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nightwingmyboi · 5 years ago

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I find Roy and Dick both having commitment issues so interesting because they seem to go about them differently. Dick tries to tie people to him (getting engaged when relationships get rough), and if that fails, then he runs, finds a new group of friends, and starts over. Roy doesn't let himself get tied down (prior to Lian) ever as a way to avoid commitment. It's just such a cool way to see similar issues regarding abandonment and commitment be approached in such different ways.

You bring up interesting ideas—comparing Dick and Roy’s attitudes in this way is very intriguing and something I hadn’t thought of before. But, to be honest, I kind of don’t agree with the idea that Dick and Roy have commitment issues? I’ve seen people say that before, but it doesn’t really click for me.

I know I may be in the minority here but I’ve always thought that Dick’s problem is quite the opposite—that he commits himself to too many things way too fully. He gives 100% to working with Batman, and to the Bludhaven police force, and to the Titans, and to whatever other obligations he has at the time, so much so that he over extends himself to the point of exhaustion and collapse.

New Teen Titans #28

Titans Secret Files #1

Really, I just don’t get how Dick could possibly have commitment issues when he has devoted himself to so many teams: the JLA, the Titans, the Outsiders, even the Birds of Prey to an extent. Dick was known as the linchpin of the DCU; he had relationships with practically everyone. He doesn’t shy away from forming connections. There are so many examples I could give, but a good place to look at in particular would be Tim and Dick’s relationship. Dick specifically reached out to Tim to form a relationship even though he didn’t have to. He treated Tim like a brother, and he made himself available whenever Tim was struggling and needed him (like when Tim was struggling with Stephanie’s pregnancy, with the temptation to bring back his dead loved ones, with suicidal thoughts, etc.) Dick put a lot of work into forming and maintaining their relationship.

JLA (1997) #121

And just look at his relationship with Batman as well...even when things are rocky between them, whenever Bruce asks for Nightwing’s help, Nightwing will bend over backwards in order to deliver. He is extremely loyal to Bruce, most of the time at great personal cost.

Batman #416

And let's be real here; Batman is emotionally distant the majority of the time, and if Nightwing didn’t reach out to Batman the two of them would not even really have a relationship! They would not talk lmao. Nightwing is the one who is committed to their relationship; he does all of the emotional labor so Bruce doesn’t have to. Nightwing gives a lot for very little in return, but he still keeps giving.

And this is not just with the Batfam...he is very consistently there for the Titans. When Donna needs help discovering who she is and where she came from before Wonder Woman entered her life, Dick is the one to help her investigate. When Roy is desperate and needs help retrieving Lian from Cheshire, Dick is the one to beat Cheshire and reunite Roy with Lian. And Dick and Starfire were a couple for years, through lots of ups and downs, and very nearly married. These are not the actions of someone who is afraid to commit, lmao. Dick goes above and beyond for his relationships.

I think that maybe Dick has a reputation for “running away” as you say because of the fact that he moves around quite a bit: he goes to California with the Titans, and then he’s a vigilante in New York, and then Chicago, and then Bludhaven, and so on. It can make him seem flighty. But @bigskydreaming has has a post about that here, and I very much agree with what he has to say. Dick’s tendency to move around doesn’t strike me as avoidance, but rather a holdover from his life at the circus. Growing up at Haly’s, Dick would constantly have been traveling. A circus is a business, so whenever things would get bad in a particular location for whatever reason, the circus would just move onward and forward. Halys wasn’t abandoning anything with this move, or running away, it was simply moving on in hopes that elsewhere things will be better. It is not at all surprising that Dick would have that same mindset in his own life. When tragedy strikes, instead of getting bogged down by all the bad, Dick tends to try and move forward. It’s one of the things I enjoy most about him, one of the things that distinguishes him from Batman. And one of the best ways to move on is to change things up:

And a good way to mix things up is to relocate. It’s not like location should matter that much to Dick. Even when he moves he can and does always go back to doing the exact same thing he’s committed his entire life to doing—fighting crime. His family has the resources of a billionaire, his friends are superheroes who can fly and run faster than the speed of light, and it's not like he throws away his phone/communicator...he is not even slightly out of reach so he’s not really running away from his friends/family...and oftentimes he ends up confronting the problems he was supposedly running away from regardless of his physical location. And the JLA has a teleporter. He can be anywhere he needs to be in an instant, so why does he need to stay in one spot? I don’t really see him living on the move as him running away.

And I don’t read as much about Roy I admit, so I won’t be able to give as many specific examples, but it seems to be a similar thing with him too. After Roy’s father died, he was raised by Brave Bow. And then Brave Bow died, and he was raised by Ollie. It seems to me that his early life had little stability; he was passed from one person to the next and was always having to adjust to drastically different ways of life. In addition, a lot of his formative years were spent with the Navajo—a semi nomadic people. Roy’s Navajo upbringing very much influenced his outlook on life, so it would not be a surprise that he picked up their mindset of living somewhat on the move as well. And after spending his youth in flux, it really doesn’t surprise me at all that Roy isn’t tied down to places or jobs. Roy just wasn’t raised with a way of life that prioritizes settling down in one location, and for the most part he didn’t really have a choice but to move from one life to the next. But I don’t think any of that is representative of having commitment issues. Roy is very committed to Lian, as you mentioned, but even before that he was pretty much willing to do anything for the Titans. He has a really close relationship with Canary. And even in instances where I feel like Roy would be justified in “running away” or taking a step back, Roy usually attempts to preserve and repair his relationships, like with Ollie and Jade. Even after Ollie responded poorly upon discovering his addiction, Roy still eventually reconciled with him, and Roy tries to have a relationship with Jade despite all the difficulties that come with that:

I know that characters sometimes accuse Dick and Roy as having issues with commitment, and I can see where you are coming from anon, but I just don’t really think that they do when you look at the majority of the actions they take lmao. You mention issues with abandonment? I can see that more, considering that Bruce has fired Dick twice before for making mistakes (once with Two Face and the other time with Joker) and Ollie has canonically neglected his relationship Roy in the past, instead focusing on his love life. Really, I think the greater underlying issue for both of these characters is the fact that they both have pretty low self-esteem and don’t want to be a burden to those they love. But that is really a whole other post, this one is already too long!

To summarize, in my opinion, Dick is someone who lives for connection, and someone who is incredibly dedicated and loyal to his friends and family. He has known that he wanted to be a hero since he was a kid, and he has remained committed to that goal for basically the entirety of his life. Similarly, Roy is very dedicated to his family and friends, and is willing to go to incredible lengths for the people important to him. He values his relationships enough to forgive almost anything. Neither of these characters strike me as people who have troubles committing to things; they strike me as characters who commit to causes and people with everything they’ve got.

