Risk

When I was a kid, my younger brother and I decided that we would like to join a circus.  We realized that the circus probably doesn't just hire kids who have no skills, so we set about creating an act.  We enlisted one of the girls down the street and started practicing each day.  I had a green Stingray bicycle with a banana seat and butterfly handle bars.  It was a beauty.  Well... except for the scraped paint and the stitches on the seat, but that kind of led an air of being a kid who had been somewhere and done something.  Our act consisted of one of us peddling like mad while someone stood on the handle bars with arms outstretched like a tight rope walker.  The third kid would stand on the back of the seat with arms also outstretched.  We practiced all of the positions, because you just never know what you will have to do in the circus to make sure that the show goes on.  When we got pretty good, my older brother John would throw rocks at the feet of the peddler just to make it more exciting.  We weren't keen on this part, but he thought it was fun, and it's hard to argue with someone when you're all balanced on your bike like that.  At dinner each night we would discuss the pros and cons of the day's practice in front of our bemused parents.  As it turns out, the circus never actually came to the town and none of us were really interested in actually running away.  But there is a certain satisfaction in knowing that, if they came, we would be ready.  Luckily nobody had thought of bike helmets yet.  And I'm grateful that they hadn't thought to take out all the fun rides in the playground either.  I kind of feel like James Bond when I tell the elementary school set what a life of danger I led.

Sadly, we now live in a society that tolerates no risk.  Several months ago I heard that 3,000 people a year die in the United States each year from carbon monoxide poisoning.  At first I was vaguely impressed.  But then I started wondering how many of us there are.  I didn't actually wonder enough to Google it, but luckily, a few days later I was reading about something else in the LA Times and they actually had bothered to look up the number.  The population of the US is three hundred and eleven million.  Oh perfect, now we can figure out the actual risk of carbon monoxide poisoning.  Okay... if you live in the US you have a .00000964% chance of dying of carbon monoxide poisoning this year.  Call my simplistic, but I translate that into no chance.  Nonetheless, our diligent land lady purchased a carbon monoxide detector so we can all sleep easy.  

If TSA disappeared tomorrow (this is not a threat... just a what if), how worried would I be that on my next flight somewhere someone would blow up their underwear?  Not really worried.  I do have a devil may care attitude when it comes to the odds of geese flying into the engine as well.  

I do feel really bad that we have given up so much as a people because we are afraid.  The latest thing in the news was the Supreme Courts decision that the police can pretty much strip search anyone they want.  Doesn't that sound a bit police state-ish?  When you were nine years old and careening down the gravel hill on your bike, would you have believed that that would be part of how America looks when you became middle aged?  I can just imagine how the grownups would've reacted if you had predicted that.  They wouldn't have been able to imagine it.  Go outside and practice your circus act, America is the land of the free and the home of the brave.