All in the Name of Safety

Back in the stone age, when we still dragged our women about by the hair, we didn't give a rip about safety.  In those days airport security x-ray vision was limited to your luggage (ooh la la), computer mice weren't ergonomic and ATVs only had three wheels!  These three wheeled contraptions were the source of too many injuries and so production was discontinued in favor of their four wheeled cousins. 

Three wheelers had a certain dynamic that simply couldn’t be matched with a four wheeler.  While I suppose it may be possible to tip a four wheeler on its side and ride on two wheels, it was much easier to do on a three wheeler.  Ironically this easy tipping action was one of the main reasons that three wheelers were banned.  What a shame. 

We had a three wheeler when I was growing up.  It was a blast!  We took it camping and used it for work and just rode it around the yard for fun.  It carried me out every frigid Idaho summer morning to move sprinkler pipe.  My sister would drive and I would sit on the back trying to remember what my fingers felt like.  In a cruel climatological joke, common to Idaho summers, by the time we finished our work the temperature had gone from sub-zero to what seemed like the high 140's, which made that parka I had put on earlier seem silly, and the three wheeler was our salvation from mosquitoes so thick they showed up on weather radar. 

One time the three wheeler was our pack mule on a hunting trip, which should be a good indication of how far I typically ventured from the road while hunting.  I have a general philosophy about big game hunting, which is; it has to be cheaper and easier than going to the grocery store.  Consequently I haven’t been hunting in many, many years.  I still remember riding along the road with my brother when we spotted a deer approximately 30,000 feet up the mountain.  He stopped and quickly got to the side of the road, aimed and fired.  His shot was too low and the deer he was aiming at gently loped away.  But the unfortunate deer that had been lying unseen in the brush a few yards downhill wasn’t so lucky.  Further evidence that safety can have detrimental effects.  Sometimes you’re better off staring a threat in the face than trying to avoid it altogether.

The three wheeler did have its dangers.  Most of these I avoided for one simple reason, I couldn’t start it by myself.  I couldn’t pull the rope that cranked the engine.  I think I’ve mentioned in the past that I am somewhat vertically challenged.  Always have been.  As a teenager I had to stand on my tip toes to reach the car door handle.  I’m perfectly content with my height though, and the only reason I buy shoes with a two inch sole is in case of a flash flood.  A two inch deep flash flood is by far the most dangerous because it almost never causes any damages or injuries and therefore proper caution is neglected.  I think I’ve wandered from the topic…  When you are two feet shorter than a five foot long rope it makes it difficult to pull said rope far enough to make an engine roar to life.  Needless to say, the day I was finally able to start the three wheeler all by myself still holds a special place in my memory.  Right there with the time that I scaled Mt. Everest and the time that I broke the land speed record.

Crashes on the three wheeler did happen upon occasion.  When my sister crashed she would do everything she could to avoid having anyone find out what she had done:

“Hey sis, why is your arm dangling by a single tendon?” 

“Oh... um... square dancing got a little rowdy today.  Nothing to worry about.” 

As for me, I milked any injury for all it was worth:

 “Mom, I fell off the three wheeler and my knee is bleeding!”

 “Where?” 

“Out in the field.” 

“No, no, where is it bleeding?” 

“On my knee!!” 

“Are you sure?  That looks like a freckle to me.” 

“NO DON’T TOUCH IT!!  I feel faint… I don’t think I can move pipe in the morning… and I might need to eat ice cream for dinner.”

“Oh you’ll be fine, and for heaven’s sake stop squirming, I keep missing the spot with this mini band aid!”

My sister was always tougher than me anyway.  I’m pretty sure she broke her collar bone playing tackle football in the sixth grade.  I, on the other hand, was still begging everyone to play two-hand touch until… well, last week as a matter of fact.

I suppose our continuous quest for a safer world has been beneficial.  It certainly fits my personality better and we have avoided countless accidents.  But, as with the deer lying unseen in the bushes, all of this safety can take a mighty toll on our adventures.  Can you imagine the fairytales that will be told in future centuries about our times?  “Humpty Dumpty sat on an ergonomic chair with his feet on the ground.  Humpty Dumpty did not fall.  On the advice of the safety committee, all the King’s horses were replaced with four wheelers and all the King’s men played touch football.”  I'm sure they'll be awestruck.

The Way Things Really Are

I remember the very first political question I ever asked my father.  It was 1980 and I was all of 5 years old.  Ronald Reagan and Jimmy Carter were running for President and I innocently asked my dad, "how is the President picked?"  Without a seconds hesitation he coolly responded "the one who gets the most money wins." 

I tried hard to imagine how that must work.  Of course I didn't know anything about fund raising or costly political campaigns back then.  In my mind I envisioned the two candidates dressed in their nicest suits and squaring off on a big stage, each one with a large bin of pennies in front of him.  Someone would fire the starting pistol and they would madly reach into the bins, pull out handfuls of coins and stuff them into their pockets.  In fact, as I watched the news footage of Ronald Reagan when he got shot, I mistakenly assumed that it was already election time again.

I hate to admit how old I was when I finally realized that this is not really the way the President is chosen.   Although it may be more meaningful than the circus that we actually have to endure.   I still have a vivid picture in my imagination of Ronald Reagan dancing in celebration on a penny covered stage with Jimmy Carter looking on in disappointment.  You'd think, for that sort of work, that a peanut farmer would have better hands than an old actor.  Go figure!

It's funny how our first impression of something stays with us even after we've learned that it's false.  I remember thinking that California was a row of three houses near the high school that I attended just outside of Blackfoot, Idaho.  Of course I wasn't in high school at the time.  Even now that I live in California, at least for a little longer anyway, whenever I go back to visit and pass that row of houses, I still picture redwoods and smell the ocean.  Well, to be more accurate, I picture gang tags and smell the smog.  I know very well that California is not a trio of houses in Idaho but for some reason it was deeply ingrained in my mind at a tender age and that impression stuck.

We just passed Memorial Day and I remember as a child preparing flowers and taking them to the cemetery to place on the graves of loved ones.  To this day I will do everything I can to avoid walking directly on top of a grave site.  I always try to walk as close in front of the headstone as possible in order to stay on the narrow strip between graves.  I'd like to say that I do this wholly out of respect, however, that's not the only reason.  You see, when you're a child, at that age where understanding and innocence are still sort of muddled together, a cemetery is just another park with lots of ornately carved playground equipment.  So in order to keep me from disrespecting the dearly departed by leaping from headstone to headstone my parents told me that if I climbed on the headstones, or even stepped on a grave, then that person would raise their foot up out of the dirt and kick me. As I pondered this phenomenon, I looked at the neatly cut grass covering the grave sites and the riding lawnmower parked near the caretaker's shed and thought to myself "that must be one bumpy ride."  I've never had a curious nature about creepy things and this was one thing that, whether true or not, I wasn't going to mess with.  If all I have to do to avoid the remote possibility of a dead person's foot rising out of the ground and kicking me is to not step on a grave, then I'm happy to oblige.

I could go on but I fear that I may be revealing a bit too much about how I perceive the world around me.  I would hate for anyone to get the wrong idea about the strength of my grasp on reality.  Although it does strike me as odd that our current President went about his entire election campaign desperately looking for change.