02x11 - The Young & the Reckless

[bunniefuu]

Remember when cooling off
meant taking the long way down?

Whoever can jump
from the highest spot

was definitely like the
toughest person you knew.

You run, you hold your nose,
and you hope you don't die.

Or when the
neighborhood playground

came with exposed
nails and live wires?

I think the forbidden,
naughty nature of doing it

increased its appeal.

Or when childhood pranks
came with a short fuse?

It contains 80
grains of powder,

and that's 100
times more expl*sive

than any firework
available today.

Parents don't care.

They're in on it.

Hey, we grew up with
blowing things up.

You should too.

These are the things we
used to do for fun, for money,

or maybe out of boredom,
that we'll never see again.

Were they dangerous?

Certainly.

Deadly?

Occasionally.

But boy, wasn't it exciting?

Remember your first
bicycle?

It wasn't just transportation,
it was independence.

And if you grew up
in the seventies,

it was how you proved yourself,

and the danger ramped
up pretty quickly.

By the time the
bicycles became big,

at the turn of the 19th century,

all the way to just
about the 1960s,

it was just about transportation

to get you from
point A to point B,

maybe use them on
your paper route.

But then in 1965, a dude comes
along and changes everything.

Evel Knievel is the greatest
daredevil to ever live.

The one
and only Evel Knievel.

I mean, in the
sixties and seventies,

he was like a God
walking amongst us.

Evel Knievel.

He's on magazines
and lunchboxes,

and even has a toy
version of himself

that can jump over things.

But playing with an
action figure isn't enough.

Kids want in on the
action themselves.

Suddenly kids want
bikes that look more badass

with chopper handle bars and
really sick forks and frames.

Bicycle, motorcycle, who cares?

I'm Evel Knievel, baby.

This 1968 model, the Stingray,
this thing was amazing.

It had a smaller front
wheel for maneuverability,

a five speed gear shift
right on the frame,

and front and rear suspension,

which just made it perfect
for jumping things.

Kids wanted to jump
something that would

draw a crowd.

Okay, they don't have
a line of school buses

like Evel Knievel, but you
might have a friend or two

that might be
willing to lay down.

Kids being kids,
they're bringing stuff

out of the garage.

they're getting boards,
they're getting ramps.

You didn't have
a helmet, you know,

knee pads or shoulder pads.

You're jumping on
your little stunt bike

without anything at all.

It's just kids
versus the pavement.

Parents are fully
behind their children

copying Evel Knievel, who broke
bones and fractured himself

and you know, just all of
these various injuries,

and they're like, "Yeah,
that sounds like something

we want our kids to be doing.

What do you need out of the
garage to help you do that?"

Just how
supportive our parents?

Enough to call the local news.

In 1976, one Indiana station

makes a kid's death defying
leap their featured programming.


Terry Evel Knievel Bollinger,

who set aside today
to prove to all

he could jump over


The report
builds up every detail,

a rickety plywood ramp and


He's nervous but
confident, right?

This is gonna be the
coolest moment of his life.

The big moment comes, he
is huffing, he's puffing.

He takes off.

Once Terry falls,
there's not like an adult

who rushes in and is like,
"Hey, are you okay, buddy?"

They're all just kinda like,

"Oh, well I guess he
didn't make it, hmm.

What's for dinner?"

Terry has no
helmet, no protection.

If someone did something
like this today,

there would be a lot
of people being sued.

Didn't
hurt yourself, did you?

No.

What happened?

Maybe my arm.

What happened?

Couldn't get
going fast enough.

What I love is the
reporter seems more concerned

about Terry's safety
than Terry's parents,

and she's already planning
a follow up story.

When you gonna try it again?

Next Monday.

That's good journalism.

Throughout the 1970s,

it was something like


would end up in the ER

due to injuries from
failed bike stunts,

concussions, broken
bones, lacerated livers.

But by the
end of the seventies,

the inspiration for so
many young daredevils

is losing his mojo.

You start to see the
decline of Evel Knievel's

popularity, for one the novelty
of it has kind of worn off,

but also he's older, and
throughout his career,

Evel Knievel has sustained
over 400 bone injuries.

And then in 1980,

Evel Knievel, the all
time great, retires.

