And yet, somehow, here we are

Digging through the junk drawer the other day, I found one of those plastic plugs you shove into an electric outlet to keep the grandkids from getting zapped. It was in the junk drawer instead of in an outlet because my grandkids are now all high-school-age or older, and if they haven’t learned by now what kinds of things belong in an electric outlet and what kinds of things don’t, then maybe it’s time for them to learn the hard way.

But when they were little, my wife insisted that every treacherous death-dealing outlet be blocked from the grandkids’ imaginative explorations. I actually wrote about it once in my column, long ago.

And as I looked at that little plastic plug in the junk drawer the other day, I shook my head and said: “How did we ever survive childhood?”

The question was rhetorical, I guess, because if those little plastic safety devices even existed when I was a little kid, my parents never got the news.

But then I wondered if the question was something more than rhetorical, as memories from my childhood flooded back that made me wonder, in a literal way: “How DID we ever survive childhood?”

Take the Christmas when I was no more than two or three years old, and Dad had removed one of the big electric bulbs from the string of lights on the tree. Remember those big bulbs? They burned hot enough to scald your hand and dry the tree into kindling, with a metal base that was almost exactly the size of a little kid’s fingertip.

While Dad went to get another bulb to replace the dead one he had removed — with the string of lights still plugged in — I stuck my finger into the empty socket…repeatedly. And each time I stuck in my finger, I said, “Ooh, what a funny feeling!”

The line became a running family gag throughout my childhood, any time somebody did something stupid and got stung as a result. Usually they did the stupid thing only once, but not me, the poster child for repeated rechargings.

And yet, somehow, here I am to tell the tale.

And it wasn’t only electricity we found a way to survive, was it? Not a bottlecap in the house was childproof — not medicine, cleaning fluids, or even bottles whose murderous purpose was obvious, like rat poison. Unlike today, where hermetic seals and plastic rings protect us from groceries of mass destruction like milk and ketchup.

Back then, heat steamed from radiators that could sear a permanent stripe on a careless kid, and yet nothing stood between a kid and a hot radiator except common sense and the memory of what happened the last time he pressed his face against the scalding steel.

And yet, somehow, here we are.

Cars probably had seatbelts back then, but they were tucked deep between the cushions, and Dad happily obliged our pleas to speed around curvy country roads while we tumbled in the back seat.

Kids rode bikes wherever bikes could be ridden—on sidewalks, streets, railroad ties, and even down stairs. If a kid ever wore a helmet, it was an army surplus World War II helmet-liner that bounced around until it covered his eyes as he pedaled. With a metal kazoo in his mouth.

And yet, somehow, here we are.

In winter, we were sent outside to play without supervision, and the expectation was that each of us would freeze our tongues to the iron porch handrail no more than once. Well, except for me, of course. I got stuck three times, which surprised nobody who was in the living room that Christmas when I discovered funny-feeling electricity.

In summer, our playground was the street, where we played Running Bases between two strips of tar. Caught in a run-down between two taggers, it was easy for both runners and taggers to forget that the DeSoto bearing down on you could reach the base faster than any of you could.

If traffic got too heavy, we would move to the grass and toss metal Lawn Darts high into the air, then crane our necks to watch them fall back down.

And yet, somehow, here we are.

Back then, restaurants sold trans-fat food without the health inspector raiding the joint, and it was a race to finish eating before Mom and Dad lit their cigarettes. At family gatherings you had to be careful when you climbed up on Uncle Charlie’s lap or you’d get burned by his cigar.

Whenever Uncle George came to visit, he always brought some interesting plaything for us. Sometimes it was toy army men made of lead, coated with lead-based paint. Or a marble-sized ball of mercury, which we would roll around in our hands or chase across the wooden floor. Or maybe a toy bow and arrows that we could use to hunt the rats in the woodpile by the alley — once we removed the rubber suction cup from the arrows and sharpened the points with the pocketknife Uncle George gave us last week.

And yet, somehow, here we are.

I’m glad to say that all of my grandkids have survived to young adulthood, thanks to electric outlet plugs and countless other safety features that didn’t exist when you and I were kids. My safety-stewardship of them is over.

But now that my great-grandkids are lining up, should I re-invest in more of those little plastic electric outlet inserts? Would I sleep better if I installed them in every outlet again to protect my darling little rug-rats?

Or would I lose sleep wondering if they’ll find a way to pry them out and say, “Ooh, what a funny feeling,” as they turn them over in their mouths?

TR Kerth is the author of the book “Revenge of the Sardines.” Contact him at trkerth@yahoo.com

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