Thanks for telling me your perspective anon! You gave me a lot to think about.

EDIT: thanks @milfzatannazatara for the clarification about Roy! Ollie technically didn’t kick Roy out of the house, since he was an adult and had already moved out.

#ask #dick grayson #roy harper #nightwing #arsenal #speedy #red arrow #batman #character analysis #meta #long post #commitment issues #titans

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humbleoaks · 5 years ago

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Independent Study 2020: Childhood in the Information Age

This paper focuses on suburban childhoods of the late 20th and 21st centuries. Though many of the children raised during this time are entering adulthood, my conclusion remains that each of us has an inner child that can be fed and healed through nature’s experiences.

It is important to note that mental health will be discussed heavily. While it remains a serious and legitimate concept, this paper focuses on the development of anxiety and depression disorders through seemingly superficial causes. There is a level of privilege that comes with these stressors and situations. Therefore, I am viewing the stressors, both spatial and inter-personal, and their effects as something that can be treated or alleviated. This is a critique on the structure of modern society and not on the legitimization of mental health disorders.

The situations described within inspired my writing today. It is important to note that these following situations predominantly affect white, upper-middle to upper class families. A level of privilege must be recognized in the terms of home ownership, location of said home, ownership of electronics, internet connectivity, and familial structure.

Table of Contents

I. Introduction

II. Spatial Relationships

III. Inter-Personal Relationships

IV. The Undisclosed Side Effects of the Information Age

V. Nature’s Benefits and Where to Find Them

Bibliography

“Man’s unhappiness is due to his having first been a child” -Descartes

I. Introduction

Youth is a timeless concept. It stretches and snaps like elastic throughout a lifetime. Moments are found of pure bliss and contentment, like that of a child, until human’s mortality butts its head. There is a time of adolescence where this peace of mind is fostered in the comfort of the homestead before the norms of society are imposed on the ever willing yet defiant juvenile. It is within this period of true biological youth that one learns the basic foundations of what it means to be part of something larger, whether that be the relationship to earth and its roots or to others and community.

Throughout human history, the structure of childhood has fluxed across time and culture. Surely there has always been responsibility for the child to care to, and it is up for argument if those responsibilities are more or less intense compared to those of today. Yet those responsibilities were almost always tied in one way or another to nature. The field, the cow, the crop, the fawn had dominated the landscape in which the child works and plays. Their connection to the earth was strong and respected. It brought peace, instilled tolerance, taught patience, and empathy. Today, that connection has been lost to many children of Western civilizations either to fear or apathy. Nature has turned itself over in concept, and it is worth it to question where those values will be instilled in new generations if not with the help of nature’s order.

Stimulation of the mind once came slower and simpler for youth than what is seen in our modern technocratic society. The time period beginning in the late 20th century where technology changed the course of human life, called the Information Age, is responsible for this sensory overload. The mind had time to recover and regenerate before moving onto a new frontier. Now, from the moment of birth, children are exposed to multitudes of stimulants either from technology itself or the societal structure it has helped to create. They are supplied a constant dose of input from which it seems there is no end.

The Information Age’s impact both benefit and depress the human condition. Beginning with the Industrial Revolution and advanced by world wars, Western society has molded into a completely new form where technology has become omnipresent and nature a secondary place of life. Subconsciously it has influenced the decisions of economy, land use, community and family. It is tethered to the idea of comfort, advancement, freedom and ingenuity. This society has seen great joy and connection come from the Information Age. However, this era of history has just yet begun, and its impacts on the child just starting to surface. The way we have come to define childhood in the unspoken name of advancement may hold deeper, more sinister effects on the next generation than originally considered. An era of information and electronics, the Information Age’s impact on the structure of spatial and inter-personal relationships has caused an unprecedented spike in adolescent mental health issues. Reconnecting the child to nature can both alleviate and regenerate a prosperous mental state.

II. Spatial Relationships

The reconfiguration of spatial relationships for the child of the Information Age must be traced back to the 1960s. The post-WWII era brought a flourishing consumer economy, veteran benefits that allowed private vehicular and home ownership, and an accelerated movement of white flight from the urban landscape. While Americans yearned for a sense of normalcy, a baby boom occurred leading to an increased emphasis on the nuclear family and the ideal of the quarter-acre lot. Thus, suburban land planning surged and put forth the values of transport and ownership throughout the United States. The dominant landscape for child rearing became stretches of asphalt and green grass lawns, an antithesis of the streetscape in which community and play took place before, but in perfect alignment of the patriotism Americans held. Lawns provided a narrative of unity and civic responsibility. Although children amply sought out play within this context, it was limited in opportunity and could be viewed as a void in which the child applies play onto rather than fully participating with the landscape. At the same time, the move towards the indoors for the child was increasing as products rolled out yearning for their attention and that once familiar streetscape became a place primarily for travel.

Still, children were not totally bound to the indoors. But what was increasing in prominence were landscapes specifically designed to instigate play. The boundaries of childhood began to shrink as play became a structured concept built into the spatial relationship of suburbs on account of planners and developers. “Where is this vital activity to be carried on if every part of the child’s environment is spoken for to meet the economic, social, and cultural needs of the adult community?” (Nabhan, 1994, pg.27). For example, play became a controlled notion through the heavy use of sports fields and playgrounds. These set the narrative as to how and when play should be performed instead of allowing a flow of interaction to naturally occur between children and end on their autonomy. “It is a loss that so many playgrounds have become dominated by machine-like recreational equipment, structured games, and paved-over areas… play has become too domesticated” (Nabhan, 1994, pg.8-9). While natural ecosystems, bountiful with creases and crevices for the imagination, were being erased, a strict new order was quietly unfolded for the child to accept.

Today, 52 percent of Americans live in suburban landscapes (Bucholtz et.al, 2018) and these spatial restrictions have concreted themselves through cultural normativity, or folkway. These limitations go unquestioned for families child rearing in such communities. This provides the foundation upon which the Information Age amplifies the cultural control over childhood in which inter-personal relationships have evolved or degraded in a sense as the child spends more and more of their developmental years indoors and in touch with screens rather than companions.

