Bounce house

“A lot of screaming”

Have you ever heard old people remark about how they can’t believe they survived their youth? They say stuff like that out of jealousy over the amount of attention and mollycoddling some kids get nowadays.

When I was a kid, I had it tough. I ran barefoot over broken glass, carrying a pointy stick in my hand. My mom yelled stuff like, “Get outta here! Go out and play!” never putting restrictions on what we might do or where we might go.

The important thing to note is that we survived being young. And for the first time in my life, I know how we managed it. Are you ready? When I was a kid, there was no such thing as a portable bounce house.

Last week at the Fall Festival our church sponsored, we invited any and all. My estimate was somewhere near a billion children. The event was scheduled to start at four and end at six. The crowd started gathering at 3:30. I don’t know when the thing ended. It was 5:30 when I took Kay to the emergency room, and the crowd was still growing at that time.

A couple of you may recall that I was in charge of the cakewalk at the event, while Kay was responsible for policing one of the bounce houses. The cakewalk went off without a hitch. After the last cake was given a home, I went over to check on Kay at the bounce house. I was just in time, for a really bad time.

Kay was in charge of the poorest thought-out bounce house ever to hold air. It was a long contraption that had a steep bluff at the midway point. The kids entered up front where Kay was located, bounced and wrestled, and then climbed an incline to a bluff overlooking the back portion. Once they reached the bluff, they could either jump to the bouncy place below, or climb down the wall using little handheld thingees.

Without asking about how the cakewalk went, Kay instructed me to take charge of the back portion of the contraption, which, incidentally, also served as the exit. “Take charge?” That’s every bit as demonstrative as “Get out!” and “Go play!”

There is something parents should know about bounce houses. Once inside, your child loses all sense of propriety. In other words, your kid goes nutsy kookoo. They start screaming. Oh, the screaming. Kids try to hurl their bodies in ways they were not meant to be hurled. They start wrestling and jumping over and on one another. All the while screaming. Did I mention there is a lot screaming?

There were a few kids, a precious few, who tried to control others. They even chose to follow the instructions of the guy at the exit who was yelling at them to “Stop it!” If any of you want to discover the true character of your child, stick him or her into a bounce house with about 20 other kids, and observe. I saw about 3 kids I thought I could successfully parent.

I had been through about as much as I could handle when Kay came around  to tell me that a big kid on my side was shoving people off the bluff. I told her it was the ninja turtle guy, and I had already had words with him.

Kay immediately went back to her station up front, and it wasn’t two minutes before Jeffrey, one of the event supervisors, walked up and told me that Kay needed me. Needed me? What she needed was stitches inside her nose. Kay had tripped over one of the sandbags holding down the bounce house, and landed on her face. She managed to brace her full-frontal flop with her hands which are attached to her thin, weak wrists.

There are some people in life that you want near you during emergencies. Jim Kuykendall, mayor of Oak Ridge North, is one of ‘em. He quickly explained the situation and told me to get my car and maneuver it up the curb, and across the grass where it would be married to the pavilion. Jim practically carried Kay to the car, and I drove her to the emergency room.

I could write another article or two about our 5 hour stay in the emergency room, but I’ll spare you. Kay did get a ct-scan and had the nicest, most thorough doctor for which anyone could hope. He said Kay had no broken bones. She chipped some teeth, took a hit to the noise and would be sore for a couple of weeks. Other than that, she was good to go. Then he hurried away to the next unfortunate soul who had ended the day in the emergency room at Herman Memorial Hospital on a Saturday night.

There was quite the assortment of injured and sick people in the emergency room. Kay and I visited with a bunch of them. We certainly had the time to do so. It was not an enjoyable five hours, but I think we’re both better for the experience. I like to think those who shared time with us could say the same.

As for the bounce house, I’ve got to tell you that if they had those things when I was a kid, Dennis and I would’ve ended up walking crooked for the rest of our unnatural lives. That’s because when I was young there was none of that mollycoddling.

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You can contact Mark at hayter.mark@gmail.com. “The Summer of 1976” is still available on e-book at Amazon Books.