#152 The Little League Dad Society

All Rights Reserved © 2016 Thomas W. Day

We've all witnessed the "little league dad" syndrome and some of us have suffered that arrogant, egotistical, under-achieving fellow personally. Some of us have even been stuck with little league dads and moms. Way back in 2014 (I Hate Racing #155 April 2014), I made my personal take on watching little kids on motorcycles pretty clear, "When a stadium motocross is broken up (too often literally) with a bunch of 8-year-olds plodding around a motocross track, smashing into each other and the track obstacles, I have to be somewhere else. I can't watch." Even worse, when I end up following a dad on his bike and his kid dangling from the back--feet a few inches from reaching the passenger pegs, in minimal clothing, and an ill-fitting helmet--I have to find another route to where I'm going. I've seen dead and mangled adults and I don't like it much, but I can deal with it. I'd just as soon live my whole life without ever seeing a dead and/or mangled little kid. I'm afraid I'd never be able to get that image out of my mind. I saw a dirt bike foot-peg-gutted high school kid, 40 years ago, and I'm still stuck with that image as if it happened last week.

I wonder how many parents have digested the real message behind the Will Smith movie, Concussion, or the book it is based on, Mark Fainaru-Wada and Steve Fainaru's League of Denial? As one of the doctors in the book said, "We're exposing more than 1 million kids to early-onset brain damage, and we don't know yet how to prevent it." Well, we know there are a lot more than "1 million kids" exposed to this because he's just talking about football. Between baseball, hockey, soccer, motorcycle racing, and a culture that tells kids they can knock each other around like punching bags without consequence, almost half of our kids are exposed to early-onset brain damage (resulting in chronic traumatic encephalopathy or CTE) on a regular basis. Another sports-related concussion researcher said, "If only 10 percent of mothers in American begin to conceive of football as a dangerous game, that is the end of football." Obviously, the possibility that 10% of American mothers don't "conceive of football as a dangerous game" pretty much proves that there are a lot of clueless mothers out there. Anyone who has played football for more than one afternoon knows it's a dangerous game. However, until recently we didn't know how dangerous. CTE has been found in the brains of 18 to 21 year old football players and the leading neurological researchers are now recommending that "kids under the age of 14 should not play collision sports as they are currently played. We believe they should not be playing tackle football." Likewise, it's pretty obvious that kids under the age of 14 should not be racing motorcycles. It's a well-known fact that when you're racing off road, "if you're not crashing you're not riding."

Peter Lenz, center, poses with mechanic Will Eikenberry, Dylan Code, Misti Hurst, and Keith Code. Lenz died at Indianapolis Motor Speedway.

Of course, this is an issue where following the money gets to core of the problem. Danger is why we like these high risk sports: football (394,350 injuries in 2012 with an average of 12 deaths per year for the past 25 years), soccer (172,470 injuries in 2012), baseball and softball (119,810 and 58,210 injuries in 2012), basketball (389,610 injuries in 2012), hockey, volleyball (43,190 injuries in 2012), wrestling (40,750 injuries in 2012), gymnastics (28,300 injuries in 2012), field and track (24,910 injuries in 2012), and motocross and road racing (for which there are no reliable statistics). Hell, we've even figured out how to make cheerleading dangerous (37,770 injuries in 2012). And there is a lot of money to be made (the NFL's 2014 revenue was $7.24B) exposing young athletes to death, disability, and damage to their long term mental health. However, we're just getting started with learning about brain damage and the fact that 76 or 79 studied NFL player brains found evidence of CTE hasn't sunk; especially NFL players and their families. Regardless, you would have to be delusional to imagine that motorcycle racing doesn't have these problems. The sad case of ex-NASCAR racer Fred Lorenzen is probably the first shot fired in motorsports and I suspect there is a lot of hidden damage out there in race cars, motorcycles, and every other contact sport. Now that (a few) doctors know what to look for, a lot more cases will be popping up.

The big sea change here isn't that we are surprised that long term consequences result from injuries. We expect knee, hand and arm, shoulder, and even internal injuries from motorcycle racing that will hamper the ex-racer later in life. Racing is dangerous, get over yourself, right? My hip replacement was due, according to my orthopedic surgeon, to "use and abuse" and genetic factors. Racing and riding off-road motorcycles would be major contributors to that use and abuse. I wasn't surprised and I haven't once looked back and wished I'd not ridden motorcycles when I was young and made out of "rubber and magic." The big change in attitude should come from the knowledge that "getting your bell rung" can have long term consequences to your mental health: resulting in CTE which is "essentially pugilistica dementia (boxer's dementia)" with side orders of memory loss, confusion, impaired judgment, impulse control problems, aggression, depression, anxiety, Parkinsonism, suicide, and progressive dementia. If you know your kid is being exposed to chemicals that could result in those symptoms would you keep him or her in that environment?

