Because of this picture, manly games like lawn darts have been tainted with effeminacy. Strraight men will never play with these again, which will further erode the presence of strong masculine role models for children and hasten the decline of traditional marriage. Good work Dan.
You can lose an eye with these things! And I love them and the photo! Awesome - we attached firecrackers to ours when tossing them to the rings across the yard.
I'm shocked Dan, this is clearly part of your sinister gay agenda, how long before your "son" takes one of those lawn darts to school with him and commits the next lawn dart massacre?!
Um, why? I mean, sure, they're fun - but the CPSC had a definite point; they're goddam weapons. Why not have him play with assegais, or handguns, while you're at it? What's wrong with sticking to frisbees, or boule?
@31: ... I may have a lot of brain damage, but I remember playing catch with lawn darts when I was a kid. My brothers and I somehow managed to live through it. They definitely hurt (kill?) if you do it wrong (underhand goodish, overhand bad), but I feel like you're not going to maim someone without a little bit of effort. Then again we were complete dumb-asses (as is everyone at that age) and probably just got really lucky.
When I was a kid my mom worked in a hospital. One day a kid was brought into the ER with a lawn dart iembedded in the side of his head. I've never been able to shake that image. So...I'm glad you're all having fun and everything but... dang those look sharp!
Wonderful timing. I just finished The Commitment today and this must be from that era. When I got to your mother's big speech near the end, I cried. Now I'll shed tears along with you each time you mark the anniversary here.
Funny how easy it is to get lawn darts banned but congress can't even ban high capacity clips for rifles. If only the lawn dart lobby was a powerful as the NRA........
The Future Mrs. Dr. Awesome wishes our outdoor reception/party to be an awesomely great time, filled with booze and all the country hijinks she remembers from childhood. Horseshoes, volleyball, and lawn darts.
Please, Dan, may we borrow your mother's lawn darts in, say, August?
Everybody mentions eyes... my recollection of the 20/20 or whatever story on their banning involved the horrific fact that they produce enough concentrated force on the metal point to easily penetrate the *SKULL*. Gah.
Funny how so many people think the problem was getting poked in the eye. It's the head, not the eyes. They fly up and come straight down, with a sharp metal tip pointed right at the top of your skull. The metal part weighed at least a quarter pound, half a pound almost. They go right through your skull into your brain, almost as if they were designed for it.
The Anarchists Cookbook has a suggestion for making something like this to terrorize large crowds. Sick.
When I was the age DJ appears to be in this photo (1970's) everything that is illegal now was legal. Nobody fucking had bicycle helmets, for fuck's sake, or skateboarding helmets (or if they did, nobody wore 'em). My mum drove us all the way up to Vermont and Quebec from Boston every year, smoking her head off along the way, in an airbag-less car in which none of us wore seatbelts, or if we did, it was those pathetic little lap belts (don't think shoulder belts existed then), which in some ways were more dangerous than no belt because in a rear end accident, the snapping of your lower back could you paralyzed, or so we later heard. Back then, nobody freaking had nannies, either. My mother worked - my dad had died when I was 4 - and I was the first kid home from school by a few hours each day, and was a total latchkey kid even at that age. (Actually, there was no key- we left the doors open 24/7). The neighbors looked out for us (and of course corrected us and told on us if we were being little shits) when my mum wasn't around, and old Mrs McGoldrick across the road would sometimes make me peanut butter and butter sandwiches until she got home. Different world. Different universe, really. Sigh.
Chefgirl@38, if your friend was Dom Leone, then I'm very sorry for your loss (and mine; he was a freakin' genius).
Re lawn darts, we were too poor to afford them, but we enjoyed a good game of mumblety-peg:
Version 1: Two people stand across from each other, feet shoulder's width apart. Each player takes turns throwing an open pocket-knife into the dirt as close as possible to the other person's foot. Moving your foot in terror meant you lost.
Version 2 (aka 'stretch'): Same set-up, but each person tries to sink the knife as close to his or her own feet as possible. With each throw, the player moves one foot to the place where the knife stuck into the ground. The game is over when one player falls over.
After watching Aliens (1986), we also started playing that "knife game" where you put one hand palm down, fingers spread, and use the other hand to stab a knife quickly back and forth between your fingers. Or you can turn it into "Chicken" by daring someone else to stay still while you play the "knife game" on their hand.
(I'm just saying that people figured out how to have fun with sharps even before bundt-cake wielding gay dads promoted lawn darts on indecent websites.)
Must remember to ask my aunt if she still has my grandparent's Jarts (brand lawn darts). I guess we didn't have enough imagination to use them for anything other than their intended purpose.
