Anyone else beside me miss the old pull-tabs on soda cans?
When I was a kid I made a really cool chain by linking pull-tabs together. Sometimes I miss the little things that get swept away because of safety issues, things like: Lawn Darts, Kabangers and those neat little pull-tabs. Okay I don’t really miss smashing my fingers with Kabangers all that much, but pull-tabs were great.
It was a different time in America, we roamed the neighborhood helmet-less on our bikes, played with a ball and jacks that were swallow-able, (don’t you love these words I’m creating) and sometimes we were even found lying on that shelf up against the rear window of a car.
Pseudo hippies wanted to buy us all a coke, Schoolhouse Rock taught a generation about the loneliness of a bill, and we all knew the song of Woodsy the Owl:
Give a Hoot don’t polluteYea the past times of America were just different, I wasn’t the only one who made chain links out of pull-tabs,lots of people did it. Who knows where it started, doesn’t really matter, it was fun, sort of like catching fireflies only without the needless death of innocent bugs. It was just something kids did to pass the time.
Never be a dirty bird
In the city or in the woods
Help keep America looking good
Hoot! Hoot!
For those who don’t remember pull tabs and why they became extinct, I’ll try to explain.
Pull-tabs were detachable covers for drink cans, unlike the ones today, that when opened stay attached to the can. They sort of looked like big bubbly zipper pulls. The concept was easy enough to grasp, you grabbed the tab and pulled it off of the can. But here’s where the problem came into play, after you pulled the tab off, you had to get rid of it. Sure throwing it in the garbage makes sense, but everyone got so used to kids taking the pull-tabs to make chains, that when there were no kids around they didn’t know what to do with them. So they dumped them back into the can so as not to litter.
‘Wow’, you are thinking to yourself, ‘that Woodsy must have been a very persuasive owl.’ And you’re right, he was, as far as owls go. But let’s remain focused people, pull-tabs.
Unfortunately that lazy disposal technique had some pitfalls. You see a few meatsticks ended up guzzling their refreshment so fast they gulped down the pull-tab right along with it, choking on that sharp little cover. Although most people didn’t choke on them, there was another problem, sooner or later you were bound to cut your finger on the edge of one of those tabs, especially if you were trying to make a chain out of them, what can I say, nothing‘s perfect.
This was bad: bad for the people, bad for Coke, bad for the hippies, bad for the defense lawyers, and even potentially bad for Woodsy. So they pulled the tabs for good and replaced them with those punch through things we have today. Pull-tabs are gone forever, leaving future generations chainless.
It was a one of those neat little things you could do for free in your spare time. Sure it was a little dangerous but a bit of common sense would keep you alive, and there were always plenty of Band Aids lying about for those pull-tab chain hobbyists.
So what’s my point?
Is there a point or was this just a trip down memory lane?
Sure there is a point, and a question.
Was it better to live in a time when people could choke on sharp metal objects?
Well…
maybe.
You see, we are creating a world were we feel it’s better to get rid of dangerous things then to teach people how to respect those things. That’s sort of like putting up a fence around the pool instead of teaching your children to swim. Sooner or later those kids will find themselves in deepwater.
Life is messy. Life is dangerous. And yes we should make it a safe place where we can, but at the same time we shouldn’t be escaping the responsibilities of teaching people responsibility. I could go into a rant about this but I won’t.
Instead I’m just going to wonder...
besides those cool pull-tab chains what else is being lost everyday.
