Apr 17th 2012 07:49 am Pride of place

Buy the new book, "Beaucoup Arlo & Janis!"Today's "Arlo & Janis!"
I was trying to think of other weird little memories, and I came up with this: when I was a small fry, I’d stand on the car seat next to my mother as she ran errands about town. I think most kids did this in the period. The slightest unanticipated brake pressure could send you tumbling into the dashboard. The unpadded dashboard. It seems no one ever caught on; it was an unquestioned practice until seat belts became ubiquitous. However, every parent did develop a reflex of the right arm, which would shoot straight out at the same moment the least pressure was applied to the brake pedal. This, it was hoped, would slow the kid’s forward momentum at least a little. How any of us survived into adulthood is a mystery.

Posted by jimmyjohnson / Vintage A&J

51 Responses to “Pride of place”

  1. Brenty on 17 Apr 2012 at 7:54 am #

    My brother and I survived because we were riding in the bed of the truck under the topper. Completely safe!

  2. David in Austin on 17 Apr 2012 at 8:01 am #

    My favorite place to ride on long trips was stretched out on the deck in the back window. Laying there in the warm sun was always a great place to sleep, and it meant that my three big sisters weren’t picking on me for taking up their space in the back seat. : )

  3. flossie on 17 Apr 2012 at 8:03 am #

    My siblings and I would fight to see who could lay on the shelf under the back window. We could wave to all the truckers, who would blow their air horns. Good times.

  4. sandcastler on 17 Apr 2012 at 8:17 am #

    Fond memories of the backward seat in the stationwagon.

    Mindy, cookies and milk in the corner.

  5. Crab from Grapeland on 17 Apr 2012 at 8:21 am #

    My wife’s right-arm stab at the kid’s position in the passenger seat is faster than cat’s.

  6. Laura in Upstate NY on 17 Apr 2012 at 8:46 am #

    Don’t forget that dangerous practice of letting us run around outside barefoot until dark. I dreaded having to put my shoes on, it was so much more fun to have the mud squishing between my toes. Riding our bikes, playing tag, climbing on the monkey bars at school, dodge ball during gym class, walking back from the bus stop, riding the bus to school and back. So many things that don’t happen anymore and we wonder why childhood obesity is skyrocketing.

  7. Symply Fargone on 17 Apr 2012 at 8:49 am #

    As a teenager, I got tired of always having that hand shoot out in front of me, so i started doing it to my mother whenever she hit the brakes, I think it took all of one week to break that habit once I started doing it to her. Around the same time I was about to get punished with the belt, remember taking mine off at the same time and saying “en garde” to Mom. She started laughing and that was the last spanking I ever got. Symply Fargone memories….BTW I used to sleep on the floor of the back seat over the hump, the dachshund got the rear window spot…..

  8. Carole in Wesley Chapel on 17 Apr 2012 at 8:52 am #

    I am the oldest of five and I remember we had a car bed for the baby (there was always a baby) to ride in the back seat. There was a belt in the bed but I don’t remember having seat belts until I was well into my teens so I have no idea how the bed stayed put, or even if it did. I do remember everything else that was mentioned, from the back window to the arm-stab. We would fight over the backward station wagon seat. Those were the days.

    Did you know that current car seats have an expiration date? We recently purchased a couple to have in our car to cart the grandbabies around and they are supposed to be discarded after the expiration date. They will last about one kid. I guess they don’t want you to pass them down to the next kid.

  9. Bob, near Mark on 17 Apr 2012 at 8:54 am #

    What? Nobody here is old enough to remember riding on the running boards of a car? :)

  10. Steve from Royal Oak, MI on 17 Apr 2012 at 9:00 am #

    You hit your head on an unpadded dashboard as a kid? Well that would explain some of your humor….Sorry Jimmy, I hear that joke about ME all the time. Obviously, you survived your childhood.

  11. Kerry on 17 Apr 2012 at 9:04 am #

    and what became of the rumble seat in the rear of my dad’s 28 model A…

  12. Howdy Dickens on 17 Apr 2012 at 9:17 am #

    My wife and I often wonder how we survived an era before bike helmets, infant car seats, and antibacterial soap. I think added protection for kids is a great idea, but sometimes it takes the place of common sense. When I was a lad, I was playing with an old coffee can, and sliced open my hand on the edge. Required stitches and a tetanus shot. But I was a heck of a lot more careful with old coffee cans from then on!

  13. Tom from the Front Range on 17 Apr 2012 at 9:21 am #

    I think it is worth mentioning the fascinating change in Arlo’s expression done by just by adding the slightest tilt to the head and putting a line horizontally over the eye. Jimmie, you are truly an artist (even back in ’94).