We use, semi-rationally, to justify risk is the associated reward. Those of us who chose to ride motorcycles, with some understanding of the risk we're accepting, have a collection of rewards that we believe makes the risk acceptable. The problem with this new knowledge is that the information is being aggressively repressed by the people who make the most money from these sports. In the case of football, the NFL has done everything possible (like Big Tobacco) to squash research and evidence that head trauma can lead to long-term cognitive problems. By "everything" I mean everything from creating bogus "research" to ridiculing researchers in public media to suing people for slander. I suppose murder hasn't been on the table, but you never know. Currently, their big argument has been that it's not "certain" that head banging is the cause of CTE. Since we're not absolutely positive that whacking on a kid's skull causes CTE, we don't have to stop it. Drug and chemical companies have used that bullshit argument for being able to continue polluting water, air, food, medicine, and the entire planet for a century. A more rational society would require the polluters to prove they aren't doing harm before they are allowed to do whatever godawful thing they want to do, but humans are mostly irrational. Maybe we're all brain damaged and it's too late to make any difference for the species?

In the meantime, I think parents should seriously reconsider the risk their children are taking for whatever weird cause they've used to justify putting a little kid on a motorcycle and putting that kid on a race track. Ten years ago, you could excuse this behavior with "it's not a problem, he'll shake it off and be ok tomorrow." Today, the evidence is good that not only will that headache and loss of memory stay around a while but it might become a whole lot worse in 30-40 years.

 MMM #183 May 2017

Getting Geezerly

All Rights Reserved © 2009 Thomas W. Day

I've noticed a change in my attitude since turning 60. I care less and less about the future of the things that won't affect me. This is fairly significant, since I am sort of notorious among my friends for living as much in the future as the present.

A fair number of my Geezer columns, beginning with the first one from 1999, are about how motorcyclists' anti-social behaviors are likely to affect motorcyclists' access to public roads and parts of cities. It's happened before and it's going to happen more. Even dumps like Daytona are reconsidering the effect motorcycle invasions have on their residents' already miserable quality of life. Lots of lesser "traditional" motorcycle destinations are opting out of the loud pipe, hooligan-behaving, tough-guy-dentist, vandals-took-the-handles secondary effects of going after the motorcycling dollar.

Fortunately for me, I don't go to any of those events or places. Even more fortunate, I live in an insanely conservative country where progress and innovation has been slowed to a crawl and change rarely comes in less than a generation. For example, we're going to be the last industrialized nation to ban lead from manufacturing processes. We are more concerned with the inconvenience manufacturers will experience if they stop pouring that metal into our drinking water than we about poisoning our children. If something that big doesn't get fixed instantly, how long will it take cities to rid themselves of pesky, but rare and insignificant and non-socially-redeeming, motorcyclists? Seriously, even though motorcycles are not in any way part of "smart highway" planning, how many decades will it be before this country moves to that kind of vehicle? In the Land of the Brave we're conservative (timid, afraid of the dark, terrified of change) and we won't do anything rash, innovative, or sensible in a hurry. The oceans may rise up and float our cities away and we'll still be debating who will pay for any technology change.

With that knowledge behind me, I have quit worrying about the future of motorcycling. Whatever happens, won't happen to me. At best, I have maybe 10 years, 15 tops, left to ride. More likely, I'll fall off of a cliff, contract some nasty cancer from my years of industrial chemical exposure, trip over my dog and fall down the stairs, or blow a gasket in any number of clogged vessels or organs. The future of motorcycling is not likely to change in my lifetime. None of my kids have chosen to be motorcyclists and I don't see that as something to worry about. My grandson might become interested, but he probably won't. I've lost the capacity to worry about generations beyond the ones I know personally.

That “freedom” has a cost, though. Recently, a younger, more politically involved friend asked my opinion of helmet laws. For the last 25 years I’ve had a split mind on this issue. On one hand, I’m a fan of Darwin’s selection of the fittest and am all for getting the stupid out of the gene pool. On the other, I’m worried that if too many of the unfit kill themselves on motorcycles their surviving relatives will rise up and campaign against the existence of “murdercycles” on public roads. As I explained that pair of concerns I realized I had passed the point of caring about the second hand. My explanation was blunt, honest, and very politically incorrect. It happened so quickly that it was out of my mouth before I realized what I was saying.

