Surviving childhood
a close callIN honor of the new year, I'm taking an actual vacation this week and filling this space with some of my favorite columns from the past. Hope you enjoy them and the New Year. This one was published first on Aug. 25, 1995.MY earliest memory involves being chased through the yard by a little neighbor girl armed with a fork. I was only 4 and the girl was about the same age. I think she liked me, but I guess she had trouble expressing it. Or maybe she was just psycho.The memory is just a few frames of action forever burned into my brain by the sudden yet intense surge of adrenaline. I can't even see the girl's face anymore. She didn't get me. I was a quick little cuss back then.
The incident brings to mind a couple of observations: First, the need for parental supervision of children who have access to sharp metal objects and, second, it is amazing that any of us actually survived childhood.
For me, the "Florida Fork Fiasco" was just the first of many death-defying, or at least serious-injury defying, occurrences.
It was followed not long after by the "Morocco Head Dive From a High Slide into the Contrete Episode." I still have a small knot on my forehead 35 years after the plunge. I don't remember exactly how it happened, except one second I was at the top of a slide and the next second I was on the ground without the benefit of the actual "slide" apparatus. You'd think that they would have covered the concrete with something. A matress? Sand? A bit of felt? Someone should have been sued but there weren't many lawyers in North Africa at the time.
THE slide plunge was nothing compared to the "Georgia Milk Truck Bumper Bummer." A milk truck would rumble thorugh the dirt streets of our neighborhood every few days. It would stop at our house, then our neighbor's house, then a few houses down the street. It did this every time it came. Until my brother and I decided to sneak onto the back bumper while the driver was dropping off milk. Our little butts barely had enough room on the bumper as the truck took off.
Amazingly, it did not stop at our neighbor's house. It picked up speed. It failed to stop at the next house. We were terrified. My brother said he had to jump before it reached the highway, but it was already going too fast. Crying, we pushed ourselves off the bumper and went tumbling into a ditch. Miraculously, we were not injured. Naturally, the truck stopped at the next house.
It was in rural Georgia, too, that we played "See Who Can Stay on the Railroad Track the Longest With the Train Coming." We always jumped off before the train got closer than a few telephone poles. But the way the conductor blew the horn, you'd think we were tied to the tracks.
The "Arizona Bullet-Firing Adventure" was probably the most dangerous thing we survived. We were about 8 by then and our parents dragged us to a friend's house. We were bored, so we poked around the house until we discovered a box of .22-caliber bullets. With only a vague understanding of how a bullet works, we decided to try to fire off a few by hitting them with rocks in an alley. For the next few minutes we sprayed bullets all over, never hitting the garbage can we were aiming at.
I realize now that this was an incredibly stupid and dangerous thing to do. All I can say is that it is lucky for our parents that someone didn't get hurt. I mean, what kind of adults would leave a box of bullets lying around where kids can find them. And are you going to tell me that they couldn't hear the sound of gunfire? It's just shocking. Especially since for that episode and many others we barely survived, we were never caught.
Charles Memminger, winner of
National Society of Newspaper Columnists
awards in 1994 and 1992, writes "Honolulu Lite"
Monday, Wednesday and Friday.
Write to him at the Honolulu Star-Bulletin,
P.O. Box 3080, Honolulu, 96802
or send E-mail to charley@nomayo.com or
71224.113@compuserve.com.
The Honolulu Lite online archive is at:
https://archives.starbulletin.com/lite