Childhood Violence

It's a common belief that violence on TV causes violence in children. While I'm all for cutting down on the amount of violence children see on the tube, I suspect that children would still be manage to be violent without it.

My experiences are an example. I grew up in the sixties when TV violence (and TV in general) was much tamer than now. The guys in the white hats won without killing any bad guys, for the most part. And for some reason, when the bad guys did get shot, they didn't seem to bleed. Yet the boys in my neighborhood found activities that would have knocked John Wayne off his horse and made Roy Rogers wear black.

Cases in point:

The Gopher Hunt
An organized exercise of childhood violence, this "sport" required the use of baseball bats, a large field, unwilling gophers, a platoon of boys and many plastic containers filled with water. It required younger boys who could be pressed into service as water carriers. The older boys occupied the places of honor, wielding the Louisville sluggers. Back then, we used real Louisville sluggers - wood, not the aluminum things.

The first step was to run up someone's water bill by filling up 10 to 20 jugs from an outside hose (preferably when the home owner wasn't home). Then we all set all, like a small tribe of Vandals, for the baseball field.

Once a gopher hole was located, an argument began as to where it led, and the other holes were also found. Everyone knew the animals' underground complexes had multiple outlets.

Then the older boys-the mentors of childhood violence-bats in hand, positioned themselves around one hole while the younger boys began pouring water down another. Very often the gopher came up out of another hole 30 feet away from either group of boys, or nothing came out at all, despite boys running back to the hose for constant refills. But if the terrified animal came up anywhere near the opening, the older boys would start pounding away, in no particular order, and without taking any particular care not to hit each other.