July 4th weekend always brings back my childhood fear of going blind.
Before I started worrying about nuclear war and cancer (which I thought I’d get because I ate Reddi Whip right from the spray can), I freaked out about losing my eyesight.
There were 3 influences:
1) Little House on the Prairie. Nothing scared me like the “Mary Goes Blind” story arc. It ended up happy for her because she met a hot guy in Blind School, an instructor named Adam, but I never thought finding a husband was worth having those blank, Little Orphan Annie eyes. The cause was scarlet fever, however I thought it was from eye strain. I got confused by a scene where Mary knocked over her reading lantern and started a fire, yelling, “Pa, Pa, I can’t see!” She did that because she was blind, but in my mind I switched around the cause and effect. I thought she went blind because of reading from a poor light source.
2) An old, blind guy named Leo who sold us all our magazine subscriptions. A neighbor in our building would throw an annual party for him, where everyone could come, eat Zabars cold cuts, and buy a year’s worth of The New Yorker or Reader’s Digest from the blind guy near the front door. He did business at a little card table. I remember his very dry fingers and his dark, dark glasses. He was nice, but he scared me. The way he didn’t look right at you when he talked to you. And, though I thought any exchange of goods for cash was super cool, something depressed me about his selling magazine subscriptions. Maybe I had a sense that publishing would one day be dead.
2) A book called “Follow My Leader” that I found for 10 cents at a yard sale in Connecticut when I was around nine. And this is why I link blindness with Independence Day: It was about a kid who goes blind from a firecracker. He has to go to blind school and get a guide dog and learn Braille. I can’t believe people buy and use their own fireworks. Clearly, they need a copy of this book. Since I read it, I run backwards whenever fireworks go off, even if they’re miles away on a Macy’s barge in the river. I’m not going blind because of someone’s 4th of July carelessness, thank you.
Now you.
Do you know any blind people?
Do you let your kids use firecrackers?
What did you used to worry about when you were a kid?
TELL ME IN THE COMMENTS.
OMG. This book has been on my mind for the past 10 years and I could NOT remember what it was called.
I distinctly remembered reading a book when I was a kid about a boy who went blind from (irresponsibly) playing with firecrackers with his friends, and it seems I wasn’t the only one haunted by it!
I don’t even know why it keeps coming to mind – even when there aren’t any firecracker occasions abound – but it does! Eep.
OMG. Just surfing around your site, and was drawn in by the Little House on the Prairie blind bit. Seriously was scared to death by the Mary going blind episode too, and I vividly remember the lantern/fire scene. However, this didn’t make me fear blindness, but rather fire… which was further fueled by the fire at the blind school episode, which I watched solo because my mom was in the next room with her bridge club. Thanks for instilling terror in an 8 year old, Little House. 🙂
“Follow My Leader” was a book that was read to the students in my first grade class way back in 1978. All I remembered of the story was the kid going blind because of a firecracker.
I lost my hearing on the right side about 6 years ago. Which is now my excuse to being the loud Puerto Rican. And saying I didn’t hear you. I just woke up with no hearing and tinnitus.
Now you’ll wonder if it could happen to you. But you’re already worry about your sight.
Evelyn, doesn’t being a loud Puerto Rican hurt your Airbnb business? Your guests have to get to sleep sometime, right?
Also, is there another kind of Puerto Rican than a loud one? I know Jews comes in only two volumes: loud and louder. Some Jews are quiet, but mostly they’re conversos.
If this question offends you, Evelyn, blame Laura, not me. Once again, she’s asking me to write rude. So I am.
I hope your bomba is still well greased and smooth movin’.
Kind of funny that you seek me out to let me know about your comment. Not offended at all. Because of my deafness my friends let me know if I’m being a bit too loud, which for a Puerto Rican means screaming, my excuse is my lack of hearing.
That must be why we got along so well on the phone. You were screaming, and it sounded like regular talking because I can’t hear for shit.
Also, you should check out Giovanni Hidalgo, Puerto Rican super conga player.
I’m told his name means “Giovanni Somebody Big and Important,” and man oh man, he is.
Especially his Super Tumba in his signature line by LP.
Though some address me as conguero and bongosero, I’m not even a caballero when it comes to the percussive arts. My tumbao is as rusty as an old hoe in the rain.
Why Peter Schwartz, are you a salsa/mambo fan? Jews + salsa are like cream cheese and lox.
You know I just googled “could I go deaf.” My husband has tinnitus. What a thing to have going on in your ear 24/7. I don’t know how he (and you) aren’t insane.
I’m with you up to a point, David Belgray, and that point is cream soda. There we part ways. In what bizzarro-world version of the USA do you dwell, that you are permitted to adulterate perfectly decent hot dogs, crackerjacks and cheese sticks with the vile brew known as cream soda?