III. Inter-Personal Relationships

Just as the home landscape became increasingly structured in disregard to the child’s will, the education system in more recent decades has also pushed to confine the limits of the child’s lifestyle. In 2001, President George W. Bush passed the No Child Left Behind Act in which state standardized testing was enacted along with Common Core standards beginning as early as preschool (Lukianoff & Haidt, 2019, pg.188). In order for public education systems to maintain federal monetary support, grades of students must meet a set national standard. According to Greg Lukianoff (2019), “Today, kindergarten is much more structured and sedentary, with children spending more time sitting at their desks and receiving direct instruction in academic subjects ‘drill and skill’ style.” (pg.188). This means that increasing pressure to perform is put on children as early as age three and continues throughout their educational journey. Comparatively speaking, reference the drastic change in checklists for entry to first grade from 1979 to 2011:

Is Your Child Ready For First Grade? (1979)

· Does your child have two to five permanent or second teeth?

· Can he repeat an eight to ten word sentence, if you say it once, as “The boy ran all the way home from the store”?

· Does your child try to write or copy letters or numbers?

Source: Whitley, 2011

Checklist from St. Theresa’s in Austin, Texas

· Identify and write numbers to 100

· Interpret and fill in data on a graph

· Form complete sentences on paper using phonetic spelling (i.e. journal and story writing)

Source: St. Theresa’s Catholic School, 2012

In order to keep up with demand, schools sacrificed play in the form of recess at an increasing rate. According to Richard Louv (2008), “In the USA, as the federal and state governments and local school boards have pushed for higher test scores in the first decade of the twenty-first century, nearly 40% of American elementary schools either eliminated or were considering eliminating recess (p.99). This means that children lost time to build social and emotional skills within their school environment and their chance to enhance it on their own as homework assignments stacked up. As information intake is pushed in favor over character building, children spend more time isolated from others and bound to books or computers when instead they should be enjoying the freedom and exploration of early development.

The restrictions from the educational environment are emphasized by parents. The same ‘concern’ that government agency has for students has been normalized in the household as well. Many parents of upper-middle or upper-class households not only want to meet standards for education but also mold their child to get them ahead in a competitive world. This practice of parents cultivating their children’s talents by way of adult-guided activities, lessons, and closely monitored experiences is called concerned cultivation (Lukianoff & Haidt, 2019, pg.173). Whether it be organized sports, music lessons, debate teams or math tutoring, the child’s after school time is dictated towards the enhancement of a feature to their personality instead of their development as a whole. It seems increasingly that the autonomy of the child and their right to decisions made about their life are overlooked for the benefit of information intake. They may be yearning for free play, the spontaneous connection with others their age, more than they can express. Even then, does the child understand the comparative value of free play and socialization with peers versus the structured activity presented to them? It may be that the generation held to high standards from the start are beginning to completely lose out on what it truly means to be a child. The forcing of maturity is starting earlier and earlier. Children soon may be trained to only perceive a life of organized activity just as the limitations of their spatial reality have become normalized. And even still, the newfound technology of social media may forever alter the way in which these children believe inter-personal communication to be normal.

According to Pew Research Center, in 2018, 95% of teens reported them having a smartphone or access to one. “These mobile connections are in turn fueling more-persistent online activities- 45% of teens now say they are online on a near constant basis” (Anderson & Jiang, 2019). Whether it be for schooling purposes or social, the increasing rates at which youth are consuming some form of media from technology-based sources is overwhelming. This trend spiked dramatically around 2007 to 2012 when the most popular social media platforms were founded, such as Snapchat, Twitter, Facebook and Tumblr. (Lukianoff & Haidt, 2019, pg.147). At first social media was just a small addition to the typical social life of a teenager. Then, like a snowball effect, the concept of the virtual-self appeared. Today that version is just as valid as the real self and is used in placement for conversation. Pew again cites that teens are more likely to report their social interactions with friends happening online, about 60%, in comparison to the 24% that spend time in-person with friends at the same frequency (Anderson & Jiang, 2019). One of the major reasons for not meeting up in person is due to the overwhelming amount of schoolwork and concerned cultivation that these teens face. Children born after 1995, for example, spend 18% more time in school and 145% more time doing homework than the youth of 1981 (Lukianoff & Haidt, 2019, pg.185). It makes out that this may be the only way for teens to truly get to know each other. But is this the equivalent to in-person communication? Not close. Verbal cues, facial expressions, and body language cannot be transferred across a screen and therefore limit that amount that two people can truly begin to know each other. Would this matter anyway to a generation where childhood was increasingly solitary the way it was?

It should also be noted that the primary goal of social media companies has shifted since turning into conglomerate monopolies. The ideal is to get users, in this case teens, to stay on the site as long as possible. Users are continually guided down rabbit holes, thus creating distractions away from the original concept of connection with friends and towards what could be called empty information intake. And since social media is universal, it’s entirely possible for teens to follow or view the pages of complete strangers. The constant bombardment of seemingly perfect virtual selves again enforces the competition factor in the adolescent’s life. Not only is pressure to succeed coming from school and home, but also now from the sites they divert to in order to get away from it all.

The constant bombardment of digital information crosses generations in the Information Age. Media consumption has also affected the parents of adolescents, especially in the form of the 24-hour news cycle. The drive to push excitability and sensationalism to news viewers, predominantly to viewers over the age of 30 (Mitchell, 2016), means that increased fear over the safety of children is yet another restricting factor in the child’s life. The trend to fetishize safety and over-estimate the danger children are in means that parents are less likely to teach their children to accept risk, even in low doses.

Another look back to the late 20th century is necessary to understand the current news programming and its effects. In the 1980s, an increased movement to protect American kids from strangers led to the beginning of missing children’s photographs on cartons of milk (c. 1984) and crime shows like America’s Most Wanted to be broadcasted to the general public (c. 1988). “Many parents came to believe that if they took their eyes off their kids for an instant in any public venue, their kid might be snatched. It no longer felt safe to let kids roam around their neighborhoods unsupervised” (Lukianoff & Haidt, 2019, pg.166). These parents, growing up in the 1960’s, may have experienced a giant crime wave either personally or from the news. After decades of bombardment from media sources that the threat carried on, even if they had practiced escapism from the urban atmosphere, parents grew weary of letting children roam free. In 2004, 85% of mothers said their children do not play outside as much as they had when they were the same age. 82% cited safety concerns and fear of crime as the primary reason (Lukianoff & Haidt, 2019, pg.186).

