My "Wonder Years" Were Dangerous AF

Life was treacherous for a ten-year-old Black kid in the Deep South of 1968 - but not for the reasons you might think.

“The Wonder Years” (2021) follows the Williams family and is set in 1968. (Erika Doss/ABC) Source: The Washington Post

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When I watched the first episode of ABC’s reboot of “The Wonder Years,” the show revived many childhood memories. Since I was a kid in 1968, the year the reboot was set, I couldn’t help but reflect on my years of wonder during that period.

This version of the show, which originally aired in 1988, is set in Montgomery, Alabama. The program has gotten its share of negative criticism, either for having the temerity not to center whiteness or for not portraying enough racial turmoil. I think the show-runners have done a pretty good job — even though the AV Club’s Stephen Robinson does not share my opinion:

The show’s pilot also promotes the Cosby-esque myth that a comfortable middle class existence provides a refuge from racism. Middle class white people are presumably kinder and more tolerant than their lower income brethren, which is both classist and fundamentally untrue, as viral cell phone videos from the past few years would demonstrate.

The mention of 1968 often brings forth images of anti-war protests or the assassinations of Martin Luther King, Jr. and Robert Kennedy. Because of its place in popular culture, I wonder if part of the problem for critics like Robinson.

Because they have no firsthand knowledge of what life in the Deep South was like in 1968, they have a hard wrapping their minds around how society functioned. Based on my recollections, everyday life for most Black people was relatively uneventful despite the Jim Crow laws of the era. It was also filled with contradiction and complexity.

When James Earl Ray shot King, my parents kept us home from school for a few days, even though there were no riots in our town. They even marched during the protests that came afterward. But as a ten-year-old in 1968, segregation was such a part of the social order, I never even noticed it.

Most of the time, my life did not include many white people. Except for Miss Pearl, an older white lady who paid me five dollars occasionally to mow her lawn, no white people lived in my neighborhood. It would be two more years before I attended school with white kids.

That being said, my brothers and I were members of an integrated Boy’s Club. Occasionally attended the all-white synagogue or Presbyterian church. I was even in a member of an integrated Boy Scout troop sponsored by the mostly white Unitarian community.

Maybe I was too busy being a kid  to give racism a second thought. But for any kid in the 60s, growing up could be a pretty risky proposition.

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It’s hard to imagine today, but the sixties were a time when TV commercials featured football stars not just telling kids smoking cigarettes was cool, but it probably was good for them. My parents fine with sending me to buy smokes for them, so was the corner grocery store that sold them to me. I usually carried around my own pack of candy cigarettes, so it’s no wonder that took up the real thing years later.

No automobiles, not even the expensive ones, had seat belts, let alone airbags. What passed for a child car seat was a joke. My parents drove all over Arkansas with nobody buckled up. My youngest brother, who was still in diapers, routinely sat in the front seat in my Mom’s lap while she drove all over town.

So it should come as no surprise that a culture that is okay with selling cigarettes to ten-year-old kids would have no reservations about marketing toys that had a high probability of killing them.

Keep in mind that the sixties, most parents routinely left little kids home alone all the time. At the age of ten, I was responsible for my three younger brothers aged seven, six, and three. Honestly, with toys like these, I’m amazed that any of us made it to adolescence.

Exhibit One: Lawn Darts

You have to wonder who in the world green-lit this lethal weapon masquerading as a toy. Also marketed as Javelin darts, jarts, lawn jarts, or yard darts, Lawn Darts were used to play a yard game similar to horseshoes or cornhole. The difference was that you played with weighted, metal spikes instead of a horseshoe or bean bag. What could possibly go wrong?

I learned about the dangers of allowing children to play with metal projectiles when one of my brothers sunk one of the miniature javelins into the side of my neck (he claimed it was an accident). While today this type of injury would result in a visit to urgent care, my mother patched up my neck and sent me back outside to play. The Lawn Darts, however, were never seen again. 

Source: Pinterest

In 1970, the U.S. Food and Drug Administration (FDA) stepped in. Rather than banning Lawn Darts outright, they required that the toy's manufacturers change the packaging and stop selling this abomination in children’s toy departments. Finally, in 1988 the Consumer Product Safety Commission banned Lawn Darts, arguably the most dangerous toy ever sold, for good. 

Exhibit Two: The Linemar Atomic Reactor Steam Plant

I’m not sure how my folks pulled it off, but somehow my four brothers and I had every toy a kid could imagine. But of all the toys I ever possessed, one was the holy grail. The reason I hold this gift in such high regard is that it is the only “toy” I was never allowed to play with. Not even once. The reason is simple. It was one of the most dangerous toys ever sold. 

The Linemar Atomic Reactor Steam Plant was a twisted Cold War vision of a children’s toy. It consisted of a “nuclear reactor dome” with a boiler connected to a locomotive-style flywheel. The packaging included a small container of chemical tablets mysteriously called Esbit. Setting fire to these tablets under the boiler made the atomic reactor’s flywheel spin.

With time, I’ve come to believe the Atomic Reactor toy wasn’t meant for me at all. I think my Dad intended this to be his toy, and he was using me as his straw man. For one thing, the toy appeared after the initial Christmas hoopla, when no one was paying attention.

In retrospect, my dad was really excited about the toy. Unfortunately, his efforts were all for naught. Once my Mom saw the toy’s corrosive-looking chemicals, she vetoed the present and, like the yard darts, the nuclear reactor toy vanished. 

The Atomic Reactor Plant, by Linemar (the Japanese branch of Marx toys). Source: Oldtoyz1.com

As it turns out, the toy’s disappearance was probably for the best. Although the Atomic Reactor Steam Plant was a safer toy than the 1950s Atomic Energy Laboratory, a toy that cost about $500 in today’s dollars and came with little containers of uranium, it still had its problems—namely, the Esbit tablets used to fire up its boiler. 

Esbit is just a nice-sounding name for hexamine, a precursor for the chemical RDX, an explosive more powerful than TNT. Had I gotten a chance to play with the Atomic Reactor Steam Plant, the noxious result would’ve been a combustion that randomly creates formaldehyde, ammonia, nitrogen oxide, or hydrogen cyanide—take your pick.

Giving your child a toy like that today will probably result in a visit from child protective services. But in the atomic age, some people thought atomic radiation was good for you. Thank goodness Mom had some common sense. 

Exhibit Three: Creepy Crawlers

I’m still trying to figure out why my parents bought us a toy that came with an electric hot plate. But even my mother, who typically had a nose for dangerous toys, went along with the purchase of the “Creepy Crawlers” version of the Thingmaker, the masculine answer to the Easy-Bake Oven.

The Thingmaker allowed kids to create bug shapes using Plastigoop, a substance that emitted toxic fumes similar to the Atomic Reactor Steam Plant. Children were instructed to pour the brew into an open-face electric hot plate oven that, when plugged in, heated up to a scorching 390 degrees. Seriously, this toy got hot enough to cook a steak.

My brothers and I played with our Thingmaker all the time, especially when Mom and Dad were at work. We never made any of the stuff in the television commercials. Instead, we filled our Thingmaker with anything that melted, from toy soldiers to crayons. Given the combination of four children and a hot plate, it’s a miracle we didn’t burn our house down.

Fortunately, my brothers and I made it through our Wonder Years. In retrospect, I do give the government credit for taking some truly hazardous toys off the market. If only they’d offered my children the same protection from the likes of Instagram.