Chiming in weeks later to say: cream soda — it’s a Jew thing. So is that Cel-ray soda business.
Uh oh. I’m probably the parent who put that poor light source thought into your head. I’m sure I said, “You’ll ruin your eyesight in that light.”
When I was a kid, I worried about World War ii related events. No . . . not the bombs or the enemy. I knew that “loose lips sink ships,” and I certainly didn’t have lips that jiggled, so I was safe. I worried that my aunt would get put in jail because she made fudge and had exceeded her sugar ration (but I sure liked the fudge). And I worried that during the blackouts we would be in trouble if light shone through the blackout shades.. Probably all unimaginable to anyone under 75.
What you said was, “If you could see the muscles in your eyes right now, you’d never read like that again.” Man, if only we had sugar rations now. We’d all be so much healthier. Except those of us with naughty aunts.
So I did the experiment.
Sat in my favorite reading chair and closed my eyes and just felt the room.
My tactile, smelling, and hearing senses listened to the quiet of the room. It made me think that I might be more present to the present if I lost my eyesight, but could still hear.
It’s possible the deaf are more cut off from the world than the blind.
Cherry bombs…M-80s…are fading way, way back into my yut. Throwing them into ponds to “go fishing” was one of the more dubious pranks boys just love.
Hunting for things to blow up–anything that would destruct into splinters–was the only agenda item for the evening.
There was a string of tiny firecrackers you could hold in your hand and have them pop, pop, pop in quick succession. That was pretty cool. They may have been called lady slippers.
Inhaling the smell of the exploded gun powder was akin to smelling the sweet mixture of newly dug dirt and heavy grease on the hydraulic arms of heavy earth-moving equipment.
I always wonder if blind people have better luck in love, because the superficial stuff doesn’t figure into their checklist. Like in the movie “Mask,” where Laura Dern fell for mongo-faced Eric Stolz.
Important addendum:
Ain’t we lucky to be celebrating July 4 in this country, a nation still striving against oddball opposition to inculcate the ideas upon which July 4 exists. Freedom of speech, beliefs and just being me as I am. Unique in the history of the world. No compulsory attendance at rallies which serve the privileged – or the underclass. Just to be proud of who you are and what you think.
Preposterous in the history of man/womankind. And we have a President who strives
toward these goals every day, probably the #1 President when you tally the number of laws, regulations, and ideals which he has not only supported but also promulgated.
Go BARACK!
And when you eat hot dogs, crackerjacks and Cheese Sticks, downing it with cream soda, please think about what enabled you to celebrate with good reason (& taste)
David C Belgray July 5, 2015
Glad to know there’s one other supporter still out there.
Dad, happy you can still celebrate this country and its freedoms even when AOL is trying to kill us all! xo
This July 4, a guy in Maine died because he set off fireworks from the top of his head. Ya think any alcohol was involved?
Late response here: I saw that and wondered just how much booze or drugs it would take to make someone that stupid. Natural selection at its best.
Oh, right, and if I HAD to choose, I’d keep my eyesight (although I’d prefer the new updated 100% better version). Hard choice for me since my son is a musician so I’d never be able to listen to him again. I am an artisan so my sight and my hands are my main tools. (My brain is too, but you didn’t give us that choice, Laura. Fortunately.)
Since I walk around with buds in my ears and don’t hear anything anyway, I’d keep my sight for sure. I can’t imagine not seeing. I’m amazed by people who get around with those canes. What a feat to exist in the world without seeing what you’re doing or where you’re going.
As for blindness because of fireworks. yep, unfortunately, I do have a story to tell. My mom’s neighbor’s son got blinded in one eye because of fireworks on July 4th. This happened about 15 – 20 years ago. He was a teen at the time and apparently the friend’s parents were there, too, so it was NOT just some “dumb teen” thing. As a result, the guy became a spokesman for prohibiting home fireworks (versus seeing the awesome professional stuff during the holidays).
Hard to give up either one, but I’ll reluctantly take deafness.
Missing out on all that music would be pretty hard–even though the big, honking beat would still come through.
We all know that the little boy went blind because he touched himself you-know-where. He had to make up the firecracker story so that his parents wouldn’t disown him. Had he just eaten more cold cereal (cf http://mentalfloss.com/article/32042/corn-flakes-were-invented-part-anti-masturbation-crusade), all would have been well and there would have been no book, no dog, and no need to learn Braille.
LOL I just read that cornflakes article recently, too! Glad you mentioned it again since I love food trivia.
Forgive me for not replying immediately to the most fascinating trivia ever. I never knew that. I wonder if Cookie Crisp works just as well.