My how times have changed.
As often happens between parents and their children, remnants of their past are passed along from one generation to the next.
When I was in my early teen years, my father gave me a number of items he accumulated in his younger years.
Among the items was a leather handkerchief box. I’m sure you’d be hard pressed to find one of these in any store other than an antique dealer. And, even then I’m sure they’d be rare.
So, all of these years, I’ve held on to these relics and the stories my father shared.
For a number of years, I’ve been searching through boxes in our attic to find that handkerchief box, because I knew there was one item that was a timely reference with respect to the Fillmore County Fair.
I finally found what I was looking for this past Thursday morning when we were on deadline to go to press with this week’s issue of the newspaper.
I recalled a small knife in a sheath that my father gave me. The knife, from end to end, measured 3.75 inches in length. Not a big knife, but nonetheless a knife.
My father told me how he won that knife at the Fillmore County Fair at one of the carnival games. He figured he was around 10 years old at the time, so it would have been in the late 1950s.
He told me this story in about 1987, and I didn’t think twice about him winning a knife at that Fillmore County Fair.
Fast-forward to 2017, and what a world of difference.
If a 10-year-old received a knife of this sort as a prize at the Fillmore County Fair today, what would happen?
A child would most likely be expelled or at least suspended from school for possessing this knife.
And, you would absolutely never make it on an airplane with this sharp carnival prize.
The story of this 3.75-inch long knife prompts me to reflect on how much our society has changed.
Back in the 1950s, did any of the kids winning these prized knives ever get in trouble as a result of carrying these dangerous “toys”? Or, was there a different mentality back then? Was there less of a concern about kids using these knives with bad intentions? There must have been a great amount of trust in our youth.
I’ve often heard from older generations that if they ever got in trouble with the law when they were younger, they would have rather gone to jail than go home because they knew the punishment they received from their parents would be much worse. Namely, fathers were referenced with a heavy hand. This was back when belts were used for more than just holding up dad’s pants.
Did kids respect authorities and their parents more back then compared to nowadays? Some of these questions may be rhetorical.
To some people, the idea of giving a child a knife would be absurd. But, I guess it all depends on how you look at it.
Does this child respect authority, and particularly their parents? Are they mature enough to understand this responsibility? Do they understand the serious consequences of poor decisions?
Certainly, we live in different times.
But, I guess this 3.75-inch long knife being handed over to a 10-year-old child (my father) at the Fillmore County Fair as a carnival game prize makes me wonder how our society is performing in the parenting department. Are we doing a better job of parenting today than generations of the past?
So, I’ll ask this question again.
If a 10-year-old received a knife of this sort as a prize at the Fillmore County Fair today, what would happen?
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