Up Your Nose

C and I have taken a couple of four- and five-mile bike rides lately. Not all that far for me, but it must seem like quite a trek for him. After the first one, I thought to myself, He should probably be wearing a helmet. And then I said out loud to him, "Your mom is going to say you should have a helmet on."

Then we went on our second ride and he didn't wear a helmet. I felt guilty. My feelings of guilt were mostly prompted by his new haircut. I don't know what Sam was thinking, but this is anything but Fantastic. He should have had a helmet on if only to protect the rest of us from witnessing his "style."

I never wore a helmet as a kid. And that certainly wasn't neglect or poor parenting, we just didn't wear helmets back then. All I was doing was riding a bicycle, nothing dangerous.

At some point, though, it became important for children to be safer and I'm wondering about the statistics of death and serious injury back then versus now. I'm sure they're out there on the Google somewhere. Maybe I'll look later.

Things couldn't be that much more dangerous now. I'm not that old, I was born in 1970. Could it have been so bad in the '70s?

You know what was bad in the '70s? Welcome Back, Kotter was bad. Last week, WGN, one of the channels on our 4-channel package from Comcast, was showing several Kotters back to back, including the pilot. In my mind, this show was hilarious, and I can remember watching it as a kid with my mom when we lived on Central Avenue. I watched it again the other night thinking that if it was as funny, and wholesome, as I remember, then I'd NetFlix the DVDs for The Quartet.

Good thing I previewed that show. It's fairly tame compared to prime-time today, but boy is it bad. Had I been aware of the lame jokes and canned laughter as a child, I'm sure I would've gone out, jumped on my bike and ridden out into Central. With no helmet, of course.