The whole extreme
jumping fad fades pretty

quickly, and partly
because suddenly,

safety was more
important to parents,

and then they started
actually parenting

and paying attention
to their kids.

Now, parents may
have given their kids

more freedom to roam the
streets back in the day,

but there was still
one ironclad rule:

don't play in traffic.

But mom and dad
never said anything

about playing with traffic.

Most of the 20th century,

children are playing
in the street.

Very few communities have
the money or the wherewithal

to provide a recreational space.

We played stickball
in the streets.

We played kickball
in the streets.

You just relied on one
other kid to be like,

"Car, car coming," and then
everybody would go to the side.

But for some
young danger junkies,

the fun isn't dodging
cars, it's catching them.

It's called skitching,

and the words a portmanteau
of skate hitching.

So you would be on a skateboard,

grab onto a bumper or a fender,

and you would let the car pull
you wherever you were going.

And then "Back to the
Future" comes, okay,

and, oh my God, I
was nine years old

when Marty McFly got on
the back of that Wrangler

with a skateboard and
took the ride in, right?

And you're like, "This
is instantly something

I wanna do.

This is the coolest thing."

Kids are into it.

There's even like a
skitching video game on Sega.

It's all over the place.

It's all in the
spirit of eighties adventure,

but hang on tight.

Well, the big
danger of skitching

is that the driver doesn't
know that you're back there.

And so a driver, even in
a low speed environment,

like in a built urban area,
might have to slam on his brakes

because a car pulls
out in front of him,

or because the yellow
light suddenly turns red.

The drivers would see
you in the rear view

and some of them would
even slam on the brakes.

So if you're holding on,

you'd go into the
back of the truck,

or you'd whip around and
hit the side of the truck.

Oh my God, how did we make it?

How am I actually sitting here?

In 1988, a


in Orange County,
California is skitching.

He's hanging on for dear life.

He is struck by another vehicle.

He's knocked to the ground,

and then a third vehicle
rolls over his legs.

That kid actually survives,

but another kid two years
later is not so lucky.

Also in Orange County,
he has an accident,

falls down, he dies
from head injuries.

In the end, it's
not fear that ends skitching,

but technological advancement.

With the technology
that new cars have,

you've got backup cameras,

rear bumpers that are
flushed to the car,

nothing to really hold onto.

So it's kind of impossible
in today's standards.

But kids in the
eighties and the nineties

find a way to top
skitching anyway,

ditching the bumper
for the roof,

and you can trace it back
to the same movie star.

Michael J. Fox
was in "Teen Wolf."

He was the one on top of
the van doing the dance.

He is the reason I
got top of a car too.

Of course, he doesn't
invent the stunt

of riding outside a car.

People have been riding outside
of cars for a long time.

There's actually a running
board on a Model T.

You might stand on
the running board,

hold onto the side of the car.

You might do that 'cause
the car's just too small

to fit a lot of people.

It's a matter of convenience.

By the nineties,

kids are actually
jumping on to moving cars

and riding cars that way.

Teens are doing
all sorts of things.

They're in the bed of a truck.

They're on the roof of the car.

They're on the hood of the car.

Sometimes the car starts out,

you know, stop, and you get on.

Other times, you're
jumping on to a moving car,

and that's just all
sorts of crazy risk.

I cannot believe

that this was just like
casually happening.

If you leave me to my
own devices and I'm 12 years

old, I'm gonna do these things

because it doesn't
seem dangerous to me.

Of course, I can get on
top of a car and hold on.

Physics, physics
don't matter to me.

I'm young and immortal.

It's the kind of
thrill you don't see anymore

because it can be a short ride.

Between 1990 and 2008,

there are 58 deaths
and 41 injuries

as a result of car surfing.

More people are dying
than being injured by it.

Law enforcement ultimately
gets involved in this.

The fad kind of
fades out in the 2000s.

Virtually every state
has some sort of law

that makes this action ill*gal.

Eventually, law enforcement
decided it had gone too far,

but for the kids
hitching the rides,

the whole point was
to get carried away.

If jumping off a high dive
can win you an Olympic medal,

what does it get you at
a public pool in town?

If you were a kid
back in the old days,

it could make you a local
legend or land you in hot water.

During the Great
Depression of the 1930s,

President Roosevelt
put many people to work

building public swimming
pools across the US,

as part of the New Deal.