  14. Ruth on 17 Apr 2012 at 10:21 am #

    I was the youngest of 3 and I can still remember the car bed I used as I a child for the annual trip to St. Louis. It was blue and wedged between the front and back seats with hook/clamp-like things that went over the back of the front seat. I must have been 5 or 6 before I stopped using it. After I out grew it I would curl up on the floor of the back seat and use the hump for a pillow. That lasted until I was 8 or 9. As for seat belts, I was probably in college (as a physics major) before I started using them on a regular basis. Now I won’t put the car in gear until everyone has their seat belts on.

    Children’s car seats do have expiration dates and have had them for the past 15 years or so. When my daughter was born and we were looking at car seats I asked about the experiation dates. It is because the multiple extreme temperature changes the car seat experiences over the course of a few years can cause stress/fatigue points in the plastic that weaken the structural integrity of the car seat making it more likely to fail in the event of an collision. It is also recommended that the car seat be replaced any time you are involved in a collision even if it doesn’t have obvious damage (there may have been microscopic damage leaving the stress/fatigue points as well).

    By the way, the same is true for bike helmets. If they are kept in the garage they also experience temperature extremes and should be replaced every few years. Or if they served their purpose in an accident they should also be replaced as well.

  15. nonegiven on 17 Apr 2012 at 11:00 am #

    My son rode in a car seat, in the backseat, when he was little. When he was bigger, I never even started the car until he had his seat belt on. I still throw out my right arm when I have to stop suddenly.

  16. Alan in Nashville on 17 Apr 2012 at 11:05 am #

    My mother still throws her right arm at a sudden stop. The last time I was ridding like JJ in the front seat was 1960. Survival instincts developed by parents never die.

  17. Cousin Keith Johnson on 17 Apr 2012 at 11:36 am #

    We rode standing on the back seat of the Rambler, leaning over the front seat. Probably breathing on Mom’s neck.

    I recall one trip very vividly. We were following my uncle in our Rambler because he had to take his Lincoln in for service. On the way, a small car lightly sideswiped the Lincoln, and before my uncle could get the Lincoln turned around, my mom had swung the Rambler around in hot pursuit. She chased the man back to his home where she confronted him. I recall him yelling at my mom and accusing her of being drunk! Luckily, uncle and police showed up a few minutes later.

  18. Sylvia in MS on 17 Apr 2012 at 11:43 am #

    I, too, experienced a lot of things mentioned. However, I’ve had a lightning rod dropped onto my head – pointed end down, same head had a rusted nail imbedded in it slightly, fell on a yard rake and one prong entered face beside nose, and had a shortening can explode in my face from my brother throwing firecrackers into it – and them not going off as he thought they should – and asking me to see why they didn’t go off! They did and the hot grease burned my face with 3rd degree burns. I got even on that one, though. I never had the acne and blackheads that my brother and sisters had.

    I’ve wondered from time to time how I survived childhood because of the antics I experienced and flinch when I see what some kids are doing these days.

  19. Nancy in Bucks County on 17 Apr 2012 at 11:57 am #

    My dad bought a 67 Thunderbird which would not start until the belt was connected. The garage would not disconnect the system, so he did it himself. He never again bought a Ford product. He did, eventually, come around to wearing a seat belt on occasion.

    There were 4 of us in the back of the station wagon. On long trips, we laid the seats all down, spread out sleeping bags and slept. Usually we traveled at night so my father did not have to keep turning around and raising his fist at us.

  20. FlyingHigh on 17 Apr 2012 at 12:10 pm #

    Back in 1955 I would sit on the car window with only my legs and arms on the inside of father’s car. In town one day, after father turned a corner I went flying out. Father didn’t notice, but he did see a crowd forming while looking in the rear view mirror. I wasn’t concerned about my injury (broken collar bone) but I was frightened that dad was driving off without me. Funny, I didn’t learn my lesson, kids seemed to be carefree back then.

  21. Anonymous on 17 Apr 2012 at 12:10 pm #

    If there were seat belts in the car my mother would make everyone wear them (even 40 or more years ago).
    I do remember having a VW Van and my parents took out the forward back seat and we had sleeping bags for our long trips too. It helped my brother who has a fear of heights when we drove thru the mountains (he hid under the sleeping bags).
    Now my 2 year old will even buckle his stuff animal in the car seat when we leave it in the car when we get out!

