One of my earliest memories of fear is being on a cheap,
spinning carnival ride in San Jose and nearly slipping out of the
contraption as it was dozens of feet in the air. My dad and I kept
spinning while we were screaming for the ride operator to stop so I
wouldn’t fly away.
One of my earliest memories of fear is being on a cheap, spinning carnival ride in San Jose and nearly slipping out of the contraption as it was dozens of feet in the air. My dad and I kept spinning while we were screaming for the ride operator to stop so I wouldn’t fly away.
The ride ended without further incident, but the incident has marked me ever since. I avoid theme park rides that spin or go upside down, and I am particularly averse to riding on anything set up by toothless carnies in a school parking lot.
I rode in a helicopter once, and that was scary. I still get a little nervous while taking off in an airplane, but that fear subsides as soon as the snack cart rolls around. I’ve been to the top of the Empire State Building and looked down the face of Hoover Dam, and I was more stunned at the view than scared for my safety.
Still, for the most part, I avoid activities that require leaving the ground. But not everyone is so grounded.
This week I read how some guy in Oregon got the bright idea to attach 105 helium balloons to his lawn chair and float from Oregon to Idaho. The gas station owner flew for nine hours and 193 miles in his chair, until he approached some rough terrain without enough ballast.
So, being a responsible pilot, he returned to Earth (this time without using a BB gun to pop the balloons, as he had done on a previous flight.) After he hit the ground, his flying machine floated away, taking his chair and video recorder with it.
That’s like landing your private jet and watching it take off down the runway without you.
Considering how nervous I get on a dumb carnival ride, I could never muster enough bravery (stupidity?) to hitch a ride on a floating lawn chair. But those of us who grew up in the 70s can be thankful that we survived the now seemingly unsafe conditions we were exposed to. We were brave without knowing it. We lived on the edge because we didn’t know any better.
My parents cruised to work in a 1972 Pinto, the exploding gas tank car. We hardly, if ever, wore seatbelts back then, and if we did they were only lap belts that didn’t prevent us from banging our head on the hard dashboard if we were ever in a collision. Luckily, the Pinto had the exploding gas tank that would propel you out of the car if you were ever rear-ended. That passed for a safety feature back in the day.
Cars 30 years ago didn’t have child safety windows that only rolled halfway down. If kids were dumb enough to stick their bodies out of a window – since we weren’t buckled up – we took the risk of rolling onto the pavement. There was a deterrent which, at least among the people I knew, worked just as well as side-curtain air bags.
We were sitting ducks as we rode in the back of station wagons facing the rear of the car or rode in the back of an open pickup truck. Of course, back then we could play outside without our parents knowing where we were for 10 hours and think nothing of it.
Heck, I could have hitched up the family lawn chair to a bunch of balloons and floated 193 miles without my parents even realizing I was gone. Then I could have hitchhiked back to Hollister in a Pinto with no seatbelts and not even gotten in trouble.
Now, I won’t take a trip to the grocery store without my AAA card, a cell phone, and the child safety locks engaged. Now, when fear stares me in the face, I look the other way. But first, I roll up the child safety window.
