The combination of inexperience
, not being fit
, 57 year old reaction times
, an 83CR250 Husky
on a modern MX track has seen me with a #ucked left shoulder :'(, and surgery and at least the rest of this year "on the sidelines", will be a chance to get the bikes spot on and to let my son have a ride (if he can point himself in the right direction
), and I was beginin' to think an old MG would be nice for Sunday drives when good friends kick in with positive reminders of how good it is to be on the bike and on the line, and then I read this in the Oz and resolve is now my middle name...
Where have all the heroes and risk-takers gone? Gone to soft-fall playgrounds every one
by: CASSANDRA WILKINSON
From: The Australian
April 06, 2012 12:00AM
THE free and bountiful country we enjoy today was built by people who weren't afraid to get dirty, hurt or disappointed. But as a society, we have been legislating against our natural appetite for risk as if the world no longer needed bravery, adventure or ambition.
I often hear people say, "I don't want to live in a country that doesn't make things any more." I don't want to live in a country that doesn't break things any more.
In 2010, friends, family and fans of Aussie stunt motorcyclist Dale Buggins celebrated what would have been his 50th birthday at the cemetery where he was laid to rest 29 years ago. Buggins cemented his legend on May 28, 1978, when at 17 he broke Evel Knievel's world jumping record, soaring over 25 cars at the Newcastle Motordome. Thirty years later, in January 2008, another young Aussie legend, Robbie Maddison, also inspired by Knievel, took a crack at the world record by launching his bike 100m across a field at the Rio Hotel in Las Vegas. He made it. Then he turned his bike around and did it again.
Knievel inspired thousands of kids to leap from roofs into swimming pools; he was an inspiration for cape-clad adventures on dragsters and downhill races on boxes strapped to skateboards. During my childhood in the 1970s, Knievel was the living embodiment of the fearless spirit of youth.
Last year the 1.2m plastic slippery dip was closed at my son's school because of safety concerns. I argued unsuccessfully to have it reopened but was told that after several accidents it was too stressful for the teachers to supervise this dangerous play equipment.
Looking into the facts on behalf of my son, I realised that slippery dips are not the only symbols of my childhood being consigned to the recycling bin of history. Trampolines, skates and bicycles are increasingly regulated, and solitude, adventure and danger are as foreign to many kids now as adult supervision was to my peers.
There are good reasons to worry that we have got the balance wrong for today's kids. The victory of caution over common sense not only takes the fun out of childhood; it's taking the bravery and responsibility out of adulthood.
It's not only children who are treated like weaklings and simpletons in our bubble-wrap nation; adults are increasingly infantilised, too. Every day we get more rules about how we make our money, how we rear our kids, how we spend our time, the kinds of fun we're allowed to have and what we can do with or in our own homes.
A common cry of revolt in the playground of my youth was: "You're not the boss of everyone", usually with a derogatory hand gesture for good measure. As an adult, I find too many people are the boss of me for reasons they rarely bother to defend.
It makes no sense for us to put up with this. The great Australians we admire, the people who make us proud, delight our senses, grow the national wealth, build our international reputation, feed our dreams and inspire us to be better people are risk-takers. They are thrill-seekers. They are each in their own way daredevils like Buggins.
Why do Australians love the lone sailors, the streakers, AC/DC, Chrissie Amphlett and, God help me, Bob Katter? Because we still salute the people who are not afraid to get dirty, hurt, embarrassed or bankrupted to chase their dreams and bend the future to their will.
Most of the big rules are made by government. Government is run, staffed, lobbied, campaigned against and commented on by mostly mild-mannered, middle-class people concerned to propagate a mild, middle-class way of life. We seem to think we have the luxury of going soft. We don't.
Billions of people across the world don't share our way of life.
While Burma shows closed societies can open, it's historically as common for free societies to close. To preserve the freedom and prosperity that has made us soft, we need to harden up.
Where to start? Maybe with a simple instruction to the next person who wants another fence or helmet or licence or law to "harden up, princess".
Dale and Robbie both rode motorbikes from the age of four.
"I'm not normal; I broke the traditional thinking threshold when I jumped 120 feet on my KX-60 at eight years old," Maddison said.
For sure, we can't all be Maddison: he's incredible.
But only because his parents didn't tell him: "We can't all be Evel Knievel."