This ushers in this golden
age of public pools.

These pools are often
big and elaborate,

and in a lot of towns,

they almost become like the
central recreational spot.

Most of
the massive pools

come equipped with a
typical diving board,

but a real showstopper
that you might not expect:

the high dive.

These are towers that start
at 10 feet, a basketball hoop,

and go to over 30 feet,

which is like jumping out
of a third story window.

These are Olympic
height diving boards.

In fact, some of these pools

are even used for Olympic
trials, but when they're not,

they are open to
pretty much everybody.

Hands down, the most
impressive of these era pools

is that of Astoria Park Queens.

It can accommodate up to


and its centerpiece is a
spine like high dive complex

with three platforms,

the tallest of which is 32
feet from the water surface.

In the golden days
of the Astoria Park pool,

it's just come one, come all.

There were lifeguards,
but basically no rules.

So if you had the guts to
jump off that 32 foot tower,

nobody was gonna stop you.

You climb up this


and this enormous crowd of
your neighbors and friends

are watching you.

Now you see how high you are,

but the only thing
worse than jumping

is crawling back down
that ladder in shame.

So you're jumping in the water,

and you're a kid,
so you're crazy.

If you've ever jumped
off a 32 foot diving platform,

you fall at roughly


You have about a second and a
half before you hit the water.

At that speed,
if you don't hit

at a pretty near perfect angle,

where you kind of slice
through the water,

it's like slamming
into a concrete wall.

So you land the wrong way,
you're gonna have a broken leg,

a ruptured eardrum,
bruised internal organs.

It's like getting hit by
a pro football player,

except you're in your swimsuit.

And slamming
into the water

is the best case scenario,

next to crashing into
the concrete deck below

or the diving board itself.

The possibilities are endless
and so is the freedom.

These pools are
notoriously understaffed.

As late as the 1970s, they
might only have five lifeguards

for as many as 5,000 people.

Kids are gonna be
kids and nothing's stopping them

from sneaking into
the park after hours

and climbing that high dive
to be the coolest kid there.

The New York City
Parks Department

is reporting multiple injuries
and deaths and drownings

at city park pools at night.

I grew up not too
far from this location,

and I used to kind of wonder,

"Mom, why don't we
go to this pool?

It seems like," and
yeah, that was a hard no.

My mother was a
very smart woman.

By the 1980s, the
high dive begins its downfall.

These high dives
start disappearing from pools,

and that is due not
to children's lacking

of desire for thrills,

but rather because of insurance
premiums and lawsuits.

Today, many
municipalities don't allow

diving boards to be more than
three feet from the pool,

even in your backyard.

Astoria Park closes
up its dive platform

citing liability and risks.

Today, a few publicly funded
pools still have them,

but they're usually associated

with universities or swim clubs.

The average person trying
to use one of these things

is like somebody walking
onto a D1 basketball arena

and trying to sh**t.

You're gonna get
kicked off really fast.

Remember when your
parents would say,

"Hey, if your friends
jumped off a bridge,

would you do it too?"

Well, there was a time

when the most common
answer was, "Yeah."

Although public
pools were popular by the 20th

century, a lot of smaller cities
didn't have them.

So if you live away
from a big city,

you probably don't have a
public pool, so a quarry is it.

A quarry is a place where they
have mined some sort of rock

and they dig out, and over time,

it makes this gigantic
hole in the earth.

After a mining activity
stops at the site,

they flood with rainwater.

And so what you end
up with is a pool.

In a limestone
quarry,

the water that gets
washed down into this hole

and starts to fill it up,

ends up being this bright,
brilliant blue color,

almost a turquoise.

They're so inviting,

but it's like a
playground for teenagers.

When I was in my
twenties in Alabama,

jumping into quarries
was a thing that we did.

We would have a competition

to carry out the
more spectacular dive

in front of the girls.

That was the most fun ever.

Anybody could just jump
into a swimming pool,

but to swim a quarry,

you had to prove
yourself worthy of it.

You had to earn it.

The distance from
the top of the cliff

down to the water
surface, in some cases,

can be as much as 80 feet.

That's a pretty
treacherous dive.

I was terrified.

That's what I would say.

I didn't like heights,

but everybody's standing
there looking at me

and I wasn't gonna be
the one that said no.