  22. Charlotte in NH on 17 Apr 2012 at 12:11 pm #

    When our twin girls were born in 1963 we improvised a car bed for them. We took a large square cardboard carton and cut down the sides somewhat, padded the bottom suitably, and they rode happily, together. They were born in April and went through the summer nicely in the box until they outgrew it.
    The annual Chicken BarBQ at my home town church, not far away, was a big family event. The twins were placed on the grass, in their box, under the tree where my father was selling tickets for the dinner. Everyone admired the twins in their cute little dresses. Was Pop ever a proud grandpa !

  23. Jim in Wisconsin on 17 Apr 2012 at 12:18 pm #

    My mom and dad had 8 kids by 1963 and somehow scraped enough together for a summer vacation up north. 10 people in the station wagon, no seat belts, and the baby brother on the floor near Mom’s feet. You would be arrested today for that scenario.

  24. TruckerRon on 17 Apr 2012 at 12:50 pm #

    An unintended consequence of modern attempts at improved safety (like helmets and seat belts) is that many of us unconsciously adapt our behavior in the wrong direction. Studies have shown that drivers come closer to bicyclists who are wearing helmets than the bareheaded ones. Parents with the kids properly strapped in tend to drive faster and take more risks.

    But I’m easy to spot out on the road — I’m the jerk in the righthand lane who’s observing the speed limits, going even slower when the weather’s bad, and maintaining at least 4 seconds of following distance from the vehicle in front of me (it was 8 seconds in the truck!).

    Someday I’m going to mount a dash camera to record the true jerks who are in such a hurry that they pass me on the right in a bike lane (it happened yesterday) because the posted speed limit isn’t fast enough.

  25. Steve from Royal Oak, MI on 17 Apr 2012 at 1:10 pm #

    They just passed a law allowing motorcylists to ride without a helmet here in Michigan. I will just leave that statement without comment.

    I decided when I was about 12 or 13 to wear a seatbelt because I thought it was a good idea. In May 1970 I attended my maternal Grandpa’s funeral. We didn’t realize it until we got back to my grandma’s house that my Dad’s parents were not there. When we got back the person house sitting told us that they had been in a high speed accident but were ok. We picked them up at the hospital and my Grandpa cut his lip on the steering wheel (pre shoulder strap) and my Grandma was fine. For the last 42 years, I have always used a belt.

  26. Symply Fargone on 17 Apr 2012 at 1:48 pm #

    I apologize this should have been posted on a Luddy strip day…and I should have posted it here rather than bother some of you with an email. I sometimes feel Luddy has this type of thought process going on as Arlo pontificates to him…in any case without any further ado, here is a truly existential cat. I think he is pretty Fargone

    http://now.msn.com/now/0411-henri-existential-housecat.aspx#scptm2

    What do you think?

  27. Sheila in NB on 17 Apr 2012 at 2:01 pm #

    My brother and I would ride in the rear of the station wagon with the back seats folded down – dad had a foam mattress back there for our added comfort. We would fight about territorial encroachment regularly but for the most part napped and played assorted car games – licence plate bingo, I spy, are we there yet? My mom would dole out gum and Kit Kat bar portions for good behaviour. We drove across Newfoundland on mostly dirt road (until 1965) – a good 1000 km- and that was just to get off the island -then a night on the boat to get to the mainland followed by however many more days until we got to where that year’s vacation was – Cape Cod, Quebec or even Ontario one year. The boat trip was my favorite as my dad and I had good sea legs and never got seasick but my mom and brother had to retreat to the cabin, doped full of gravol. Dad would take me to the cafeteria for doughnuts and Pepsi.

  28. Ken from Rockland on 17 Apr 2012 at 3:11 pm #

    Doesn’t anyone remember the car seats that hooked over the back of the seat. Kept the kid within reach, but had no strength at all. Of couse, back then, traffic was a lot lighter and we didn’t really travel that much.

  29. Mary in Ohio on 17 Apr 2012 at 3:13 pm #

    The late Erma Bombeck once wrote a poignant column called “When Did the Mother Become the Child?” One of the signs was when you were driving and your Mom was in the passenger seat and you stepped on the brakes and threw your arm out in front of her.

  30. Mary in Ohio on 17 Apr 2012 at 3:16 pm #

    And yes, even in the50′s – the running board of a Diamond T !

  31. Rick in Shermantown, Ohio on 17 Apr 2012 at 4:16 pm #

    Jimmy:

    I hit the metal, unpadded dashboard at least once.

    Before bicycle helmets, I was knocked out for several minutes after hitting the pavement.

    In fifth grade, I slipped on the ice on the paved playground and was again out for several minutes.