These fears are unfounded, especially within the suburban setting. Nation-wide, 91% of missing children are runaways and less than 1% are abducted by strangers (National Center). The news media is made to promote these ideas just as much as social media is made to keep their users hooked. If it pulls ratings, it will be broadcasted, even if the truth is skewed. What this push for concern does promote is not the actual safety of children but the concept of safetyism, or an obsession with eliminating threats both real and imagined. “Safetyism deprives young people of the experiences that their antifragile minds need, therefore making them more fragile.” (Lukianoff & Haidt, 2019, pg.32). The media these parents are intaking inadvertently affects their parental habits, making them more inclined to produce behaviors and rules that restrict the independence of the child in favor of protecting them from any possible threat of danger. According to development psychologist Allison Gopnik (2016), “…By shielding children from every possible risk, we may lead them to react with exaggerated fear to situations that aren’t risky at all and isolate them from the adult skills that they will one day have to master.” The mental growth of children becomes stunted as they inherit the notion that the world at large is against them with possible threat around every corner. Not only are children then more restricted in time span for play outdoors, but it becomes a concept that is equivalent in danger with the likes of abduction. Parents carry their fear and hesitation of exploration to the child’s mindset. This is inherently bad as exploration enhances self-discovery and allows children to become steadfast in the face of adversity. As adolescents mature, their lack of exposure to stressors disables them from becoming productive with new peoples and ideas. The introversion of the mindset, now both spatially and personally confined on a multitude of fronts, takes a deep toll on the mental health of these people as they age.

IV. The Undisclosed Side Effects of the Information Age

The stressors facing modern adolescents are bombarding them on all fronts, maintaining a daily cycle. For them there is seemingly no escape as the stressors are tied to a form of technology or tech-influenced societal structure in which they must partake to be a fully participating citizen. The pressure of advancement leads them towards a mindset where taking breaks could change the course of their whole lives. What could the effects be from these stressors on the mental health and social ability of the children of the Technological Revolution?

First, we must introduce iGen, the generation of children born from 1995 and onwards. These children grew up just at the beginning at which information technology was becoming a staple of the middle-and-upper class lifestyles. The childhoods of the oldest iGen members held a healthy mix between outdoor free play and technology use as the first iPods and Play Stations rolled out. Screens may have been a part of their educational environment, but not the largest role, and standardized testing was not yet a large part of their formative learning environment.

These people, now well into their 20’s, have witnessed the exponential growth of social media and entertainment as well as the use of electronics throughout their lifestyle, even so much as to into their love lives. The generations born in the 21st century, however, are more likely to have grown up with technology already a norm of daily life and social interaction. Children born after 2010 learn motor skills at the same pace as they learn to navigate iPhones. Regardless, all people born within this time span have been mentally impaired by the explosion of the Information Age, even if at varying degrees. iGen suffers from far higher rates of anxiety and depression than did Millennials at the same age- and higher rates of suicide (Lukianoff & Haidt, 2019, pg.30).

There are a number of social and emotional trends that go hand-in-hand with the diagnosis of mental illness among iGen, all stemming from the previously stated stressors as well as the continuing disconnect children have from the natural environment. First is the concept of cultural autism, the tunneling of the senses and feelings of isolation and containment as experience opportunities narrow ((Lukianoff & Haidt, 2019, pg.64-65). The world is viewed within a continually narrowing window by iGen youth due to the multiple restrictions on their lifestyle. Yet the world seems overwhelmingly large, given the amount of information constantly available to them. This develops them to have a ‘know it all’ state of mind as almost every bit of information that can be conveyed visually or linguistically is at their fingertips. However, there is also the loss of primary experience, or when all senses including touch and smell are enacted. Descartes viewed primary experience as a major cultural force in the world, yet it increasingly is lost to screen time and isolation. Therefore, this ‘know it all’ mindset is unfounded, and the child may be existentially aware that they are truly missing out on the full human experience- their window to the world is narrowing. Does the dread that comes with this existential binary lead iGen to having greater mental health issues?

Even if iGen does realize their loss of a primary experience, the way the Information Age has wired their brains leads them to believe the outside world, nature, is inherently boring due to their normalization of instant gratification. Technology is fast-paced and almost anything can be loaded within seconds for the iGen member to intake and move onwards. However, other tasks that require more critical thinking and imagination may seem too daunting or exhaustive for them to take part in, whether it be navigating in-person social interactions or conjuring up a play experience in a field. They tend towards frustration and surrender rather than pushing onwards, their brains are no longer wired to explore the context outside of their slight vision of how the world works as most things in life have been dictated to them or on behalf of them. “They can’t make their own entertainment. They have to bring something with them” (Lukianoff & Haidt, 2019, pg.12).

iGen has normalized their limited personal boundaries and restrictions thrust upon them from the outside world and in turn have retreated to the realm of the internet to act out their lives. As noted before, much of their free time is now spent indoors behind a screen. Lianna George (2008) states that too much technology in these formative years stunts to maturation of a normal frontal lobe and ultimately freezes the brain in “teen mode… unable to learn, remember, feel, or control impulses.” This is in part because of the psychophysiological stress recovery theory in which responses to stress are located in the limbic system and need a rapid recovery to prevent damage and exhaustion. Constant bombardment of the senses that iGen undergoes from schooling to leisure time does not allow for this recovery to occur. According to Raemond DeYoung (2002), Associate Professor of Environmental Psychology at the University of Michigan, the inhibitory process tires and reduces mental effectiveness, increases irritability, impatience, and distractibility. Where once generations past could find solace in the outdoors to mitigate stress response, iGen no longer has such an ample opportunity due to inherited hesitation. In fact, iGen children are more inclined to suffer from a nature-deficit disorder. First introduced by Richard Louv (2012), nature-deficit includes “atrophied awareness, a diminished ability to find meaning in the life that surrounds us, whatever form it takes” (pg.11). The shrinkage of the opportunity and increasing sensory demand results first in non-scientific but social disorders like nature-deficit, cultural autism, and loss of primary experience, then eventually in an increase in diagnoses of anxiety and depression.

James Sallis of the Active Living Research Foundation cites an indoor, sedentary childhood being linked to mental health problems (Louv, 2008, pg. 32). Kids spending more than two hours on screens for leisure are at elevated risk of depression and suicide-related outcomes (Lukianoff & Haidt, 2019, pg.152-153). The stressors of the real-world, topped with the social and emotional isolation coming from increased time spent of the internet, is leading kids to be diagnosed at an increasing rate and at younger ages. The rate at which American children are prescribed antidepressants almost doubled in a five years’ time in the early 2000’s with a 66% increase among preschool children (Lukianoff & Haidt, 2019, pg.49). Assuming that the disorders manifest the same way in a developing brain as in adulthood, between 2000-2003, there was a 49% increase in the use of psychotropic drugs on teenagers (Lukianoff & Haidt, 2019, pg.50). But is this the most effective way to deal with the mental health issues of iGen? At face value the answer appears to be yes. Without looking into the context upon which these mental disorders develop, it may seem as if these issues are due to personal accounts of the world, of the way the individual perceives the environment around them. However, by delving into the structure of this new era one can see that society has set up the youth to fail internally. Children are not smaller versions of adults and it seems as if we have regressed to that mindset yet again. Surely a restructuring is in order for the health and longevity of this generation. Maybe this begins with schooling or parental guidance, but these are large structures upon which most of American society operates. Along this path in the Information Age one can see how slowly but surely the child has become detached from nature, the true homestead, the original caretaker. It could be that reinstating the child’s relationship with nature, even at older ages, could help to promote their mental health and quite possibly save their lives.