And so you just, you
run, you hold your nose,

and you hope you don't die.

An 80 foot jump

puts a local pool's
high dive to shame.

It's more like jumping off
an eight story building.

The dive at a
quarry, especially from a high

place, I mean it's like
a badge of honor.

Whoever can jump
from the highest spot

was definitely like the
toughest person you knew.

The thing about
quarries, you know, you're

there, you're wearing
your cutoff jeans,

all your friends are there.

Maybe the girl you have
a crush on is there.

You don't want to be the
one who chickens out.

Quarries are
really perfect spots

for teenagers looking for
something to do in the summer

because they're in remote spots.

They're a lot of
times abandoned.

That's really cool.

But it also means
if you needed help

from some sort of safety team,
you're also really far away,

which is not a good thing
if you were injured.

It was just forbidden,
which means for a teenager,

that's exactly what you wanted,

someplace where
you're not supervised,

where you can make
your own choices,

and yet, you know you're
doing something wrong.

What's crazy about
quarries

is the water can
look so inviting,

but it's what is underneath

that's actually
the most dangerous

because there could be
old mining equipment,

there could be jagged rocks.

That water is
discolored and murky enough

to where something that's even
five feet below the surface

is invisible to you.

From these heights,
when you jump off,

you could actually
hit 45 miles an hour

before you hit the water.

It's like being
thrown off of a motorcycle

and hitting the pavement
at highway speeds.

There's a cluster of
quarries

around Quincy, Massachusetts.

Between 1960 and 1998,

at least a dozen people
die quarry diving,

in addition to
the untold numbers

who might have been injured.

But how
do you get kids

to stop jumping into
enormous holes in the ground?

Well, in Boston, the solution
is a $15 billion project.

For the quarries in
Quincy,

they eventually
fill them back in,

and they use soil that was
excavated in Boston's big dig.

It's something like


and then use it to backfill
these abandoned quarries.

Now if you find a
quarry,

it's going to have a
very good fence around it

that's gonna say no trespassing.

There's something to be said
for growing up in a life

where there were risks,

and most of us came out with
all our fingers and toes.

Taking a plunge off a steep
rocky cliff with your friends

was a classic rite of passage,

back when a good story
was worth the risk.

When you were a kid,

did you ever pretend
that you were the sheriff

of a frontier town
full of bad guys?

Well, there was a time when
those imaginary shootouts

were a little less imaginary.

Throughout the 1950s and


They're in film and radio
serials, comic strips,

and, of course, television.

Of course, every hero
and every bad guy has a g*n.

The toy aisles, they
are full of cap g*ns.

When you sh**t them,
they make loud cracks.

They even emit smoke.

They are very fun, but
at a certain point,

pretend firepower
just isn't enough.

Kids want something
bigger and cooler.

They really wanna up the ante

and that next step
is the BB g*n.

The BB g*n
uses compressed air

to fire tiny round projectiles.

It gets its start
in Michigan in 1886

for adults to practice sh**ting,

but soon the BB g*n finds
a new target audience.

Ads are marketing BB
g*ns directly to kids,

and you've got
pictures in magazines

of little boys happily hoisting
their little BB g*n r*fles.

I had a BB g*n.

It was the pump r*fle type.

It was given to me with
no rules other than,

you know, don't
sh**t your brothers.

As a kid, it feels like so
much power and responsibility.

It's also tricky,

like if you have an
older sister like I did,

you have to prove

you're not gonna sh**t your
older sister with a BB g*n

every chance you get, even
though as a kid you're thinking,

"I'm gonna sh**t my older
sister with this BB g*n

the first chance I get."

These BB g*ns
weren't expensive.

They were mass produced.

In fact, they were sold
on the back of comic books

like cut out this coupon,
send it in with a check,

and you get your BB g*n.

Today, there is zero tolerance

for any students
having a g*n at school.

It was made federally
ill*gal in 1990.

But back then, it was
perfectly normal for a kid

to have a BB g*n in
their locker at school.

Before 1990,
anything kind of goes,

and during recess
or after school,

they're gonna play
cops and robbers.

They're firing these BBs
in each other's vicinity

and their parents wouldn't
think a thing of it

'cause that's how
they grew up as well.