    The thought of checking for a concussion never occurred to anyone in those days.

    And that’s a partial list that doesn’t include from junior high on.

    I think I just figured out why I am the way I am today.

  32. buzz on 17 Apr 2012 at 4:23 pm #

    re today’s classic: Gene oversold it by one line.

  33. Bob in Orland Park on 17 Apr 2012 at 5:24 pm #

    I had to laugh as I read all the above comments. We raised 5 kids in the 60′s with station wagons that always had the seats folded flat. Amazingly they all made it to adulthood.

  34. Mark in Boston on 17 Apr 2012 at 5:29 pm #

    Yes, but you know how much we REALLY care about children when you consider that school buses don’t have seat belts.

  35. sandcastler on 17 Apr 2012 at 5:45 pm #

    MiB, so true. I did have a bus driver explain to me once that school buses have expiration dates. Seems by law they can only carry schoolchildren for X years from the stamped manufacturing date on the VIN plate. After that they must be retired; so churches, families, etc. can then buy an operate them forever. Then we could ask why not seatbelts on trains? Or, why don’t they check bags on buses and trains for contriban?

  36. sandcastler on 17 Apr 2012 at 5:49 pm #

    But they are lobbying for backup cameras on all new cars, would save an estimated 150 lives annually.

  37. Charlotte in NH on 17 Apr 2012 at 5:52 pm #

    Mark in Boston, it’s true that the big buses don’t have seatbelts, but I do want to point out that the little buses for the Special Needs students do have seatbelts, and the drivers are required to make certain that the kids are wearing them. I drove one of these buses for twelve years and had many tussles with the students over this issue, and many others as well. You can imagine ! But really it was a lot of fun most of the time, and lots of the boys and girls were well behaved and a pleasure to spend time with.

  38. phil in Missoula, MT on 17 Apr 2012 at 6:05 pm #

    Steve, a lot of states have succumbed to pressure from people who have no imagination and feel as though it is their right to ride as they please without responsibility for their physical well-being.

    On one hand I can understand that people object to having the government tell them to take care of themselves, but the same people (or their relatives) would scream bloody murder if the hospital declined to fix their bashed-in, road-scraped skull if they didn’t have health insurance.

    I’ve ridden for 40 years and my imagination is very vivid. I feel uncomfortable riding as far as the end of the block without a helmet, jacket and gloves. And good shoes and pants for that matter. It’s surprising the number of yoyos you see riding in shorts and flip-flops.

    I saw a Bell Helmet ad when I was young that made a lot of sense.
    “If you’ve got a $10 head…get a $10 helmet”

  39. Lost in A**2 on 17 Apr 2012 at 7:19 pm #

    TruckerRon, I do the speed limit in the LEFT lane. You can imagine the ire I inspire. Why the left lane? To avoid the folks slowing down for exits and the folks NOT paying attention when entering. Why not the center lane? To avoid the trucks avoiding the aforementioned merging drivers. In the left lane, I can continue at a steady pace. As steady as I’m able to, anyway, without cruise control.

    I stay at least two, and preferably five, seconds back. Easy to do at the speed limit in the left lane. :)

    My major complaint with backup cameras is that they encourage bad habits: drivers should be looking where they are going, not at the dashboard. Put the display near the back window, not on the center console. Since other drivers do their very best to ignore everyone else, watching out the back window, with the side windows in view, gives warning of the cars passing behind while backing out of a parking spot. Or into a parallel-parking spot. Adding a camera display to that view would be a real improvement, since it shows little ones who would otherwise be below sight lines.

    To further complicate things, Our Fair City has added back-in angle parking on some streets. In at least one case, a one-way, single lane street. It’s hard to get enough space to back into a parallel spot, and it’s no easier with angle parking.

  40. Jerry in Fl on 17 Apr 2012 at 7:22 pm #

    Two for two and I’ll leave it at that as I can talk old cars all day. My college vehicle was a Rambler wagon and all of the seats, front and back, would lay flat. I remember sitting in a plastic seat that hung over the front seat. I had my own little steering wheel with a rubber horn button. beep beep. Oh yeah, that was much earlier.

  41. emeritus Minnesota biologist on 17 Apr 2012 at 7:37 pm #

    The existential cat video is a riot. I sent it to my favorite cat person, who is away somewhere and won’t see it until Sunday or later.

    An aunt’s early ’30s Plymouth coupe had a rumble seat. Road in it all the way from NYC to Pawling once, 65 miles, a two hour trip on rt. 22. Da mn, it’s windy back there. The scariest [or maybe most common scary] thing I saw kids do with vehicles in the ’30s-’40s was, when the kids were on roller skates [guys only, of course], grab onto the back corner of a truck and go barreling up 6th Ave. I never did it.