V. Nature’s Benefits and Where to Find Them

There is a sense of calm inherently tied to any form of nature. Without input from humans it provides a twinkling of sound, whooshes of fresh air and a stillness that humans have not been in tune to for quite some time. It has been proven, even before it needed to be, that nature has restorative powers. According to Richard Louv (2012), direct and indirect contact with nature can help youth recover from mental fatigue and restore their attention (pg.27). Exposure to parks or patches of ecosystems enhances coping abilities, promotes a more positive outlook on life, and higher life satisfaction. In one study, after a green outdoor walk, 92% of participants felt less depressed; 86% less tense; and 81% less angry (Louv, 2012, pg.59). Mood and self-esteem can be promoted even after five minutes outdoors, especially among the young. But how does this work? Nature is not a traditional therapy session. It does not make a person focus intensely on the issues that plague the mind or the heart. Instead it promotes primary experience, involuntary attention. The user is fully emerged in a landscape that takes one outside themselves and places them into a vast oasis where sensory intake is passive and not active. By not having to actively take in the surrounding context, stress is alleviated in knowing that the landscape is removed from the issues plaguing the mind. It is this primary experience that was stripped from the child in the Information Age. Giving it back to them can enhance their abilities far beyond what school could teach.

We have noted the social and emotional behaviors taught to children of the Information Age: cultural autism, loss of primary experience, fear in face of adversity, etc. But what could nature teach this generation to combat the forces driving them to illness? Within direct, natural experiences lie challenges and stressors. However, these come in low doses and often voluntarily included by children during play. Allowing children to partake in these ‘wild’ landscapes allows them to become friends with fear and develop their responses to danger or difficulty later in life. They will be less afraid and more willing to step up. Spending free time outdoors doing such activities can increase the child’s self-esteem. A higher self-esteem will allow them to partake in social media and inter-personal relationships with greater stride. They can productively engage with people and ideas that challenge their belief system. Time spent outdoors also promotes the concept of biophilia, or ‘nature-loving’ (Louv, 2008, pg.43). Within this state of mind, the child yearns to affiliate with other forms of life, thus learning empathy and social support. This allows adolescents the proper mental platform to build strong friendships and sustain intellectual development. According to The Geography of Childhood, “The endless forms generated by evolution subconsciously reassure us of our own validity. Understanding the difference empowers us to grow and care. The variety of organisms helps to teach tolerance. The land releases us from competition” (Nabhan & Trimble, 1994)

Releasing children from an indoor, sedentary lifestyle is as easy as a walk home, a bike ride with friends, or a wander in a forested path. What is most important though is the identification of nearby nature for each child. Although most of these children do live in suburban landscapes, ecological patches and corridors still exist within them, yet to be touched by development. Children can be allowed outside at first to view and contextualize their homescape. They can identify these edges and remove the conceptualized fear associated with them. Then, parents can play their part by allowing children their autonomy for exploration of these landscapes. Allowing children to turn over logs, dig in dirt or search for bugs on their own will give them a sense of independence and confidence that will foster positive mental habits later in life. If no ‘wild’ nature exists near the child’s homescape, parks work in the same fashion, as long as they are not dominated by jungle gyms or soccer fields. It is important to not under-estimate the imaginative powers of a child- a small space of nature may seem vast and intricate to them. No matter what, the letting go of the standards and structure of the Information Age, even for just a few moments, can let the child once again be whole. Again, youth is a timeless concept. Each one of us has a child inside, brewing with imaginative and empathetic forces. There is no age limit to this exploration, and no bounds to nearby nature.

Nature is the stage in which there is no winner or loser. It is a true equalizer, asking nothing of the child when the world seems to yearn for so much of them. It is both literally and figuratively a breath of fresh air. When the social system promotes the child in nature, it promotes a homecoming that makes for stronger, healthier citizens. It may seem that nature is a far-off concept, but in reality, it is still right outside.

Bibliography

Anderson, M., & Jiang, J. (2019, December 31). 2. Teens, friendships and online groups. Retrieved April 28, 2020, from https://www.pewresearch.org/internet/2018/11/28/teens-friendships-and-online-groups/

Bucholtz, S., Bucholtz, S., Kolko, J., Kolko, J., Housing and Demographic Analysis Division, & Department for Housing and Urban Development. (2018, November 14). Most Americans Describe Where They Live As Suburban. Retrieved April 28, 2020, from https://www.citylab.com/life/2018/11/data-most-american-neighborhoods-suburban/575602/

Kaplan, S. & R. De Young (2002), Toward a better understanding of pro-social behavior: The role of evolution and directed attention. Behavioral and Brain Sciences, 25(2), 263-264 http://hdl.handle.net/2027.42/83666

Downs, R. M., & Hart, R. (1980). Childrens Experience of Place. Geographical Review, 70(2), 229. doi: 10.2307/214444

George, L. (2008, November 7). Dumbed Down: The Troubling Science of How Technology Is Rewiring Kids’ Brains. Macleans.ca.

Gopnick, A. (2016, August 31). Should we let toddlers play with saws and knives? The Wall Street Journal. http://www.wsj.com/articles/should-we-let-toddlers-play-with-saws-and-knives-1472654945

Hart, R. A. (1995). Affection for Nature and the Promotion of Earth Stewardship in Childhood. The NAMTA Journal, 20(2), 58–67.

Hart, R. A. (1982). Wildlands For Children: Considerations of the Value of Natural Environments in Landscape Planning. LANDSCAFT STADT, 14(1), 34–39.

Kaplan, R. (n.d.). The Experience of Nature: A Psychological Perspective. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press. doi: 2/6/20

Louv, R. (2012). The Nature Principle: Reconnecting with Life in a Virtual Age. Chapel Hill: Algonquin Books of Chapel Hill.