You might think about
the movie, "A Christmas Story,"

where the kid wants the BB g*n,

but you could sh**t
somebody's eye out.

Well, that happened.

By 1981, 8 million
pump action BB g*ns have been

sold, and in that same year,

emergency rooms report
receiving 22,800 people

injured by BB g*ns.

When kids started
getting hurt with BB g*ns,

the solution proposed was
not to stop selling them,

or to modify them, or
don't sell 'em to kids.

The solution was just to put
a sticker on 'em that said,

"Not a toy."

My guess is that
was not effective.

By the late 1990s,


sales to people 18 and over.

In recent decades, a
safer alternative has emerged

and that is the paintball g*n.

The advent of
paintball has supplanted the BB

g*n fervor.

Paintballing is super fun

and it does mimic the
act of sh**ting somebody.

Manufacturers and
marketers in stores

are now treating a BB
g*n, not like a toy.

They're treating it like what
it really is: a kind of g*n.

Maybe not one that
uses gunpowder,

but one that's still a g*n.

Back in the day,

the line between toy and weapon
was always kind of blurry.

Take the slingshot.

With one small tweak, that
Y shaped piece of wood

could go from a harmless placing
to a mini m*ssile launcher.

In the late 1940s,

one of the most popular
genre of dime novels

was the survival story,

and World w*r II is
nothing but a wellspring

of survival stories.

So in 1946, there's an
article in "Popular Science"

about a guy named Jim Gask

who uses a slingshot
to hunt small game.

After that article comes out

and kids see that
around the country,

every kid wants a slingshot.

Slingshots, before
the invention of rubber,

were called slings, and go
back thousands of years.

By the 1940s, they're
still do it yourself

and haven't changed much.

I actually recently found
a black and white photo

of my dad holding one.

You get a forked branch that
looked like the letter Y.

You would cut notches

or you would tie the ends
of that rubber around it.

Pick up a rock and fire.

They're powerful
enough to break a window

or maybe leave a bruise,

but they're not that
accurate or strong.

So the
toy industry says,

"Let's give kids a slingshot
that really hits the bullseye."

In 1948, Wham-O,

the company that would
later eventually bring us

the hula hoop and the Frisbee,

their very first
product is a slingshot.

They actually name their company

after the sound a slingshot
makes when it hits its target,

which is "Wham."

The Wham-O slingshot
just looks really

cool and sleek.

It's this high quality,
vulcanized rubber.

It's this really uniform,
thick, polished wood.

And when it shows
up on store shelves,

kids go crazy for it.

Soon, other
manufacturers flood the market

with their own versions, some
as cheap as like 10 cents,

which is like just a couple
of bucks in today's money.

And before
parents even notice,

supercharged slingshots
are on the scene.

The rubber bands
get much better,

and the construction of
the slingshots themselves

get a little more advanced.

Some have a wrist brace

so that you could pull
back with greater force,

generating even more
highly dangerous velocity.

Some of these
slingshots now

can fire a projectile
like 170 miles per hour.

That's more than double

of what a previously old
school slingshot could do.

Parents, they're not aware.

They're buying these
kids slingshots,

and they're sending
'em out the door,

and saying, "Listen,
go have fun.

Don't k*ll the dog."

Kids do what kids do.

They were sh**ting at birds.

They were sh**ting at squirrels.

They were sh**ting
at each other.

It turns the
suburban environment

into a*tillery testing ranges,

where kids are running
renegade with no supervision,

armed with slingshots.

We would take
firecrackers, light it,

and then slingshot
it at our friends.

And that's how we
treated friends.

It's the glory
days of slingshots,

until one unlucky launch
changes everything.

In 1977, a 12-year-old
boy and his friend

are going down to the
ponds to, you know,

sh**t some frogs
with their slingshot,

and the pellet ricochets off
and hits this boy in the eye

and causes permanent
vision loss.

The family
naturally goes crazy.

They sued the friend, they
sued the manufacturer.

The case eventually escalates

all the way to the
Michigan Supreme Court.

The manufacturers
decide they wanna lower their

liability, so the easiest way
for them to do that

is they lower the tension
on the bands themselves

for any slingshots sold to kids.

After that, toy slingshots
lose a lot of their punch.

When it's less dangerous,
it's a lot less fun.

You don't usually
see slingshots

in the toy stores anymore.