Meh, my parents were more worried when they found us up on the roof, after dad taught us how to use the ladder. But not too worried, it was a ranch, after all (and then when we moved to the 2-story, you could climb out onto the patio roof from my bedroom window..still only one floor up, and I guess their thought was that we'd find any places that needed repaired right quick)...
Me and the sibs played with them when we were young. Even then I knew these fuckers were dangerous.
For real fun me and the older brother would stockpile objects in our mini forts in the rec room , turn out the lights and hurl them at each other. Bonus weapon was the metal darts from the heavy metal dart guns our dear father gave us. You could load them in the barrel then remove the rubber tip. Ah memories.
I was thinking about lawn darts yesterday. We used to play with them all the time when growing up. We never had any accidents and I come from a family of 8. My brother and I were pretty crazy with many things but with Lawn Darts we never had the urge to do anything stupid with them.
Cool picture Dan.
This picture makes me homesick to see my kid. She turned 37 this week and lives twelve hundred miles away. I see her on Facebook a couple of times a week but its not enough. She was younger than D.J. when I met her other dad. Now we're grandpas. She had a red tee-shirt like D.J. when we took her to the beach for the first time, back when she was 8 years old. We walked in the surf and she would not get any further than ankle deep because the motion of the water scared her. Then a big wave came in really quickly and knocked her over and scared the living crap out of her. After she collected herself, she made a basket out of her shirt and started loading it with sea shells. I snapped a picture of her - soaked to the bone, but so happy with her treasures, standing there on the beach and smiling. I had the picture enlarged to about 15X20 and it stayed on my wall for 25 years. I gave it to her when she moved to Texas.
Only 90 percent though.
"Because they were banned, 5280 gives them out to trick-or-treaters every Halloween".
Thank you.
Have you found him a recruiter yet?
I'm converting! I'm converting right now and I'm never fathering Catholic babies again!
We should be dead from that time we tried to combine the two...
BTW, I thought you had an unwritten rule that you never posted pics of DJ's face online. Have you abandoned that rule? Was it only my imagination?
Hey, a link! http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=P4UnpbWM-…
Lawn Dart - Ed's Redeeming Qualities. Album: More Bad Times
I just wish I could say the same thing about his dad.
Please, Dan, may we borrow your mother's lawn darts in, say, August?
[/sarcasm]
What a super sweet picture of you guys.
The Anarchists Cookbook has a suggestion for making something like this to terrorize large crowds. Sick.
When I was the age DJ appears to be in this photo (1970's) everything that is illegal now was legal. Nobody fucking had bicycle helmets, for fuck's sake, or skateboarding helmets (or if they did, nobody wore 'em). My mum drove us all the way up to Vermont and Quebec from Boston every year, smoking her head off along the way, in an airbag-less car in which none of us wore seatbelts, or if we did, it was those pathetic little lap belts (don't think shoulder belts existed then), which in some ways were more dangerous than no belt because in a rear end accident, the snapping of your lower back could you paralyzed, or so we later heard. Back then, nobody freaking had nannies, either. My mother worked - my dad had died when I was 4 - and I was the first kid home from school by a few hours each day, and was a total latchkey kid even at that age. (Actually, there was no key- we left the doors open 24/7). The neighbors looked out for us (and of course corrected us and told on us if we were being little shits) when my mum wasn't around, and old Mrs McGoldrick across the road would sometimes make me peanut butter and butter sandwiches until she got home. Different world. Different universe, really. Sigh.
DJ was / is one lucky kid to have such a great dad.
Re lawn darts, we were too poor to afford them, but we enjoyed a good game of mumblety-peg:
Version 1: Two people stand across from each other, feet shoulder's width apart. Each player takes turns throwing an open pocket-knife into the dirt as close as possible to the other person's foot. Moving your foot in terror meant you lost.
Version 2 (aka 'stretch'): Same set-up, but each person tries to sink the knife as close to his or her own feet as possible. With each throw, the player moves one foot to the place where the knife stuck into the ground. The game is over when one player falls over.
After watching Aliens (1986), we also started playing that "knife game" where you put one hand palm down, fingers spread, and use the other hand to stab a knife quickly back and forth between your fingers. Or you can turn it into "Chicken" by daring someone else to stay still while you play the "knife game" on their hand.
And congrats, @42.
For real fun me and the older brother would stockpile objects in our mini forts in the rec room , turn out the lights and hurl them at each other. Bonus weapon was the metal darts from the heavy metal dart guns our dear father gave us. You could load them in the barrel then remove the rubber tip. Ah memories.
Cool picture Dan.
Sweet, Dan.