Another friend, a non-helmet wearing friend, was part of the discussion and was obviously offended by my lack of concern for his offspring. That’s the other effect of aging on me; I’m less sensitive (and I was always insensitive) to who I offend. Honestly, I’m less afraid of the consequences. At work, this has resulted in a feeling that I’m “bulletproof” to the politics and backstabbing that goes on in an academic institution. The worst thing that can happen is that I will get fired. If I get fired, I’ll find some other way to occupy my time and pay my bills. I have a good gig, but there are other good gigs.

In personal relationships, I worry less about what will be thought about me and more about saying what I mean to say. Getting old sucks, creaks, hurts, aches, and provides occasional stabbing pain. However, it is sort of liberating. If "the worst" that can happen can only happen for a short duration, how bad can it be? It's not like I'm going to be disabled and suffer through the prime of my years. My prime passed about 30 years ago.

The older I get, the higher my tolerance for pain becomes. Getting out of bed is more painful than crashing a dirt bike was 35 years ago. Bending over, running, squatting, reaching over my head, twisting, and flexing any joint provides a constant reminder that my body is increasingly fragile and rapidly decaying. The choices are: 1) avoid pain by not doing anything or 2) get used to pain and keep doing stuff.

For a while, I'm going to chose to keep doing stuff. If the rest of you choose to screw up motorcycling, I'm not going to worry about it. You can't screw it up fast enough to mess up my time on the road.

To Lead or Not to Lead

Damn! I hate mixed feelings. Like everyone, I'd love a black-and-white world; a world where it's easy to spot the right side of an argument and where it's even easier to be on the right side.

However, hardly anything is black-and-white. For instance, the much-hated CPSIA, the Consumer Product Safety Improvement Act of 2008, which banned kids' motorcycles and OHVs because of their lead content. The industry, of course, is upset because motorcycles for rich little kids is a dependable source of income and sales. In this economy, the rest of us may end up living under a bridge, pawning our motorcycles for lunch and a tarp to sleep under, but the children of the rich will aways have their expensive toys.

Unless the government bans those toys.

And the federal government did just that.

As soon as the CPSIA was announced, motorcycle dealers discovered they were committing a federal crime in selling these expensive toys; a crime that could cost them $100k per sale. Even with the over-inflated prices of toy motorcycles and ATVs, it's tough to come up with a profit margin that would include a $100k tax.

On one hand, an old biking hero, Malcolm Smith, is staging his version of the Boston Tax Protest by selling 3 of these bikes on television and gearing up to fight the following court battle. Of course, he's also asking for a contribution from "everybody" to help pay for his legal costs, "I'll have to get a loan to pay it. Hopefully everybody will send five dollar checks in or something." If he goes to jail, will he ask each of us to serve a day or two for him? I'll probably pass.

On the other hand, the US is practically the last 1st world nation to ban lead from common products. We still, as Malcolm Smith proved in his protest, sell lead weights in sporting goods stores for fishing. We still use lead in electronics manufacturing. We are saturated with lead products and lead waste and it is probably affecting the national IQ. The theory seems to be, "by the time we decide lead is a bad thing, we're all going to be too lead poison-retarded to do anything about it or care."

Finally, from the perspective of an old fashioned progressive, populist radical, I don't much care about the availability of expensive toys for the children of the rich or over-credit-extended. The three characters who bought Smith's illegally sold OHVs were Troy Lee (Troy Lee Designs), Glen Helen Raceway owner Bud Feldkamp, and Jeff Ward. All millionaires, all folks with vested interests in keeping this market alive. This isn't exactly the same kind of crowd who were present at the Boston Tea Party, regardless of what Smith would like to believe.

The "right" to contaminate the planet for recreational purposes is up for question. The "right" to put our kids on dangerous vehicles, in front of spectators, for our entertainment and personal glory is also questionable. I've said it before, so I realize I'm redundant, but I hate that "break" in AMA Stadiumcross where the little kids line up and launch themselves at pro whoops and jumps as much as I hate torture scenes in movies. I can't get up an interest in kids on motorcycles, ATVs, snowmobiles, or any other motorized vehicle. Kids should be self-powered. Add to that belief my total disinterest in the problems of the rich and idle and I am completely disconnected from any concern over this vital motorcycling issue. The plaintive cry of rich dads bawling, "think of the kids!" is less than inspiring. I just don't care about this non-issue.