Picking up a high powered
weapon at the five and dime

is just another experience
kids are missing out on today.

Way back when, there was
no such thing as age limits.

We let our kids have access

to all sorts of
dangerous things,

from automobiles to cigarettes.

So why would expl*sives
be any different?

The tradition of
fireworks at July 4th,

Independence Day,
doesn't start in 1776.

It starts a year
later, July 4th, 1777.

Every celebration
features them since.

Initially fireworks
are something

that the aristocratic class,
they have access to it.

They can afford to
purchase these things.

But in the late 1800s,

factories start
mass producing them.

It's all the old
Civil w*r ordinance plants

that in the aftermath
of the Civil w*r,

they got nothing to do.

We then hit hard economic times,

and they go back into some of
these old ammunition plants

and begin making
fireworks in them.

Suddenly, the average
Joe

can afford to plunk
down a few pennies

and get some real firepower.

Fireworks aren't just
for the 4th of July.

They're a way of life.

At every backyard barbecue,

bored teenagers are
lighting these things up.

They're easy to get,
they're cheap to buy,

and back then, nobody's
really checking IDs.

They're ubiquitous.

Roadside stands, the
local five and dimes,

they're selling all
kinds of pyrotechnics.

Little kids are running
around with sparklers.

Black Cats are lit on tables,

bottle rockets held
in soda bottles.

As fireworks
become more and more popular,

people start looking for even
more bang for their buck.

Cherry bombs are
created in the late 1920s.

These are little red
spheres with the green stem,

and they were used mostly
for noise in firework shows.

Kids get interested
in cherry bombs real quick

because it's catnip, it's
bigger, it's more powerful.

Of course, children are going
to be attracted to that.

Then World w*r II comes
along.

To help train the troops,
defense contractors

make these small,
cylindrical, expl*sive devices

that will simulate the
sound and flash of grenades.

The M-80 is born.

M is for a military expl*sive,




and that's 100
times more expl*sive

than any firework
available today.

At the end of the
conflict,

the American military
surpluses the item,

sells them off to
dealers and distributors,

and they begin selling
them to the American public

and everyone loves them.

The bigger the expl*sive,
the bigger the bang.

They love it.

By the fifties,

M-80s are available to
any kid who wants them.

These fireworks are
like the grandsons

of military grade expl*sives.

The military had all this
extra stuff lying around.

They were like, "Let's
just sell it to people."

And the public doesn't realize

that they're dealing with
military grade expl*sives

and stuff like that, and
that can be dangerous.

That can cause one
or two problems.

With access to
military grade expl*sives,

the pastime of childish
pranks suddenly blows up.

Mailboxes,
obliterated.

Watermelons, emulsified.

Your Ken or Barbie
doll, no longer.

It's just a smoking head.

Parents don't care.

They're in on it.

Hey, "We grew up with
blowing things up.

You should too."

There's a buddy
of mine named Mike

who brought an M-80 to school

and lit it and put
it in the toilet.

If you wanted to
blow up a mailbox or a toy car,

allegedly, all it
would take is an M-80.

I don't know that firsthand,
but that's what I've heard.

Even the smaller
fireworks turn dangerous

in teenage hands.

Fuses burn too fast,
paper tubes rupture,

sending fireballs out sideways.

Oh man, look, I've had
expl*sives blown up in my hands.

We used to take bottle
rockets, break the stick off,

which loses the stability,

and it just flies
off in a direction.

We'd stand in a circle and
break it off and light it

and just wait to
see who it'd hit.

Oh man, I wanna
do this right now.

It's a miracle that these
are all here and still work

because there was a whole lot
of tinkering with fireworks

in my childhood,

and it was often under the
supervision of an adult,

although, that adult was
intoxicated at the time.

I remember the first time
I was in a Roman candle fight

and I thought to myself,
"This is really dangerous."

So you're running around
screaming the whole time.

It is real fun,
wildly dangerous.

That's how this happened.

I'm fine, I'm fine, it was
right there the whole time.

Boys will be boys,
adults say,

but the injuries pile up,

burns, missing fingers,
ruptured eardrums,

even permanent blindness.

In the mid-seventies,

you're still seeing about


in kids under 15.

