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THE LONG, LOVING MARRIAGE OF BOYS TO GUNS
Josey1
Member Posts: 9,598 ✭✭
THE LONG, LOVING MARRIAGE OF BOYS TO GUNS By DALE MCFEATTERS A YEAR INTO the new century and it's finally safe for small boys to come out from wherever it is they've been hiding since sometime in the 1960s. War toys are back.Retail reports say that this season's hot toys are various versions of GI Joe, along with assorted lethal accessories like machine guns and M-16s. The reason, of course, is the war in Afghanistan and the heroics of the Marines, carrier crews and special operations troops.Various feminist, education and feel-good groups who regard small males as aberrations in need of correction - "We share, we don't shoot" - are horrified but have no choice but to keep quiet. The public mood is pro-military.Long after V-E and V-J days, World War II continued to be fought among the ravines and row houses of my Pittsburgh neighborhood. On Saturdays, kids were thrown out of the house immediately after breakfast and told not to come back until lunch. After a swift lunch, the kids were shoved back out the door and told not to come home until dinner.Nobody worried if our play was creative or expressive or multicultural. That's what kids did. Go outside and play. Until we were old enough to play touch football and baseball, we played "guns." That's what it was called, just "guns." If this worried our parents, none of them ever said so. What would have horrified them was the idea of our staying inside on a nice day - "a little rain's not going to kill you" - and watching TV.Sometimes the German and Japanese soldiers were imaginary; sometimes we took turns being the bad guys, but it was understood that the villains' role was to be temporary.Sometimes we didn't even bother with a historical justification to shoot at one another. We divided into two teams. One side went off and hid in ambush while the other came looking for them. The local adults were unfazed by a wooden machine gun poking out from under the forsythia or an urchin stealthily inching along the garage wall with two guns drawn.The actual shooting was a couple of explosive sounds, our lame attempts to imitate gunfire, followed by, "You're dead!" If that happened today, the poor child would be whisked off to a lifetime of therapy. Back then, the intended victim was expected to clutch his chest and keel over in dramatic fashion. The victim could appeal the call and, if the complaint was deemed reasonable, allowed back in the game with "just a flesh wound." We had no idea what a flesh wound was.Any pile of rocks and old lumber or even a careful arrangement of trash cans became a "fort." We built more forts than the French kings, and even today, thanks to a keen eye for terrain developed as a 7-year-old, I sometimes observe to myself, "That would make a great place for a fort."It made for an exhausting day, but even at the end of it, the grimy little warriors were reluctant to disperse for dinner until the mandatory command for surrender, "If you don't get in here right this second. . ."On Christmas morning, I hope the little boys - and little girls, if they're so inclined - take their GI Joes and war toys outside and spend the day playing "Capture the Taliban." It will be more fun than a video game. Besides, a little rain won't kill you, but youthful inactivity may. * http://dailynews.philly.com/content/daily_news/2001/12/17/opinion/MCFE17E.htm
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