PART TWO:
More evidence that parents in the '70s were either crazy, oblivious or maybe evil. Here are some other things that make me scratch my head today and wonder "How Did I Make It Out Of The '70s Alive?"
Yep. Kids our age (6 - 10) would hurl these through the air across a big lawn (like Old Matante Neuna had) and try to aim to get the metal ice pick-like head of the maybe half-pound, two-foot long dart to pierce the dirt and stick up in the circle hoola-hoop target. Of course, your siblings stood right near the target in order to retrieve the jarts when it was their turn, but, it made it easy for them to be hapless victims of major life-changing injuries as well. Yes, okay, I stood near my circle too. Duh.
Yes, an adult set with real steel-tipped arrows.
So I talk a bit here about "The Strap." WTF is "The Strap?!" Well, I found this short on YouTube where this guy, maybe about my age, describes it to a tee. Another thing we amazingly survived from the '70s:
So the memory of the "Jarts" got me thinking back to my first bow and arrow set I got at the same age as the kid shown above. Now to get an image to represent what my father bought for me for that Christmas or birthday present, I Googled "boxed bow and arrow set" and it showed an array of mostly what would be by today's standards appropriate gifts for kids. (Aww, how cute, sucker cup-tipped arrows.) Again... by TODAY'S standards. This ain't what I got. My father wanted to make a man out of me. He got me the real deal:
More like this:
Oh, it came with targets like you see above but wasn't it easier, and much more fun, to try and shoot an inflated balloon out of your little sister's outstretched hand? Don't worry Cindy, you're holding it far enough away, I won't.. SWOOSH! OWWWWW! ARRRGH... OH NO!!!! Got her right between the eyes. I shit you not.
Oh she survived. Luckily (miraculously), only a couple stiches to her upper forehead for which she still likely has a tiny scar to this day. You know my bow and arrow set didn't. My father instantly snapped that shit in two and dumped it in the trash. Oh, and my ass didn't survive a visit from "Monsieur Le Strap" either.
Every Saturday morning, we kids were given our "Last Supper" as it were, a little respite of leisure to watch our Saturday morning cartoons in peace and quiet, but at the stroke of noon... THIS contraption would wail its piercing screech throughout the house as if to herald in the Dark Age of Housecleaning! Mom was on a mission to get the weekly housecleaning chores done. And if we were so stupid to make ourselves available, we were immediately drafted into her Army of Ammonia Zonked Zombies, enslaved to the tasks of scrubbing toilets, mopping floors, Lemon Pledgeing (is that a verb?) wood-ish (it was the '70s, wood was often fake veneer) furniture, and, vacuuming with the Electikbroom.
This stick-style vacuum cleaner looks innocuous enough but (as I later surmised as an adult) it must have been marketed to people like my mother, budget-conscious (ie. Po' Folk) housewives since it probably cost far less than a traditional big vacuum cleaner. And they were built cheap too. I remember every fucking time you'd go to switch it on, the toggle style "on" switch would have very violent-looking sparks popping out from around its edges as it loudly snapped at you. Then the drone of it. On and on and on. Hearing it, even now, sends chills down my spine. If I had temporarily succeeded in hiding out when the Dark Hour fell, if this drone be heard, mother's yell could soon follow "MICHAEL... GET YOUR ASS DOWN HERE!" Then I was doomed to be chained to this monster for hours. Goodbye Saturday, I hardly knew ye!
The fact that all medical thermometers back then, oral, or, yes, even rectal, were of the glass and mercury kind, this could be the case. They could break.
I remember one time a thermometer had fallen from the medicine cabinet as I opened it and broke in the ceramic bathroom sink. After getting over the initial shock of what punishment I might face because of it (Would I get "The Strap?") I noticed the mercury solution had leaked out and balled up, like the image above. Cool, I thought. Let's touch it! Thankfully either my grubby little kid fingertips were too caked with grime or the beads of mercury too small, but the stuff didn't stick to my skin, they just rolled down the drain. I carefully picked up the shards of glass, balled them in some toilet paper and threw them in the trash, and spoke nothing about it. Oh I got "The Strap" alright. Not for accidentally breaking the thermometer, but for trying to cover it up. Of course mom found it in the trashcan.