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The Molotov incident - Fate Fairies - book version
This entry was posted on 10/10/2011 2:00 AM and is filed under Fate Fairies:Fate Fairies - book version.
Tons of research has been done regarding the influence of media - television, news, movies - on kids and or people in general. Some of the studies are longitudinal that have lasted for decades. Others opportunistically besiege us during any particular new trend or event. Lately video games have been in the academic research cross-hairs. Back in my day, the Viet Nam War news coverage, and its connected domestic war protest coverage, and World War II movies were all good possible culprits for scrutiny.
Let me say, I hesitate telling this story, should readers feel ill of me, but in today's world of crack cocaine, meth labs, spousal abuse, perennial war, thieving Wall Street types, and general poor behavior by the public and government at large, my tale is nowadays mild.
Any one who grew up on a farm, especially an old dairy farm, knows there is a million things a kid can get himself injured with - old equipment, fuels, oils, rusty barbed wire, nails, sharp cutters, rusty tools, machines with blades, pesticides, high poorly secured places, lots of roofs, and unpredictable animals, to name but just a few.
Let us focus on the combination of the growing proliferation of television in the 1960s, the Viet Nam War news coverage, and those ubiquitous World War II movies, Somewhere repeated images of people throwing Molotov cocktails (flaming bottles of gasoline) was beginning to stick in my mind. There are the movies about the French Underground Resistance fighting the Nazis in World War II. The Viet Nam war protesters were filmed on the nightly news. And, images of "race riots" came out of Los Angels, New Jersey, and other American cities.
Take one 12 year old kid with time on his hands, with farm fuel at his disposal, and garbage cans full of old bottles next to the shed. And, a couple of likewise shenanigan-laden neighbor kids over for the summer day, vivid and innovative imaginations at the rapid development stage all around, and same said kids with impressionable characters - and we have a dandy recipe for a marginal disaster.
The thing that deconstructed our endeavor was good farm discipline. We lined up a half dozen old soda bottles out by the gavel driveway adjacent to the farm tractor gas pump. We neatly filled those bottles with gasoline, stuffed some old oil rages in the tops - just like the French Resistance - and then looked at each other.
No matches.
Some of the neighbor kids twelve years old and up, smoked cigarettes. None of the three of us did.
Where the hell are the matches?
To no avail anyway. It was too late. My Dad, the man who could cut you to pieces with just a glower, entered the fray.
"Jesus Christ!" The booming voice came closer as Dad stomped out from the barn. "What in the hell are you damn fools up to?"
A quick survey by said father and another admonishment boomed out, "You damned idiots do not have the brains you were born with. You will all kill yourselves."
Each bottle was quickly dumped in the weeds behind the shed - by us - as angry father stood sentry. The rags were thrown in the open trash barrel. The neighbor kids were summarily sent home with a phone call to parents who would be waiting for their unfortunate arrival and another round of admonishment.
I, well I got off rather easy I suppose, I was banished to the house for a couple summer days, that is until some hay had to be stacked or bailed or loaded. In the mean time I clicked on the old black and white television.
On popped the old movie The Train, with Burt Lancaster starring as French Underground fighter Paul Labiche trying to stop a train full of art treasures the Nazis have stolen from Paris. To create a diversion to distract the Nazis, one of Labiche's comrades stuffs a rag in the gas tank of a German Army truck and lights it on fire. He essentially turned the whole truck into a giant...., flaming Molotov cocktail.
Poetry.
Note: This blog "Fate Fairies" - book version Category is a work in progress. The original vignettes are being edited for book form. Go to the Cooldadiomedia Web site and the Fate Fairies Page for an ordered chronology of the book vignettes (chapters).
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