While mowing my lawn last month on a rare sunny day, I watched a neighbor and his family enjoy a game of cornhole in their backyard.
I couldn't help but chuckle. Times sure have changed, I thought to myself, as I watched this family take turns lobbing what was more-or-less bean bags (actually they're filled with corn) at a hole cut in a homemade wooden platform with an Ohio State logo painted on it.
Why did it strike me funny? Well, besides the fact that I can't decide which is sillier – the name 'cornhole' or the game itself – I was reminded of the fact that when I was a kid growing up on Skyline Drive in the 1960's, my siblings and I used to play a lawn game that was so dangerous that some children sadly got killed while playing it. Remember Jarts?
The game was simple and was a combination of darts and horseshoes. You assembled what looked like hula-hoops for a targets, placed them on the ground, and then tossed the large, heavy Jarts at them, competing to get inside or closest to the ring.
A game of Jarts looked like this (below) except that I don't think our shorts were that short.
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| Image courtesy of www.retro-cafe.com |
I hadn't thought about Jarts for years until they were deemed dangerous and banned from manufacture and/or resale in the United States in 1988. There are quite a few articles and links online about the accidental deaths of a few children. This video story from Canadian TV (about one man's efforts to have the product banned due to his daughter's tragic death) is particularly heart-breaking.
Playing Jarts was just another one of those things – like riding our bikes without wearing helmets, or careening around on roller skates without wearing pads – that somehow we managed to do without seriously injuring ourselves.
3 comments:
It's me, -Alan; the machinery's still not letting me log onto your site to leave comments.
I wanted a set of Jarts so BAD....Ma said that ain't happenin', we'd put each other's eyes out, etc.
We DID, however, buy tons of Cracker-Balls....remember them? I once packed a whole package of them in a snowball, threw it at a wall, and they still went off!
We had a set. We usually had relative type family gatherings in Amherst and this is where the lawn darts would come out. The only problem was we set up the game one particular day in the front yard about 20 feet from the double wide concrete driveway that contained anywhere from 2 to as many as 6 family automobiles. I think you can see what's coming... My cousin decided he was going to launch one of these darts as far into the stratosphere as he possibly could...just to see how high he could heave it. We all watched in awe as it made it's way into the sky, but our amazement however quickly changed to horror as we watched it's graceful arch and re-entry. There was no doubt...it began to bare down directly on the driveway. The only question was which car was going to hit...or, was my cousin going to escape certain doom and the dart miss every car there and merely smash into the cement driveway? As irony would have it, it was a direct hit on my uncle's, his dad's, 1965 Dodge Cornet; a direct hit on the left rear quadrant of the roof panel. The dart bounced off, but not before leaving a very nice "LARGE" dimple...okay…crater in the roof...with a small hole at the very bottom. I don't remember seeing the lawn darts for the remainder of the summer after that...as a matter of fact, any other summer either.
I have an original set. Good thing I didn't try to sell them. Didn't know they were banned. What to play a game?
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