In 1976, just in time
for the bicentennial

celebrations, the federal
government steps in

to limit the amount
of expl*sive powder

that can be used in
all consumer fireworks.

Too many children
were losing fingers

because of these
supercharged fireworks

that they could get
their hands on so easily.

The golden age of kids
using fireworks is passed.

I mean, today the expl*sives
are so much less expl*sive,

so much less dangerous.

They're saving a lot
of kids' fingers.

That's probably a good thing.

Turns out back
then, supervision was

more of a suggestion.

Did you know that
there was a time

when kids could walk into
somebody else's house uninvited,

literally bounce off the walls,
and no one would stop them?

How?

Well, we actually
made it pretty easy.

Today, construction sites
big and small are locked down.

They're protected by chain
link fences, warning signs,


so it's hard to imagine a time

when half built houses are
open invitations for kids.

There was a time
when construction zones

were actually open, just
free for kids to play in.

Starting with the suburban
sprawl of the 1950s,

all the way through the 1980s,

for kids, a new
house construction

is nowhere near off limits.

From the fifties
to the eighties,

suburban neighborhoods were
popping up all over the place,

which basically
meant these woods

that so many of us
kids had played in,

suddenly had to go,

and now they're gonna
build houses there.

So construction sites sort
of become a big playground.

I grew up in an era of
great expansion of housing

on Staten Island, so there
was always houses being built,

and as a kid, when you
see that, you gotta go in.

The front
door is wide open

because there is no front door.

After the workers go
home,

then the kids can
go in and play.

It's a fort, it's a playhouse.

You can have little
battles and wars in there.

The most mundane things

that a construction
worker might throw away,

you're like, "Oh,
that's so cool."

You found a spark plug.

It was like you found the
treasure of Sierra Madre.

I found a pair of
safety goggles once,

and I was Cyclops and the X-Men.

And there are
treasures to be found.

There are treasures to be found.

Oh man, I built at
least two clubhouses

by going into construction
zones at night

after everybody went home,
and taking the cast off wood,

building yourself a clubhouse.

It was pretty great.

You could write your
name in a concrete slab

or leave thumbprints or
hand prints or footprints.

My initials are on
Homecrest Avenue

in Brooklyn, New
York to this day.

May not have made it
to the Chinese Theater,

but Homecrest Avenue
is locked down.

We didn't have laser tag,
we had half built buildings.

Parents know that
they all go there,

but they figure it's
just part of being a kid.

It's curiosity.

Hey, maybe our son or
daughter's gonna grow up

to be the next
architect or engineer.

It's educational.

It's a learning opportunity.

Hey, that's how
a house is built.

Adults are not hanging
out in construction sites,

unless they're getting
paid to be there.

So when the clock strikes
five and they went home,

it was you and your friends

and you were alone in your
own house-sized clubhouse.

For the young
neighborhood kids,

it's a daytime playground.

For the older ones, it's
a nighttime playground.

I think the forbidden,
naughty nature of doing it

increased its appeal,
I'm sad to say.

Sorry, mom.

Now the teenagers come
in.

Now, it's a different
level of fun.

Now, it's like
Caligula in there.

Now, you got a date in
there, you're having fun,

you got a six back in there,
you're having a blast.

Everybody's having
parties in there.

It's part
clubhouse, part funhouse,

but maybe a little
rougher around the edges.

These aren't
playgrounds.

Sharp corners, unfinished
stairwells, basements, rebar,

concrete, falling objects,
floors with holes in them.

Exposed nails, open
wiring.

You could fall through
an unfinished floor

or step off a half built
staircase and break a leg.

These aren't playgrounds.

They're accidents
waiting to happen.

And there are court
cases to prove it.

Like in 1961 in Connecticut,

a 9-year-old boy
attempts to cross a plank

across an unfinished basement
and falls to his death.

There's another case
where this kid is injured

by this caustic construction
material, hydrated lime,

that's been left around.

Finally by the 1980s,

insurance companies
start taking notice.

These sites have to be
monitored and protected.

We've gotta keep the kids out.

Guards, security
cameras,

and it's not for the
safety of the kids.

It's so I don't get sued.

That's not gonna
happen on my watch.

Sure, kids are safer now,

fewer splinters, fewer
scars, and a little less fun.

Childhood friendships are
some of the strongest bonds

we will ever forge,

and back in the day, kids
would make that official

in a way that was
bloody intense.