Louv, R. (2008). Last Child in the Woods: Saving Our Children From Nature-Deficit Disorder. Chapel Hill, NC: Algonquin Books of Chapel Hill.

Lukianoff, G., & Haidt, J. (2019). The Coddling of the American Mind: How Good Intentions and Bad Ideas are Setting Up a Generation for Failure. New York City: Penguin Books.

Mitchell, A. (2016, October 6). Younger adults more likely than older to prefer reading news. Retrieved April 28, 2020, from https://www.pewresearch.org/fact-tank/2016/10/06/younger-adults-more-likely-than-their-elders-to-prefer-reading-news/

Nabhan, G. P., & Trimble, S. (1994). The geography of childhood: why children need wild places. Boston: Beacon Press.

National Center for Missing and Exploited Children. About NCMEC. (n.d.). Retrieved April 30, 2020, from https://www.missingkids.org/footer/media/keyfacts

St Theresa’s Catholic School (Austin, TX). (2012, January). Expectations for incoming first graders. https://www.st-theresas.org/wp-content/uploads/2012/02/1st_Expectations.pdf

Whitley, C (2011, August 1). Is your child ready for first grade: 1979 edition. Chicago Now. http://www.chicagonow.com/little-kids-big-city/2011/08/is-your-child-ready-for-first-grade-1019-edition.

#blog #research

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coolhandluke · 8 years ago

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“I THOUGHT COOL HAND LUKE WAS OVER?!?!?!”

So did I. I mean, it was. In 2011, Of Man was released, and Cool Hand Luke embarked on a farewell tour. The line-up was in flux for the final shows, but it was mostly friends from the bands Standing Small, Keep Quiet, Civilian, and Sons. Ironically, none of them actually played on Of Man, which meant they had a lot of hard work learning parts. I’m so grateful to them for their dedication in helping me pull it all off, and more than that, for their friendship.

We played our final show in June of 2011 at a club in Nashville called The End. Poetic, I know. In July of 2011, my wife Brandy and I moved from Nashville (where I had lived my whole life) to Orlando, FL, where we both attended seminary at Reformed Theological Seminary. (If you supported CHL in those days, you may remember that ALL proceeds from Of Man went toward helping me go to seminary. And it really did, and you have no idea how much it helped. That junk is expensive! So, thank you.)

My life, obviously, changed drastically. I went from being dude in a rock band who worked at a coffee shop to dude who wakes up at 5am to study Greek paradigms. It was hard in more ways than I knew to even expect. I never knew how much of my identity was wrapped up in Cool Hand Luke until it wasn’t there anymore. 99% of people I encountered at RTS had no idea who CHL was. It was like, “Oh neat, you were in a band? Never heard of it. Anyway, what did you get on your Hermeneutics paper?” I had an identity crisis. An existential crisis. But I’m getting off the subject. You just want to know the deal with Cool Hand Luke.

In the spring of 2015, I graduated from RTS with two masters degrees. That was more than I had planned on, and I honestly still don’t know how in the world I got through it. Obviously God’s grace and provision sustained Brandy and me through a very time-consuming, expensive process. I’m so thankful that we got to do it. Seminary was very formative for me and Brandy and our marriage. So, now I have a Master of Divinity and a Master of Arts in Counseling. My main job is that I am a mental health counselor at a practice called Journeys Counseling Center in Maitland, FL. (I also practice at Christ Community Church PCA in Titusville, FL one day a week.) I love being able to come alongside people who are hurting and trying to navigate through this broken world. It is a profound honor.

In addition to counseling, I teach drum lessons, and I am a producer at Parafonic Recording Studio. Both of those are fairly part time. It’s feast or famine. But I absolutely LOVE getting to help other people play music and see their vision come to fruition. It’s one of the most life-giving things I have ever experienced. At some point, I’ll tell you the story of Parafonic and my good friend Brandon Shattuck who started it. It’s a good story, but again, it’s off topic.

Over the past two years, I’ve been writing and demoing music. Sometimes it has been with a very clear intention, and sometimes it has just been humming something into a voice memo, not knowing if I’ll ever even listen to it again. I never thought, “I’m working on a new record.” I just wrote because that is what I will always do. I am always thinking of a riff, a bass line, a melody, a weird beat, etc. Sometimes it’s a pretty piano part, sometimes it’s a crushing doom guitar riff in drop C. (Maybe I’ll tell you more about those sometime, too.)

Since I work at a recording studio now, and since Brandon who runs the studio is awesome, he said “Hey, when we don’t have anything going on, we can record some of your stuff.” So we did. Kind of just for fun. I didn’t know if I’d ever do anything with it. But once I started recording, I kept coming up with more and more and more and more song ideas. But, I’m very good at writing half of a song, demoing it, and then forgetting about it. Or getting distracted with new song ideas. Or recording all the music for a song but not writing any lyrics. In other words, I start a lot of things and don’t finish them.

Personally, God has been working on my heart and my character. I am a stereotypical passive, codependent, people-pleaser. It drives me crazy. I mean, I’m a counselor for crying out loud! I know what’s going on, but I still do this stuff. I know that God has changed me and redeemed a lot of those tendencies, but I’m still a work in process. Anyway, I read a book, thinking, “This could be good for some of my clients,” and it ended up being really good for me. It kicked my butt. One of the challenges in the book was not to start any new projects until you finish the ones you’re working on. So, I decided to start with this album.

I talked it over with Brandon, and we made a game plan. So for the past several months, I’ve been chipping away at a record. Usually one day a week, and sometimes not even for a whole day. Once I was about half way done, I realized that I needed to call this thing something.

I thought about releasing it under my name, Mark Nicks. But there are a few problems: 1) Mark Nicks doesn’t sound all that cool 2) No one knows who in the world Mark Nicks is 3) I don’t know about you, but when I just hear a dude’s name as a recording artist or whatever, I imagine that it’s going to be acoustic, singer songwriter kind of music. Nothing wrong with that if that’s you’re thing, but that is decidedly not what this record sounds like. I wanted to avoid the perception that this is coffee shop music.

I also kicked around the idea of just calling it by some new moniker. I had thought I might call it The Balancing Act, since that’s a CHL song and it sort of fits the theme of a one man band. But it turns out there was a band called that in the 80’s. Which leads to the second problem: ALL GOOD BAND NAMES ARE TAKEN. I have lists of names on my phone and somewhere someone has a Facebook page, a Bandcamp page, or a Spotify single under that name. Besides that, if I picked a random band name, no one would know who it was. It would just be one more record floating around on iTunes that no one ever pays any attention to. I don’t have the time and resources to “break” a new band. (I’m not sure I’d have any idea how to do that anyway.)

