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Reflections

Banning 'Stinks and Bangs'

by Ralph R. Reiland,
Professor of Free Enterprise

Whatever happened to Rocky and Bell?" I asked Scott Simmons, co-owner of Simmons Farm in McMurray, Pa.

Rocky and Bell were the two humongous draft horses, trimmed with ribbons and bells, that every fall pulled the bouncing, swaying hayride wagons through the pumpkin patches at the farm. But they've been replaced by a tractor.

The trip's still fun, with apple cider, a petting zoo, a corn maze, a nature trail and a hay maze. But Rocky and Bell have gone the way of seesaws and chemistry sets, deemed too risky in today's America.

"The insurance company wouldn't cover the horses," explained Simmons. "Nothing ever happened. You could set off a firecracker by those horses and they wouldn't do anything." But still, to an insurance company, a tractor is far more predictable than the possibility of a runaway horse.

Everyone is concerned about risks, especially when it comes to kids. But cautiousness can be overdone. On Gifted Exchange, a blog about gifted children and parenting, Laura Vanderkam asked this question: "What do Intel co-founder Gordon Moore, Internet guru Vint Cerf and Hewlett-Packard co-founder David Packard have in common?"
The answer: "Besides their later tech accomplishments, all spent their childhoods blowing things up with chemistry sets. And unfortunately, they may be the last generation."

Vanderkam, a member of USA Today's board of contributors, quotes Nobel Prize in chemistry winner Roald Hoffmann: "There's no question that stinks and bangs and crystals and colors are what drew kids -- particularly boys -- to science. Now the potential for stinks and bangs has been legislated out."

Instead, a kid with today's sanitized chemistry set learns how to make soap and watch rust. "The new Mr. Wizard Science Set comes with only five chemicals, including laundry starch. Ho hum," writes Vanderkam. "Imagine the lawsuits a real chemistry set could inspire."

Ted McGuire, head of Thames & Kosmos, a toy company with the slogan "Science Every Day," concurs: "A lot of retailers are afraid to carry a real chemistry set now because of liability concerns."

With no shortage of ads from law firms drawing attention to chemistry sets as a target for litigation, the fear among America's retailers isn't unfounded. From both Layman, Layman & Robinson in Seattle and Jackson & Wilson in California, for instance, there's the same word-for-word highlighting of their field of specialization: "Recreational products, including bicycles, motorcycles, chemistry sets, power boats, trampolines and treadmills."

After surveying the nation's playgrounds, the National Program for Playground Safety, funded by the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, issued the following conclusion: "We are generally unhappy with most of the results, but two low-scoring areas are of particular concern. Children were observed playing on equipment without adult supervision 19 percent of the time, and only 10 percent of the country's playgrounds had rules posted. Further, only 41 percent had age-appropriate areas, and even more disturbing, only 6 percent had signage indicating whether equipment is designed for age-appropriate areas (2-5; 5-12)."

I used to play in a creek in the woods behind my house with no supervision, no signage. I got there most days by flying through the air on an age-inappropriate monkey vine.

Today, finger guns (kids using their fingers as imaginary guns) are considered a playground problem, for fear of inspiring a Columbine wannabe.

In Texas, the Arlington school district put wood chips in 35 playgrounds to cushion the kids who fell off the slides and jungle gyms. It worked until a surveillance video showed no one around and the chips catching fire by way of spontaneous combustion.

On the more adult level, Marvin and Goldie Smith, 83 and 78, respectively, sued their downstairs condo neighbor, Shannon Peterson, a special education teacher, for "the reckless and negligent use of her bathtub."

A son of the Smiths, lawyer Sheldon Smith, ordered Peterson to "stop running water before 8 a.m.," claiming in a letter that her "intransigence and tortuous conduct have resulted in incredible sleep deprivation for Mr. and Mrs. Smith."

"Your obstinacy has ruled the day," Sheldon Smith declared. "That will now cease."

"I've had maintenance men remove all my tile and insulate the pipes," said Ms. Peterson. "I've had sound engineers measure the noise in my unit and others in the building. Nothing's abnormal."

A quote seems applicable, attributed to Benjamin Franklin: "Those who would give up essential liberty to purchase a little temporary safety deserve neither liberty nor safety."

--- Ralph R. Reiland is an associate professor of economics at Robert Morris University in Pittsburgh.

Ralph R. Reiland
Phone: 412-884-4541
E-mail: rrreiland@aol.com

"Ralph R. Reiland is the B. Kenneth Simon Professor of Free Enterprise at Robert Morris University, the owner Amel's Restaurant, and a columnist with the Pittsburgh Tribune-Review."