The concept of
having a best friend

is part of everyone's childhood.

The idea of having
a fellow adventurer

on this thing called life,
that's a special thing.

Anyone can say
they're best friends,

but some kids came
up with a ritual

to really elevate that status.

Popular books
from Mark Twain's,

"The Adventures of Tom Sawyer"
to Stephen King's, "It,"

show kids eagerly taking part

in a once common childhood
ritual called a blood oath.

A blood oath is when
you cut your own skin

and then your friend
does the same thing,

and then you combine your blood

and you become blood brothers.

Just the idea of blood
brothers is so weird to me.

I think I saw it in a
movie once when I was a kid

and I just thought, "Gross."

In today's world,
it looks crazy.

If your knife is dirty,
you could get tetanus,

and let's not even talk
about bloodborne pathogens

that you can transfer
from one to another.

But back then,
you weren't aware.

And it's not
happening in secret.

Adults encourage it.

In the 1930s and 40s,

a special honor society within
the Boy Scouts of America

called the Order of the Arrow

regularly conducts this
brotherhood ceremony.

They take an arrow
and they slice the palm of their

hands and then put 'em together,

and that's their
blood brother oath.

This sanctioned blood
ritual goes on for decades.

Back when the Scouts
started,

the whole bloodletting thing,

the idea of bloodborne pathogens

really didn't cross
people's mind.

There was a lot of
issues

with having kids cut
themselves to draw blood.

By the mid-20th century,

people understand that
disease is passed on

through the blood.

In 1956, the Boy
Scouts actually rewrite

this whole thing and
banned bloodletting,

so instead they would just draw
a little blood on their hand

with a marker and then
they would bond that way.

By the seventies and
eighties,

there's more and more fear
of bloodborne diseases,

and now parents and
scout leaders and coaches

are warning kids
against doing this.

Nowadays, if you
wanna be best friends with

someone, you just kind of say,
"Hey, we're best friends."

You don't really have to do

this gross sharing
of blood pathogens

to seal that friendship.

Oh, it's so gross.

A lot of risky behavior
that we engaged in as kids

was due to peer pressure.

Take smoking, it was hard
to resist taking a puff

when all your friends
were doing it,

but sometimes that temptation

didn't come from the other kids.

It came from a machine.

Smoking is a deeply
normalized thing

in mid-century America.

If a teen wants a
cigarette back then,

they don't have
to try that hard.

All you have to do is
look between the jukebox

and the soda machine

to this memorial to
American commercialism

in the form of the
cigarette vending machine.

For the price of a milkshake,

you can buy a pack of cigarettes
from one of these machines.

By the 1950s, they're
at bowling alleys,

they're at movie theaters,
they're even in hospitals.

Like anywhere where you need
quick access to a cigarette

and where there
might be children,

there's a cigarette
vending machine.

At restaurants, I
was given the money

and sent, "Go over there and
get me a pack of cigarettes,"

and I go, pull the
thing, ch*nk, ch*nk,

and let the pack fall to
the bottom and get out,

and then proudly walk back
and present it to my father.

The machines are
designed with sleek chrome,

glowing lights, and glass knobs.

To kids, it's almost a game.

It's estimated that


and some of those
estimates are even higher.

And then a minority of
girls were also smoking.

The vending machine
provides this huge loophole

to the age restrictions
because it can't tell.

There's no mechanism
for it to ascertain

whether or not you are
above 18 years of age.

And so if you have the
correct number of quarters,

you can get a pack of
cigarettes out of the machine,

even though you may
be 15 years old.

Of course, we find out
that it is way more dangerous

than the tobacco companies
let anybody know.

Smoking is
particularly damaging for

adolescents because
it interferes

with brain development
and lung development.

It's wild to think
that cigarette vending machines,

which saw their
peak in the 1950s,

puttered along, until
literally the 90s.

By 2010, these things
are basically extinct,

and the only place where
they might still exist

by federal law is places that
are restricted to adults.

Thinking back on the things
we did when we were young,

from jumping our bikes to
playing chicken in traffic,

to blowing things up for
fun, ignorance was bliss.

And what we didn't
know could k*ll us,

but somehow we made it
through our hazardous history,

and we've got the
scars to prove it.