The Miracle of Life
I am amazed that my brothers, John and Ed, are still alive. As children, they thought they were invincible, but really they were lucky.
I just recently learned that they had an ongoing game of playing with an exposed electrical outlet. They would dare each other to withstand shocks and compete to see who could take the most.
Also, they liked to blow stuff up and had access to firecrackers every July. Other times in the year, they would try to make their own explosives. My mom wasn't too happy when they started pinching her tampons for fuses.
They made their own martial arts weapons like stars and nunchucks. I'm assuming they used them.
There were into Evil Knevil styled stunts like riding their bikes into the swimming pool.
There was also the soup game they'd play to cap off a good night of bathing. Ed would sit in the tub, and John would make Ed soup. Chef John would start with a broth of bath water and Ed. Then he'd add other ingredients like shampoo, conditioner, vegetables and spices from the kitchen, and whatever else he could find. Sometimes he'd add cleaners and supplies he wasn't supposed to touch or ingest. The time he added Drano, was the time I was called in. Ed was blistering, and I called it in to Dad.
They survived well and have all their limbs and digits in place. They are even reproducing and running 10 k runs. Me, I couldn't run half a k, and I got wrecked up in a jumpy tent a couple of years ago.
I just recently learned that they had an ongoing game of playing with an exposed electrical outlet. They would dare each other to withstand shocks and compete to see who could take the most.
Also, they liked to blow stuff up and had access to firecrackers every July. Other times in the year, they would try to make their own explosives. My mom wasn't too happy when they started pinching her tampons for fuses.
They made their own martial arts weapons like stars and nunchucks. I'm assuming they used them.
There were into Evil Knevil styled stunts like riding their bikes into the swimming pool.
There was also the soup game they'd play to cap off a good night of bathing. Ed would sit in the tub, and John would make Ed soup. Chef John would start with a broth of bath water and Ed. Then he'd add other ingredients like shampoo, conditioner, vegetables and spices from the kitchen, and whatever else he could find. Sometimes he'd add cleaners and supplies he wasn't supposed to touch or ingest. The time he added Drano, was the time I was called in. Ed was blistering, and I called it in to Dad.
They survived well and have all their limbs and digits in place. They are even reproducing and running 10 k runs. Me, I couldn't run half a k, and I got wrecked up in a jumpy tent a couple of years ago.
posted by Kathy at 8:05 AM
6 Added Something:
it is my theory that kids today are too weak, and because of this reality few will become well-adjusted adults like my brother and myself. before such inventions as bicycle helmets and seatbelt laws, or after school programs and D.A.R.E., growing up meant passing (or surviving) a series of life-hardening situations.
“latch-key” kids like the Sheffield brothers had to educate and entertain ourselves in the unsupervised after school hours and on evening when our parents were OUT. We survived riding in back of dad’s truck as he kicked-back a sixer, we survived bed sheet parachute jumps off the roof of the house, and we survived minor pyrotechnical accidents with all digits intact. We survived these rites of passage not because we were lucky, but because we were tough and hardened kids. Kids today are too coddled and sheltered. They will never make it into adulthood. As Darwin reiterated, patheticly weak candy-asses will die off before they are able to pass on their inferior candy-ass genes.
Ed makes a good point. Kids today are a bunch of wussies. They are weak, spoiled, cry-baby pansies. As a former latch-key kid and concerned citizen, I think we need to do something about the inevitable deleterious effects this will have for society, by which I mean America, by which I mean the United States.
We've got to take matters into our own hands. We need to go out and toughen these brats up by accosting them, taunting them, and most certainly beating them up. It's the only way. Save America, beat up a kid!
There is a very interesting article in Psychology today from a few months ago or was it Parent magazine (yes I have children) which talks about the same thing but you know with offical psyche language - I think they did a study.
They observed how college students carry their cell phones with them everywhere and even call their parents in between classes -
It's worse than you guys thought.
I remember eating white rice for a week and not calling my parents just not hear them. I remember falling at school and walking home with a rock inside my knee when I was 7 - from P.E. to the time I got home it was a few hours so there was already infection and gross puss- (Yes my mom was pissed at the Nuns) - but now my kid calls with a little sniffle and I got to go get her or risk the school calling DPSS.
Kathy Sheffield's memoir entries are the hetero, interracial, female version of David Sedaris. A new voice has risen!
Ed soup. HAR.
Cloudy, a jumpy tent is a puffy, air-inflated tent that kids jump in at parties. I first played in one at the age of 31. I did a flip in the air and landed on my feet. I was so impressed, I tried for two, and my left knee tucked too far, or slammed rather into my front teeth. I nearly knocked myself out, and I still have a scar. That reminds me of another thing the boys did. They would jump from the roof using sheets as parachutes.
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