So, I kept coming back to the idea of putting out a new Cool Hand Luke record. I had three main reasons not to. 1) I said Cool Hand Luke was over. Wouldn’t this be lying? 2) Most of CHL’s fans were listening when they were in high school and college 12 years ago. Now they have kids and mortgages. Will they even care anymore? 3) I have never wanted to give the impression that Cool Hand Luke is just me. It was always a band. For Of Man, there was no official line-up and I wrote all the songs, but I had a bunch of friends play on it. There is no way I could have pulled that off on my own. So the dilemma has been, “Is it arrogant to release my ‘solo’ music under the band moniker Cool Hand Luke? Will people perceive that I’m just trying to milk whatever CHL fanbase still exists?”

Well, I’ll address all three issues. 1) Cool Hand Luke was over. This is very true. I never had any intention of doing a reunion tour or relaunching the band or anything like that. But as I discussed this with a few of my good friends they all encouraged me to just call it Cool Hand Luke. Aaron Stone, who you may know from the almighty My Epic, said “Who cares? Bands do that all the time.” (Just in the past year LCD Soundsystem started headlining festivals and working on new music after doing a publicized farewell show at Madison Square Garden and putting out a documentary about it.) And my friend Tim Inman who I play with some and who fronts The Separate said, “Well, if they are a fan of Cool Hand Luke, they’ll probably just be excited. And if they’re not, they won’t care anyway.” I thought that was a good point. Recently I realized that the last song on Of Man is called Not the End, Not the End. We all should have seen this coming.

2) CHL’s old fanbase won’t care anymore. Well, maybe they won’t. That’s a fear of mine. I think about bands that I liked in college. If most of them made a new record after years of nothing, I probably wouldn’t care much. I may not even bother to listen. In fact, that has happened. But I am hoping that there are still some old fans who will be curious to see what CHL in the modern age sounds like. If I was trying to rehash early 2000’s emo, I’d understand if no one bothered with it. But, I think I’ve got something new to offer. And if people don’t care to check it out, that’s okay. I know it has been worthwhile, and I think people will care about it if they give it a chance. As I’ve grown more aware of my people-pleasing tendencies, I’ve realized that a lot of decisions that I have made in my life, especially as they pertain to CHL, have been driven by fear. But, I want to live out of the freedom of the gospel, driven by truth. I want to risk in the hopes that I might be a blessing for the sake of the gospel. Fear will always leave us second-guessing and trying to eliminate all the variables. It cripples us. I’m tired of that narrative. There is a bigger story to step into. So, here’s step one: a new CHL record. BAM!

3) Mark Nicks does not = Cool Hand Luke. This was probably the biggest hurdle for me to get past. But my good friend Chris McMurtry (from one of my favorite bands ever—Aireline) explained it like this: “It’s a family name. If I say I am a McMurtry, I’m not saying I’m the only McMurtry. But I am in the family, so I can use the name.” This made all the difference in the world to me. I think about Brandon Morgan and Jason Hammil and the other guys who I have had the honor of making records with, and they are Cool Hand Luke, too. My saying that this new music is Cool Hand Luke is not my saying that those guys are not Cool Hand Luke. Does that make sense? It did to me. (Not to get your hopes up, but I have talked to Jason and Brandon—the two other original members of CHL— recently about the possibility of doing some new music. It’s logistically complicated, but we’re all open to it.) And besides that, I definitely did not do this on my own. Brandon Shattuck engineered the whole thing, which he is awesome at. Beyond that he played guitar and bass on the record.

So, now I bring it back to your comment and the title of this blog: “I thought Cool Hand Luke was over.” Well, it was. But in another way, it never will be. I still get emails and hear stories from people about how God has used and continues to use the music of CHL in the lives of people who chose to embrace it for more than just entertainment. Sometimes my life feels so far removed from touring the country and rehearsing for hours at a time that I forget it was even real. But these stories matter. I really believe that Cool Hand Luke mattered to a lot of you. And I think it’s still a fitting name and vehicle for the music that I’m making. I’ll tell you more about the themes of this record and what went into the writing/recording process shortly. But just know that I am proud of it, and I want people to hear it. I think calling this music Cool Hand Luke is the best way to do that, and I have peace about putting that name on it. I don’t take it lightly at all. It has always been a privilege and an honor to be a part of Cool Hand Luke, and I still view it that way—maybe now more than ever.

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itsworn · 8 years ago

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Think You’re Fast? This ’69 Dart Will Knock Your Lights Out!

The sport of drag racing and the world of hot rodding are in a constant state of movement and flux. What’s cool today may not be in a couple of years. Whatever the flavor of the week in terms of trendy body styles will likely be sold for pennies on the dollar down the road, but there are exceptions. Since the dawn of hot rodding, having the baddest car on your street made you the man. From the dawn of drag racing having the baddest car at the strip made you the man. When those two things converge and you can own both ends of the scene you go straight to hero level. In eastern Virginia, Ron Bookman is that guy and the 1969 Dart you see here is the reason. An absolutely brutal street car that evolved from humble beginnings to become one of the baddest grudge machines in the region, this 1,400hp street-driven monster bends people’s minds, plucks money from their wallets, and puts smiles on faces every time he cruises it down the street.

Ron Bookman was a motivated high school athlete who was playing ball for one of the best high schools in the state when he happened to accompany his brother to a night at the local hot rodding spot—an illicit street racing jump off point—more than 30 years ago. It was a night that changed his life forever. Ron laughed and told us, “I still see my old football coach around town and he always says, ‘Bookman, you could have been somebody!’” Football quickly disappeared from his life and an all-out obsession with cars and speed took over. “The way the noise from the cars was bouncing off the trees, the smell of the rubber and burning fuel, it was the coolest thing I had ever seen before.” The Dart came into his life in 1981 and Ron left it as a leaf-spring car, racing it with a warmed up iron-headed 383. At that time it went 11s and was both a bracket racer and a street cruiser. In the early 1990s the track Ron was racing at closed and with it went his passion for the Dart. He put the car away and went hunting and doing all manner of other stuff until his passion for speed and horsepower was rekindled by one of the most popular and iconic movements the automotive aftermarket has ever known.

“Around 1995 I started seeing all of these big-tire pro street cars and I just loved them,” Ron said. “They looked so cool and tough and the fat tire look was the in-thing at that point, so I took the car out, had an S&W back-half kit installed, bought my first set of aluminum heads, and had a Pro Street car that ran 10.20s and looked awesome.”

