Chapter 3: The 1970s, aka “Safety Schmafety”

Read Chapter 3 here FREE

I have a lot to be thankful for. There’s my health, my friends, my family, my security … just to name a few of the biggies. But mostly I’m happy it’s not the 1970’s anymore. Why? While it’s true this country was subjected to Jimmy Carter and avocado-colored kitchen appliances, I’m referring to something much scarier: safety standards. Or, rather, lack thereof. Frankly, my brother and I are relieved we made it out of that decade alive.

Somehow my oldest brother, Peter, lucked out because the most serious childhood accident that he had was a flip off the changing table while my mom’s back was turned for a split second. But I suppose his life was already in the balance due to all of the drugs in my mom’s system at the time of his birth (see Chapter 1) so maybe God just gave him a pass. But as for Dan and me, we weren’t so lucky.

My own lucky-to-not-have-brain-damage experience happened when I was 5. I was riding in the back seat of my Aunt Laura’s two-door Plymouth Road Runner. I clearly remember that there was a decal of the actual Road Runner cartoon on the side of the car, as if it was some kind of special edition. I like to think of it as the predecessor to things like the Ford Explorer Eddie Bauer special edition, except that was the 1970’s muscle car version.

Anyway, I think Dan (his story later) was in the passenger seat, and we were stopped at a corner. I remember my aunt all of a sudden taking a sharp and fast left onto Main Street, right in front of the local junior high school. And then, with the help of a loose car door, an even looser front seat, and non-existent seatbelt laws, I somehow Flew. Out. Of. The. Door. I can remember rolling across the street. I rolled and rolled until my momentum gave out, and I stopped right at the curb.

Then the Road Runner mobile simply came to the curb and picked me up.

I’m pretty sure that after the initial shock wore off I started to cry. But if my cries could talk, and my 5-year-old brain could process the right words and emotions I felt at that time, they probably would have said something like this:

What. The. F*ck. I just catapulted out of your car and rolled across Main Street, and you casually pulled up to the curb like you were picking up a cast-off couch for your college dorm room. I could have been seriously hurt or even killed here, people! Can you show me some sympathy instead of sitting there shitting your pants, trying to figure out how my parents aren’t going to find out about this little episode?

Oddly enough, there was barely a scratch on me.

              The Barbie® Town House helped sooth the stress from the “incident”

A few years later it was another one of my mom’s siblings who terrorized us with a car, but that time around we actually welcomed it.

My mom’s brother Jim was a young deputy in our town. I liked it when he showed us the driving skills he had acquired at the police academy. Things like driving with your knee instead of with your hands because that way you could … fill out paperwork at the same time? Hmmm. I wasn’t exactly clear on that, but he made it sound like it was a very valuable skill to have, and all of us were fascinated by it. It was downright badass.

One day Uncle Jim came by my grandma’s house and decided to take all of his nieces and nephews out for a joy ride in his car. It wasn’t his squad car, unfortunately, but, rather, again, it was a Plymouth Road Runner in bright orange. (What the ham and cheese was up with those Plymouth Road Runners?)

Anyway, we all piled in, cramming at least six small bodies into that sports car. Clearly we had no idea that Jim was going to take us on the ride of our lives. The moment he turned on the car, the speakers blared out right into Dan’s right ear, causing him to recoil in shock. A second earlier he had been resting his head casually against that speaker, most likely because his face had nowhere else to go in the tight quarters.

And from there we were off. The 25-mph speed limits on quiet neighborhood streets were completely ignored in favor of driving like we were on a high-speed chase. That was also the time when “The Dukes of Hazzard” was at peak popularity, and clearly Jim was keen on emulating as many General Lee moves as possible.

Road closed? No problem. Jim just rode up on the sidewalk.

But what if you get caught, Uncle Jim?

“Well, I’ll just tell my fellow officer that I’m taking my nieces and nephews out for a spin.”

And he was right. There was nothing to worry about because in those days you could get away with a whole lot more. For example: Say you’re the mayor, and you’ve had a few too many. You decide to get in your car anyway and drive home from the supper club. Inevitably you get caught, but you don’t get thrown in jail and booked on a drunk driving charge. Instead, the officer just brings you home and no one is the wiser. (Well, through the grapevine everyone eventually becomes the wiser and learns to stay off of the streets after a certain city official finishes his post-Friday-night-fish-fry old fashioneds.)

Luckily, we all survived our crazy ride, despite the slippery 100 percent vinyl seats with unused seat belts. The ride would be “our little secret” for about five minutes after we returned and starting bragging about the Road Runner catching some serious air on Carney Avenue.

So now on to my brother Dan, who, perhaps, has the most unbelievable and harrowing tale of 1970’s safety failures.

It was the summer of 1970, when my parents lived in a small town called Lena, Wisconsin. At the time, they lived along Highway 441, which was a 55-mph zone right in front of their house. My mom was out in the yard hanging up clothes, and Dan (less than a year old) was being held prisoner in a playpen near her. At some point, my mom saw her good friend Jackie across the street/highway and decided she needed to quickly run across to Jackie’s yard and ask her something/borrow something/get the update on “The Young and the Restless.”

As my mom was talking to her friend, her back turned to the highway, Jackie’s eyes suddenly became as big as saucers. My mom followed her gaze and saw that somehow Dan had escaped the playpen and crawled across the highway.

I’m not sure what those 1970’s playpens were made of, but clearly they were not serving their purpose. By some grace of God, Dan had safely crawled all of the way across the highway without a scratch on him; it’s clearly a miracle he’s alive. (It’s always the middle child, am I right?)

Nowadays I think things have gotten a bit too safety-conscious. I mean, most of my classmates learned to walk in the back of the family station wagon; we sure as hell weren’t surrounded by Boppies to cushion our falls. Mainly because there were no such things as Boppies. There were just arms.

We bruised our knees. We fell off of our bikes (without helmets). Hand sanitizer wasn’t readily available in consumer-friendly packaging. We had to be tough. And for those of us with two older brothers … well, we had to be especially resilient.

        No helmet? No problem! Besides that totally would have messed up my look.

Missed the first few chapters? Find them here: