Excerpt from a longer essay about hearing aids
the hearing aids piece is taking longer to write than i expected
Later, what it eventually reminded me of was something no one probably does anymore. Taking a metal tub, we unsupervised Gen-X kids would then invert the tub, trapping an airspace, and manage to submerge it to the bottom of a swimming pool, and then dive down underneath to pop up into the trapped air pocket. With room only for two kids at best, the secret grotto would fill with the sound of our breathing bouncing off the tub’s walls, mixing in with the water, which itself was gently roiling about and lapping against and bouncing off the tub’s galvanized steel---the water and our breathing ping-ponging in the sealed space, forcing itself into our ears, and somehow further. All of us were completely removed from the adults, who even if they knew where we were, would have not a care about what we were doing so long as we were home at 6 p.m. for dinner.1 My sense is that no one under forty has done this, and wisely so.
Just as we look at ancestors and wonder at the barbarity, I can tell you that yes, drinking out of a sunned-hot garden hose in the middle of a hot summer was a real thing. We would make sure to run the water until it ran cool and no, no one died from it. We were locked out of our houses and given one of the few clear directives we would ever receive from our parents, which was not to be seen or heard from until it was dinner time. In hindsight, this may have been how Gen-X developed their steely self-sufficiency and reserve. In some ways, it is something I wish I had done for my kids. I am under no delusions that my parents had developing our character and moral fortitude in mind, but just needed some time to themselves. As hard as it is to believe, there were no smartphones back then (for someone who has experienced both epochs, trying to explain the concept to my kids or coworkers is like someone trying to describe the time before the invention of fire.) Because we kids had not already narcotized ourselves, we were a real and palpable presence to our parents and could not easily be dealt with. Remember prior to this, most kids were in the fields working. Heck, to be precise, even until the late 1970s and 80s, one of the few ways to make some cash as a kid was to work the cornfields detasseling corn—pulling the tassels off the tall corn stalks to prevent cross-pollination. For a few miserable weeks, most kids went around sunburnt, healing from cuts acquired from razor-sharp corn leaves they had to walk through from dawn to dusk, generally looking like participants in the Hunger Games. Which is to say, our parents needed some space and time for themselves and by forcing us out into the open world, they did us a service. I think this is how I would explain it to my kids if I had ever tossed them out of the house, locked the doors, and said fend for you and yourn until supper. I can still remember Mark’s mom, standing on their second-story raised patio and ringing a large, triangle-shaped metal dinner bell, like she was calling in cowboys from the range. By convention, six o’clock was when everyone ate in the neighborhood because that’s when Mark’s mom said it was dinner time. The thought that it could be otherwise never even entered anyone’s head. I always remembered that sound carrying throughout the entire neighborhood, signaling the end of hostilities as it were. All I can tell you is that if and when the Zombie apocalypse comes, find the Gen-Xers who’ve been MacGyvering this shit since they were eight years old.