Alarming new injury rates found

[exploited]

[NAB]

[Mo~]

I think the stick went just far enough. There was obviously damage.

Thing is you didn't have the internet and The Dept. of Family Services back when we were being nitwits. Now, kids can't do jack shit w/o everyone being on it like stink on a dog's butt.

I can't imagine what would happen today if my parents had let me go to my friend's house by charging down a hill on my bike through 3 cross streets in order to coast up one more hill to get to her street. Never got hit, which is a freaking miracle. My folks would take me on business trips and just give me a roll of quarters for the arcade and swimming pool and I run all over the hotels while they were at meetings. By the time I was 10 I could make connecting flights in Denver, Houston and California by myself and they quit having me escorted after I "got away" from one cause she was gonna cost me making the next flight.

Shit, if it was even revealed today that a kid my age was on her own near as much as I was you'd have every freaking "My babies are never outta my sight" moron screaming, "What kind of a mother" at my Mom and starting on-line petitions to get the cops out there "doing something about it". I mean, hell NAB, how could you're mother possibly claim to have loved you when she let you out of her sight long enough to even do all those things. Didn't she love you enough to wrap you up in cellophane and bubblewrap.

[exploited]

[Winchester]

My yougest son after a bike accident about 5 years ago. He healed... though he needed glasses shortly thereafter, his left eye is worse than his right.

[uebermann]

wow, ouch

[exploited]

Jesus

[Winchester]

It was a bit traumatic. We can laugh about it now. The pic was his after he went to the clinic and got it cleaned up btw which was fortunately open that day. He's had nothing to do with bikes since. He actually wanted to stay camping rather than go home.

Don't have any pictures of my other son when he knocked out his front teeth swinging on a rope whilst playing batman when he was 5, the mrs. freaked after cleaning up all the blood only to find them missing, then he got stung on the eyelid the day before he started kindergarden so his school career started with a swollen shut eye and missing his front teeth... fortunately the teacher knew us pretty well and didn't call social services, lol.

[Spider]

Looking back on childhood its a wonder half of us even survived. I've done backflips off a roof onto a trampoline, gone off insane bike jumps, jumped off cliffs into water I really couldn't be sure was deep enough...and done things on motorcycles that make me queasy just thinking back on. Then of course there was all the pyromania and heavily modified model rocketry...and the combinations of the two. And fireworks. And fireworks turned into bombs. And fireworks combined with aerosol cans in microwave ovens. And hefty bags filled up with O2 and acetylene detonated with bottle rockets. And any number of things done with cans of WD40. Fun times.

I should be seriously dead right now, as should all my partners in crime. Best not to worry too much about it.

[Professor]

OK, perhaps this is a good place for this discussion. I've tried with my parents, but I just don't think they get it. I really don't have any good opinion either way, but I at least understand both sides.

On one hand, we have the obvious arguement that kids benefit by being active, socializing with other kids, etc.

However, what if the majority of kids are the Xbox types. They aren't active. They socialize in video game chat rooms. They have thousands of FB friends, but only 2-3 real ones. They can socialize online, but are awkward in person. If the majority of kids fit that profile, and a minority are the active ones, what happens when they grow up?

Assume that these kids are now 40. They are running companies - or at least departments within the companies. They are managers. The majority of them might be awkward in person, but shine online. They are masters of computer networking with people, creating web presences, etc. But, the people who grew up playing outside lack these skills. They can go run a marathon, or are the popular guy in the breakroom, but lack when it comes to interacting with people at work.

I guess my question is - are you going to be more successful being the best at what most people are good at, or being the best at what few people are good at?