Weird train of thought on the ride into work today. Driving down some of the backroads I travel in my journey to my place of employment, the truck shuddered and lurched over the various potholes, frost heaves, and frozen ice in the roadway. As the Ram bounced, jounced, and otherwise shimmied around the road, my mind wandered back to a different time. I was riding in the back of my buddy's F-150, smoking a cigarette and letting the breeze flick the ashes off for me.
Then my memory wandered further back, to being about 10 years old and riding in the back of my grandfather's Chevy pick-up, my buddy Cliff with me, on our way to get ice cream on a hot summer's day. I remembered, clear as day some 20-mumble years later, looking up at the sky and watching the clouds seem to pace us as we drove down the road. We'd laugh at each other when we went under a tree branch and both jumped at the same time; our cloud-watching rudely interrupted by an over-reaching oak.
And then it hit me. I've got a pick-up truck, and my son will never know the feeling of the breeze in his hair on the way to the ice cream shop. He'll never sit in the back with his muddy bicycle after I have to come pick him up when he tries to jump the creek (Oh, I caught hell for that one...). Our overly litigious society has decreed it too dangerous to allow folks to ride in the back of a pick-up truck - no seat belts, you see, folks might sluice around too much. Might bounce right out and hit the pavement. Too many variables.
And that's sad right there.
That we've allowed the government to make our choices for us; that we've willingly granted them the power to take away our childhood memories makes me very sad - and very angry. Barring unprecedented longing for reclaiming liberty, I don't foresee us ever getting those freedoms back - I don't see a repeal of the seat belt laws (or helmet laws for that matter). I see us marching ever closer and closer to the Big Brother state envisioned by Mssr. Orwell so many years ago, where everything is taken care of by the state and nothing is left for the individual.
And I don't like it. I don't like it one bit...
That is all.
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We used to sit on the open tailgate going down the road, skipping our shoes off the road (those of us big enough to reach the ground), and ducking when my uncle let his chewing tobacco fly.
I remember fondly standing in the back on my uncle's pickup as he drove us around the neck in Marblehead, looking out over the cab of the truck, grabbing at the overhanging branches.
fun times
Here, you are free to ride in the back of a pickup. The more the merrier.
BUT... if you have a kid inside the car, you will get a ticket for not having a car seat.
You will also get a ticket for not wearing a seat belt inside the car.
Weird place, this is....
Oh I've done it before. I was just told to hide if I saw a cop car. Also packed into an SUV so full we had to open the rear hatch and let our feet hang out.
Of course the SUV was packed full of girls and I was drunk, so it seemed like an awesome idea at the time.....
Hell, Mike, sounds like an awesome idea now. =)
The future is not written. We are still the masters of our own destiny. Tyranny will only prevail if we let it.
Some of my fondest memories of my grandparents was jumping into the big bucket-seat back of their ocean-liner of an automobile (I forget what it was, but it was a behemoth), and rolling around in the back, somersaulting and bumping from door to door as my Grandfather took big sweeping turns around the neighborhood.
Now, under 55 lbs (or some such thing) and the child must be strapped with a belt attaching at X number of points, lighter than that and kids must be in a car seat, rear-facing, at an angle of no more than 48 degrees, etc. etc. etc.
Stupid and decidedly un-fun.
I remember falling out of the back of my friend's pickup when we were in high school. Received some road rash, and not sure I even told my folks. You hate to make them worry!
You've got the tools. Can't you just fit a couple of car seats and some 4 point safety harnesses so kids can still get the "wind in their hair" experience.
You need to relocate! They tried to ban riding in the bed of pickups but the rural legislators blocked it.
Also, we apparently have a motorcycle helmet law but it only applies to under 18YOs.
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