A Survivor of a Once Dangerous World

ADW.org ^ | 17 November 2020 | Msgr Pope

[Cronos]

In the video below, a comedy routine from Mad TV shows how many modern notions were non-existent even just fifty years ago. In the sketch, a pregnant mother drinks a martini and smokes a cigarette; children ride bikes without wearing helmets. Of course, like a lot of comedy, the topic is taken to excess for effect.

Nevertheless, most of us who are older grew up in a “dangerous” world and managed to survive. You’ve probably seen lists like this one:

I survived:

• • drinking from a garden hose,
  • breathing second-hand smoke,
  • running in the misty cloud when the DDT spray truck went by,
  • playing with toy guns,
  • being spanked,
  • paddling in school,
  • praying in school,
  • lead paint,
  • not wearing a seatbelt,
  • not wearing a bike helmet,
  • playing in asphalt playgrounds with metal monkey bars and swings,
  • not every kid making the team,
  • not everyone receiving an award.

I can personally attest to the item about running in the cloud of spray behind the DDT truck. The cloud had a sweet, pungent order; we were told it wasn’t harmful and sure enough, none of us ever got sick from it. At left is a picture of mine to prove that I’m not lying! It was a little bit like the smell of newly mimeographed paper as the teacher handed it out—a strange but pleasant odor. DDT was banned in the 1970s and scientists still debate whether the lives lost (to mosquito-borne diseases) as a result of banning it outweighed the gains made by a purer environment. I leave that debate to them, but for the record, I am a survivor!

The spiritual point I would like to make is one of moderation. I am not recommending that pregnant women drink or smoke. I am not saying that children should stop wearing bike helmets or that seatbelts are unimportant. Rather, I caution against prioritizing safety concerns to the degree that we become too fearful. Life involves risks, and there is no such thing as complete safety.

I lived through many of the things on the list above and depicted in the sketch. In order to live we must take certain risks. A life too obsessed with dangers and too constrained by artificially imposed limits can smother and restrict. Some of the modern preoccupation with safety and for a life without any rebukes or challenges comes from a desire for excessive comfort and reassurance.

Comedy like that depicted in the video below is funny because while over the top, it also has many elements of truth.

[buckalfa]

Aaaaah the DDT truck! Such simple joys of childhood

[KSCITYBOY]

Been there done that...

[Berlin_Freeper]

None of us will get out of here alive.

[moovova]

The good ol’ days...

[dp0622]

Those station wagons where you sat all the way in the back on the side :)

If that doesn’t scream safety I don’t know what does!

But we are all still here, my cousins and my siblings and I.

Somehow we survived it without any interference from the govt

[Don W]

http://www.freerepublic.com/focus/f-chat/3193234/posts

[hal ogen]

Somehow we survived riding our bikes without helmets on 2 lane highways with semi trucks coming within inches of us, chewing tar balls we’d find after the road was paved with tar and gravel, riding out to the city dump with our .22’s to shoot whatever we found and so forth. Our parents would say “be home by dark” and off we went to experience and explore. They didn’t have a clue as to where we were or what we were doing. I think we were better for it. To top it off, there were hardly any soy-boys wandering around. I think it was called Freedom.

[Daveinyork]

While I contemplate this, I’ll sit back and light up my pipe.

[Cronos]

The thing is that people don’t learn to weigh relative risks. Yes, kids DID die in station wagons at the back, but what’s the total number and the percentage of kids?

[lizma2]

“running in the misty cloud when the DDT spray truck went by,” while pretending you were fighting in WWII.

And if you did something stupid a mile from your house, you knew your mother would know about it before you got home.

[yefragetuwrabrumuy]

A bunch of twists and turns there.

Despite the foolish concerns of the time, the *real* problem with DDT is two-fold. First is that under normal circumstances, it does not biodegrade. They have dug up 40 year old samples from sludge at the bottom of a river that is just as deadly to some organisms, like crustaceans, as it always was. The other problem, like other pesticides, is that insects adapt to it and become resistant.

On a different note, there are some people out there who seem to be programmed with a “self-destruct switch”, in that they are attracted to hazardous things. If you take those away, they will find other ones. This covers a litany of things, from “Hey, guys! Watch me do this!”, to people who are attracted to others that are violent or even murderous.

I have known people like this, who were caught up half a dozen times in things that could have destroyed them; but none of them would ever dream of committing suicide, as such.

Other variations include abusing drugs and alcohol to a lethal degree, drag racing, boxing, you name it.

[AZJeep]

We all (seniors) are Measles survivors. If I remember (so long ago), it was not particularly bad and people in general were happy to get them so they have been over it.
Now, few cases here and there are tragedy!

[Covenantor]

My age cohort carried jack knives for mumbletypeg from 3rd grade on...never ha a stabbing or slashing.

Dodge ball, without being told the objective was to throw the ball as hard as possible...avoidance developed nimbleness and threat assessment skills, a precursor to the Matrix action

[AZJeep]

Whooping cough, mumps and rubella were also rather annoying passages to adulthood.
What were people really concerned were tuberculosis, polio, tetanus and diphtheria, but vaccines for those were already showing up.
Looking back, it made sense. The vaccines were first developed for the most deadly diseases (smallpox, rabies) My grandma remembered vividly the last smallpox pandemia and the Spanish flu pandemic. That WAS scary!
Then for above mentioned diphtheria, tetanus etc. Those were the scourges of my parents generation.
Then finally for the more-less harmless measles which ravaged our generation. Now, even the chicken pox, I guess, has a vaccine.

[AZJeep]

Measles are still actually the most contagious disease known to humanity. If you are not vaccinated or already a survivor, you will get them, if they show up in the neighborhood! That’s why they used to be a compulsory passage to adulthood.

[AZJeep]

But, to think about it, with 100 millions deaths, billions with lifelong scars, the communism was the biggest scourge of the last hundred years! It handily beat the Spanish flu. In places, like Cambodia (quarter of population wiped out), it was on par with Black death!

And it is spreading again. Quite contagious.
We really need communist vaccine! Until this one is developed, nobody is safe.

[timestax]

bttt

[Albion Wilde]

I did 10 of the 13 items on his list. And I was a girl. Still identify as female, too. This past weekend I marched in a crowd of 500,000 people in the middle of a pandemic to cheer our President.