on his face, formed by a rock that was embedded in a snowball that hit him the face. (I know: it happens all the time.)
You’d think my kids would be terrified by life, but it turns out they use caution only in the explicit circumstances they’ve been warned about. My middle son is a bit of a daredevil, in fact, and does parcour. It doesn’t worry me too much, though. I’m not crazy about him jumping off the deck, with its 10-foot drop, but as far as I know, no one’s ever lost an eye doing it.
March 4th, 2009 at 8:43 am
Do you remember the boy who tried to jump the train and ended up losing both legs from just below the knee (I think)? I remember seeing him at [the town] Pool in the summer taking off his fake legs and crawling to get into the pool. That certainly made an impression on me, not that I was thinking about jumping a train, but just how it doesn’t pay to do something potentially dangerous. I probably tend to be overly cautious about things as well. Better safe than sorry!
March 4th, 2009 at 8:47 am
I do remember that, and remember well who it was. I ran into him at that same venue, but we were ice skating on the lake. (The one and only time I have skated on a lake, and the one and I only time I have held a hockey stick in my hand.) Of course, skating on a lake was always something to be feared as well…
March 4th, 2009 at 10:58 am
I remember 2 snowbank incidents – unfortunately – one occurred in front of Stephen Palmer school – a boy slipped down a snowbank and an oil truck backed up to the school and ran him over and he was killed…. the other was at the high school hill – a girl was sledding down the hill, took a wrong turn, and ended up under the bleachers -she later died. I knew both of them, and I, too, am a wild woman when it comes to snow safety! yes, better safe than sorry!
March 4th, 2009 at 1:32 pm
No wonder J and I had two different memories. Now that you mention the hill, I do remember that incident as well. I apparently had remembered the snow bank incident correctly. I just shudder when I see a kid standing on a snow bank because of that.
March 4th, 2009 at 5:30 pm
I do remember the incident about the sledder running into the bleachers on “The Hill” And I know the boy who got hit by the train on 2/26/1973 or 74. He is now a Lobster Fisherman in Maine. I also remember a little girl in 1965 who got hit by a train while waving to the conductor from her back yard. (was too close and got clipped by the step) had to have a plate put in her head and was given a 30% at a normal life. Well she ‘s a visiting nurse now, married and has 2 boys. I say this so you know it doesn’t alway end in tragedy.
March 4th, 2009 at 5:40 pm
Thanks for your great comment and, well, for being you. You’re awesome.
The thing is, it’s the tragedies—not the close calls—that become legend, and have the biggest influence. You remember the couple that died of carbon monoxide poisoning when they were parking? You can bet everyone turned their engines off after that (though I’d been warned about that danger practically from birth, my mother apparently anticipating how I would spend my teen years).
March 5th, 2009 at 6:23 pm
I vaguely remember hearing about a boy who was building a snow cave/tunnel by the street and a snow plow killed him – not sure if it was [our town] or just on the news. After that our parents wouldn’t let us build tunnels by the road.
March 8th, 2009 at 5:53 am
That’s the one I was going to mention – the snow cave / tunnels in the snow bank. My mother must have heard about that one. The neighborhood kids and I built some caves once but when she pointed out the possibility of the snow plow going by again… well, it was a bit scary.
I also had a homemade firecracker (from a roll of caps) go off in my hands once. I had blood blisters and my right ear rang for a couple hours. Last time I did that I think…
Life is dangerous. We’re lucky it doesn’t kill us. Oh s#*@, it does…