The Great Mid-Eighty's Latching Fridge Epidemic
or
Latching Refridgerators; The Silent Killers
or
How Punky Brewster Saved Thousands of Lives
Kids these days do not know how lucky they are, now that the latching refridgerators are gone. It was tough growing up in the eighty's. We had a lot more to worry about back then; nuclear war, razor blades in our Haloween candy, and worst of all, suffocating in an old abandoned latching fridge.
It's unclear exactly how many kids needlessly lost thier lives while those Crumb-Bum politicians idely sat by doing nothing. It would happen time and time agian, seemingly innocent games of after-school Hide-and-Seek would turn deadly when a kid would find the perfect hiding place: the rusty old Kenmore fridge in the alley. The door would latch shut and the kid who was, as they say, "It," never found his hidden friend until it was too late. Those were troubled times.
It wasn't until 1987 that something was finally done. A grieving mother of a child recently lost to a latching fridge, petitioned congress, "How many more children must die?" she tearfully pleaded. "Inaction is the real enemy," she went on, "right now, as these hearings procede, it's estimated that there are at least 10-15 kids trapped in latching fridges!" Several Socio-Economic issues were also at hand. Statistics showed that rates of Latching Refrigerator Aphixiation (LRA) occured at far greater rates in poorer neighborhoods, presumably because they couldn't afford the heavy-appliance dumping fees. You can be sure that something would have been done sooner if the children of those Fat-Cats in Washington were the ones dying in cold dark rusty fridges.
Fearing the political back-lash, Congress enacted the Anti-Latching Fridge Act (ALFA) of 1987. It would take years to clean up all of the antiquated ice-boxes, so they had to start with a PR campange. Kids of all ages were shown educational film strips and after-school specials about the dangers of hiding in refridgerators. But things didn't really begin to change until the airing of a very special episode of Punky Brewster. Punky's best friend almost died after hiding in the old fridge behind the house. It put a human face on the tragedy. The public out-cry was enormous. The Latching refridgerators were taken off the streets and kids could safely play Hide-and-Seek agian.
Social progress can be slow at times, but we must never give up the fight to keep things moving forward. And we must never forget the heros, like Punky Brewster, who helped make real changes in our times.
or
Latching Refridgerators; The Silent Killers
or
How Punky Brewster Saved Thousands of Lives
Kids these days do not know how lucky they are, now that the latching refridgerators are gone. It was tough growing up in the eighty's. We had a lot more to worry about back then; nuclear war, razor blades in our Haloween candy, and worst of all, suffocating in an old abandoned latching fridge.
It's unclear exactly how many kids needlessly lost thier lives while those Crumb-Bum politicians idely sat by doing nothing. It would happen time and time agian, seemingly innocent games of after-school Hide-and-Seek would turn deadly when a kid would find the perfect hiding place: the rusty old Kenmore fridge in the alley. The door would latch shut and the kid who was, as they say, "It," never found his hidden friend until it was too late. Those were troubled times.
It wasn't until 1987 that something was finally done. A grieving mother of a child recently lost to a latching fridge, petitioned congress, "How many more children must die?" she tearfully pleaded. "Inaction is the real enemy," she went on, "right now, as these hearings procede, it's estimated that there are at least 10-15 kids trapped in latching fridges!" Several Socio-Economic issues were also at hand. Statistics showed that rates of Latching Refrigerator Aphixiation (LRA) occured at far greater rates in poorer neighborhoods, presumably because they couldn't afford the heavy-appliance dumping fees. You can be sure that something would have been done sooner if the children of those Fat-Cats in Washington were the ones dying in cold dark rusty fridges.
Fearing the political back-lash, Congress enacted the Anti-Latching Fridge Act (ALFA) of 1987. It would take years to clean up all of the antiquated ice-boxes, so they had to start with a PR campange. Kids of all ages were shown educational film strips and after-school specials about the dangers of hiding in refridgerators. But things didn't really begin to change until the airing of a very special episode of Punky Brewster. Punky's best friend almost died after hiding in the old fridge behind the house. It put a human face on the tragedy. The public out-cry was enormous. The Latching refridgerators were taken off the streets and kids could safely play Hide-and-Seek agian.
Social progress can be slow at times, but we must never give up the fight to keep things moving forward. And we must never forget the heros, like Punky Brewster, who helped make real changes in our times.
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