Batteries
Charged, dead and in between.
Last Sunday I was up late preparing the box of toy trains I picked up from the house Friday afternoon. Upon inquiry, I learned that they did not remove the batteries from the trains, so I had to open the box and remove all the batteries. Doing so, I realized that I was the one who put all these batteries in so that my son could play with his trains. Sad enough of a realization, further realizing that he only got to play with them less than ten times due to the constant study his mother forced upon him set me to sobbing. The poor kid had his childhood stolen from him by both his own mother and the covidians.
I bought his first train set at the train museum in Saitama when I took him there for the first time just before his 3rd birthday. Since then, at least once a year for his birthday or Christmas or both, he got more track, accessories and trains. But he was not always able to play with them even right after he got them. Despite the long vacations at the end of each year, rare was the day we were free for him to play with his trains. January first was always spent at my wife’s parent’s condo down the street. The next day or one of the next few days we spent the whole day at the in-laws again when the whole of her family gathered. In recent years, we went camping at least once during the early days of the new year. Others, for reasons I never understood, we would spend a night or two at a hotel. In fact, from the moment we got the house, she seemed to never want to spend any time in it, always planning hotel stays here and there. I had often wondered why she wanted to buy a house if she never wanted to spend time in it. Train sets take time to set up and put away and take up room when they are set up. No time for him to play with them during the week when school in session and many weekends too were spent away. I think the last time he was able to play with his trains was before covid. Now, he will never be able to again.
One of the batteries I removed was a special battery that won the design team an award. It allowed for the train to be controlled remotely. With the remote controller, my son was able to control the speed, and get this, the direction too! I bought this for him the second and final time I was able to take him to the train museum. Not an electrician, but not completely ignorant of electricity and especially motors, the only way I can think of a battery being able to change the direction of a toy train it is in is to change the polarity....is that possible? Any other ideas? Sadly, it took too long to charge and I think he was able to use it just once, though we tried at least 3 times. So long was the time between when he was allowed to play with his trains that the battery would be dead the next time. It took hours to charge and by the time it was charged, the time to put it all away had passed.
The special battery. I assume the wire to be the antennae for the remote controller.
This led me to recall other missed opportunities. We live near a river. Prior to the panic, we often picniced near it as a family. I had always dreamed of taking my son fishing there. Never got the chance. Covidians with their idiotic policies prevented it for the first 4 years of grade school and cram school the two...or was it 3 and 3. afterwards. Prior to that, I thought he was too young. He has almost no memory of the times he and I spent together as covid eliminated most opportunities and the panic was a whole half of his life. Before the panic, I took him aquariums, the zoo, Kamakura, movies, near by parks, to children’s activities from which I picked him up during summer vacation. All these were cancelled in 2020, and remain heavily scaled back to this day. Since the panic began, we have only been able to go to Kamakura twice, the last time was in 23 when all three of us went. Similar with aquariums, the last time was in 22 with the three of us going. The last time to Ueno zoo was also 22,again with all three of us. In 23 I took my son to the zoo now famous for Punch kun, just the two of us. Before the panic, these and other outings were yearly events for he and I. Fewer in the last 6 years combined than in a single previous summer. This Wednesday will mark 3 full months with no contact with my son, unless he responds to any of my numerous messages that he has not even looked at in that time.
It also destroyed my younger daughter’s final years in secondary school. Being told that it was too dangerous to go to school and that an hour or so of Zoom was a sufficient substitute, with most kids not even getting dressed and mostly messing about with their background image, they progressed to the next year regardless. Then being told it was now safe to go back, most kids had totally lost interest and motivation by that point. She was further marginalised from various activities due to the fact that she hadn’t got the jab. Also by pure coincidence (I’m sure!) she was one of the few kids not to get sick during that time. In the end she never even finished her basic education and is now aimless with regard to her future direction. She works a few hours part time a week and spends what she earns even before she’s got it! Not only was she robbed of her final school years, we as parents have been robbed of the opportunity to have a more harmonious relationship with our daughter as all this has caused friction.
Sure, she’ll probably wake up one day and find her direction in life but she could already be doing that now if it hadn’t been for the panic.
I didn't think about this, but you bring up a great point. COVID not only took your son's childhood, but your parenthood as well. It caused further division, and caused "turbo schism" where cracks could have been repaired; it broke a lot of that which was already showing wear and tear.
Someone tried to sell me this week on "Long Covid" being the catalyst to the more than 200 symptoms of it. And in a way they may be right. All that propaganda, all the restrictions, all the chaos and instability due to the ridiculous policies can lead to immune system problems. The catalyst though, was not a physical disease, but the mental brainworm of Covid.
My dad got us trains when we were kids. They were, as far as I know, family trains. They were Lionel trains. They were big, and the track was pretty small by comparison. My dad, to ease the setting up of it, had built it on a plywood setting that you could fold up to the wall when not in use. I don't recall us using it much. I imagine it was not as an elaborate system as you had.