A Science Guy’s Almanac #26. Year 2. June 13, 2016
Leather Football Helmets and Yellow jackets-Two more terms you don’t want in the same sentence!
My dad retired from the Navy in 1960 after twenty-two years of service. He was a Senior Chief Gunner’s Mate when he retired. There’s not a long list of job openings for a former Gunner’s Mate, regardless of rank.
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| My dad with his gun in the background. My family in the gun mount on "bring your family to work day." This photo was in the San Diego Evening Tribune probably around 1958. |
I don’t think there’s a list of any kind for people with that skill set outside the Navy. Because of that, my dad used some of his VA benefits and went to San Diego State for a year. During that year, he earned a certificate as a Driver’s Training Instructor.
I’m not sure how he determined that loading and firing 5” shells from a 190”-long gun barrel prepared him for riding in the front seat of a driver’s training car armed with only a brake pedal. I do know that he was a memorable driver’s training teacher. But, that’s for another blog posting.
While going to school, my dad worked as the PE locker room attendant at El Cajon Valley High School (ECVHS) in El Cajon, California. Back then, he checked out equipment and towels, repaired items as necessary, and helped move old inventory out of the system.
The best “old inventory” he brought home was a dozen leather football helmets.
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| Assorted leather football helmets. I know we had some like the two in the left column. |
For those of you too young to appreciate what I’m referring to, I direct you to a 2008 movie that starred George Clooney.
Plastic helmets had been the norm since the mid-1950s because the leather helmets were not protective to any [significant?] level. ECVHS was finally cleaning house.
Once the helmets were at our house, they became THE preferred headwear for all the neighborhood boys. We wore them all the time. Including times when it would have been better not to wear them.
Keep reading.
One day we noticed some yellow jacket wasps buzzing around the vacant lot next to my house. A cursory examination revealed a yellow jacket nest in one of the willow trees that bordered the creek that ran through the vacant lot. We immediately decided to launch pieces of ice plant into their nest. What else would you expect from ten- and eleven-year-old males wearing leather football helmets?
We hid behind a broken willow tree branch so the wasps couldn’t see us when we ducked down after launching a chunk of ice plant. We felt safe. After all, the helmets would protect us from any counterattacks by the wasps.
I suspect you can predict the outcome. I’ll let you think about it while you look at a collage of yellow jacket photos.
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| Upper Left: Yellow Jacket. Upper Right: STINGER. Bottom Row: The deed being done! |
We were very successful at hitting the large wasp nest with our ice plant projectiles. I suspect my dad would have been proud of my aim if one of the counterattacking yellow jackets hadn’t gotten inside my helmet.
A List Of Important Facts.
- You have to pull outward on the earflaps of a leather helmet AND THEN PULL DOWN to put it on. Taking off a leather helmet requires PULLING OUTWARD ON THE EARFLAPS and then pulling upward.
- Yellow jackets don’t have barbed stingers. They can sting and pull the stinger out over and over until they inject ALL their venom into their target.
- We didn’t practice the rapid removal of the leather helmets before attacking the yellow jackets.
After being stung who knows how many times, I finally managed to get the helmet off with the help of my buddies. I headed into the house. Mom put ice on my forehead where the sting sites were swelling.
I went to bed early that night. When I awoke in the morning, my face was so swollen that I couldn’t see out of either eye. The photo below isn’t me, but you get the idea. BTW: it is a boy who was stung by a yellow jacket.
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| Victim of Yellow Jacket Sting in the Forehead. |
This is 1960. Benadryl isn’t something you pick up at the Drug Store. (See the Duncan Yo-Yo post about that term.) I know I missed school at least one day.
Because of that incident, I was sensitized to wasp/bee venom. When I stepped on a honey bee in Indiana years later, my lower leg swelled until it was the same diameter from the keen to the ankle. The ER doctor did give me an antihistamine shot and warned me to get to a hospital if I was ever stung again.
No. I don’t carry an epi-pen. I do keep Benadryl close at all times, and I know the way to the closest ER by heart.
Next Almanac post: Why sidewalk cracks can seem like the Grand Canyon.
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