    About obesity and lack of exercise. Exercise is good, but genes and diet contribute much more to the current obesity epidemic than lack of exercise. I never exercised much as a kid [standard nerdy bookworm], ate pretty well, and ate a lot once puberty set in, but I was consistently skinny, like Dad. Was notorious for eating a lot well into my fifties. I biked and walked but never deliberately exercised until my mid-50s. Learned to eat less over the last few decades, largely because overeating caused discomfort. For the same period I’ve worked out 2-3 x/wk and really enjoyed it, but I still get away with more intake than a lot of guys. [Hospital volunteers get to use the PT workout room free 24/7. So do hospital employees.]
    I’ve mentioned before the low fat diet to successfully combat cholesterol without statins, and that has incidentally taken off 15 lb.

    Is there more to Sunday’s cartoon than I think? Arlo seems to be cooking only two bugers or steaks, and a platter, after all, is an oversized plate. How is this adding insult to injury? Or maybe he didn’t really mean platter and she is ribbing him by taking him literally.

  42. emeritus Minnesota biologist on 17 Apr 2012 at 7:43 pm #

    Rode!

  43. CW in 617 on 17 Apr 2012 at 7:46 pm #

    So many topics today – that’s a good thing, not a complaint.

    sandcastler: Sometimes they do check buses for contraband. The Greyhound routes from Detroit to New York/New England go through southern Ontario, through Buffalo, and for some reason in Rochester they ask for passports (or ID for those who are just getting on) and sometimes pull out the bags and bring out the drug-sniffing dogs. I’ve been held up a few times, once for drugs, more often for immigration issues.

    Okay – the bus I was on was held up. I’ve been good, and learned to always carry my passport card.

  44. Charlotte in NH on 17 Apr 2012 at 8:00 pm #

    eMb, in Sunday’s comic, I was puzzled. Maybe the steaks got overcooked and shrank — the look on Arlo’s face seems to show something is wrong. Maybe some of the steaks burned up ! They don’t look as big as they should be.

  45. Just Jay on 17 Apr 2012 at 9:11 pm #

    Re: Back Seats
    The original Volkswagen Beetle had a deep shelf behind the back seat and above the engine. We kids would fight over who got to sit there. It was only good for short trips as there was not enough space to stretch or move around, and we usually had to keep our heads at an angle because of the slope of the back window.

    Cheers,
    Jay

  46. curmudgeonly ex-professor on 18 Apr 2012 at 1:18 am #

    Today’s effort is going to become a true classic!! I cannot wait to show it to my much-better half!

  47. Rick in Shermantown, Ohio on 18 Apr 2012 at 4:55 am #

    Thoughts upon making it to adulthood:

    Anyone else who had the following when you were a kid?

    Jarts

    B-B gun

    .22 rifle (only when I visited my uncle on the farm)

    chemistry set

    large pen knife, hatchet, and other Boy Scout items

  48. Bob, near Mark on 18 Apr 2012 at 6:07 am #

    RiS,O,
    All of the above, but the lawn darts were never very popular with us.
    I did combine a few on the list into a couple of years stint as Shooting Sports instructor at a Boy Scout camp.

  49. Bob, near Mark on 18 Apr 2012 at 6:09 am #

    PS: That combined list resulting in Shooting Sports at the BSA camp would also include archery equipment.

  50. Karla on 18 Apr 2012 at 9:49 am #

    I, like Brenty, was “safely” in the back of the truck. Sometimes we had a cab on it. BB guns remind me of the time my brother shot me in the back of the neck. Though he did warn me not to move. Good thing Dad never found out. Anyone else miss the old style wagons, that you could steer from the inside? Surprised my brother and I survived driving one of those down our hill and bailing out before reaching the main street at the end. Ahhh, childhood!

  51. Meryl A on 26 Apr 2012 at 11:10 pm #

    When my sister was born in 1965 my mom drove a 2 door car. My grandfather was upset that if my mom stopped the car, my sister, seated in what passed as a child seat at the time and was more intended to let the child see out the window than protect it, would be injured. The child seats at the time went over the front seat (a child alone in the back was too dangerous to imagine). My grandfather tinkered around and invented, solely for my mom’s car, a lock to keep the front seat from folding up. The for some reason he was afraid that someone would damage my mom’s engine and invented, again just for her car, the hood lock. Sister survived this as we all survived riding in cars pre seat belts and child seats. Also we survived cribs with drop sides!