The car was very well known locally and actually appeared on the popular show PassTime where Ron ran 9.70s and had a very positive experience. “That was a nine-second car through the mufflers and on ET Streets,” Ron said. “Everything I have ever had or raced has been through the mufflers on a DOT-legal tire.” 2009 brought about an avalanche of changes that began with one simple request. “I asked my wife if I could build a motor exactly the way I wanted it, kind of go all-in,” Ron explained. “She said ‘yes’ and I was immediately looking at ProCharger setups, calling around to different engine builders and talking about combinations. A friend suggested I call Larry’s Engine and Marine in Tuscon, Arizona and it turns out that was the best decision I could have possibly made.” The settled-on combo was an Indy MAXX block-based 528ci wedge with the same 440-1 heads that Ron had owned forever, a ProCharger F-2 blower, and a C&S blow-through carb. “On the dyno at Larry’s shop with a set of small 2-inch primary headers the engine made more than 1,400 hp.”

It was around this very time that Ron’s wife became ill with cancer and caring for her took priority over messing with the car. “The engine stayed in the crate, basically,” Ron said. “I would go out there and roll it over to make sure things were still good, but my attention was on my wife.” In 2012 her health took a drastic turn for the worse and she told Ron that she wanted him to finish the car with the upgrades that he was hoping to do. Unfortunately she passed before the car was finished, but her blessing meant the world to Ron and he went after the car with gusto.

“When I originally brought the car to Don Williams at Virginia Rod Company I just wanted the cage to be updated and brought to 7.50 cert,” Ron said. “Before long, Don and I were talking about things like carbon fiber tubs and door panels, a tubular K-member up front, the Top Gun Pro Mod four-link, a parachute mount, a Fab 9 rear end housing, and more,” Ron said while laughing. “I finally said to Don that he needed to do it the way he wanted and I am glad I did that. The car works amazingly well because of the work he put into it.”

It was Williams who suggested intercooling the car in order to make it more street friendly. When on the road, Ron runs 93-octane pump gas and a more conservative timing curve than he does when running C16 on the drag strip. The intercooler’s ability to keep a handle on inlet temperature really helps to keep the engine happy on the highways, and with a 3.54 rear gear, this car does see plenty of cruising.

With the engine fitted into the freshened car, the chassis all sorted out, a set of custom made stepped headers, and an awesome oval pipe exhaust directing all of the noise and gasses out of the back of the car, the plan was to have the car quickly shot with some matte black paint and then tested before pulling the whole thing back down and a Viper Blue paint job applied. “We brought it to the painter and he thought that the car would look mean with the flat black body and some glossy black elements like the tail stripe, the engine bay, and all the plumbing,” Ron said.

The car debuted in July of 2014 and it didn’t take long for the black paint to become a permanent part of the Dart’s character. “We were at a car show and a kid walked up with his dad,” Ron said. “The kid had a Star Wars shirt on and he asked his father what kind of car mine was. The dad knew it was a Dart and the kid just said, ‘Dart Vader.’ The name stuck and there was no possibly way to change the paint after that.”

So what about the drag strip? Oh there’s plenty to talk about there. This car was not put together to simply look the part, it was built to run, and run it does. Being that Ron grudge races the car, he can be tight-lipped about some performance elements of the machine. We understand that because the whole point of grudge racing is to keep your cards close to the vest. He did spill a couple of beans though, “While I am not going to tell you what the car runs flat out, I can tell you that it has gone 8.02/174 after kicking the blower belt off during an early run,” Ron said while laughing. “The car is an animal. The way it pulls down the track is crazy. You look at the g-meter on the RacePak and at the end of a run when the car is in high gear it is pulling at least as hard as it was coming off the starting line. You can try and describe this stuff to people but until you experience it you’ll never understand what it feels like.”

Ron enjoys the grudge scene because there’s an element of showmanship to it as well as some mystery involved. There’s also that certain satisfaction that comes from eating a guy’s lunch and them making him pay you for it. “I had a guy in an S10 with a nitrous small-block that had the words ‘Grudge King’ on the back window ask me for a race pretty soon after the car had come out,” Ron said. “He told me that he did not believe I actually drove the car on the street and that it didn’t make the power people said it did. I took the race and told him I would cover the money that he wanted. Long story short, I never saw the guy and beat him by a few car lengths. When the guy was paying me he told me that he still did not believe it was street driven and I told him to buy me the gas to get home and he could watch!”

Eventually this car will see time at the strip with the clocks on but Ron’s going to continue to enjoy the grudge scene for now. In fact, he’s got races lined up through the spring and summer to go work the Dart out at. No-time, grudge-style racing is an insanely popular trend at the strip these days and when you see cars like this Dart running in those races you can understand why.

Just like the big guy in the corner of the club who waits for the trouble to come to him, so does Ron and his Dart. Also like the big guy in the corner, when that trouble shows up, he knows how to handle his business. This ProCharged, 1,400hp Dart is one bad Jose and if you are showing up to challenge him, make sure you wallet is full because you’ll need it.

If you’re feeling salty at a drag strip in the Mid-Atlantic or Southeast and decide to challenge Ron Bookman and his 1969 Dart to a grudge race, you better have two things. First, the money you’ll be paying him, and second, your pride in a bucket because that’s where it’ll land.

The plan was to test the car a little and then pull it apart for a rotisserie paint job but the flat black that was applied as a stop gap remains.

If there’s a more menacing sight than the back of this car cruising down the road we don’t know what it is. Ron cranks off an amazing amount of street miles in this thing and with some timing pulled out of the engine, it’s more than happy on 93-octane pump gas. Mean!

While it isn’t exactly luxury digs, it is a very well appointed interior in the Dart. Ron wanted the inside of the car to protect him with the addition of the 7.50 NHRA-legal cage, but he also wanted the fit and finish of carpet, a hand-stitched head liner, and the custom trimmed Kirkey seats.

That’s what 1,410 hp of F-2 ProCharger-equipped, 528ci Indy MAXX block-based Chrysler wedge looks like. This engine has been in the car for several years and Ron reports that it still leaks down at about 1-1.5 percent when he checks it. That’s after lots of street miles and drag strip passes.

Want to get your stuff down a drag strip? Here’s a simple recipe for fun: Take big Mickey Thompson Radials, add a Top Gun Pro Mod four-link suspension, Stanhuff coilovers, and a Fab 9 rear end housing, then throw 1,400 hp at it!

The neat contrast on this car is the fact that the exterior is flat black but the piping and underhood area is glossy. Who are we kidding, no one is looking at the paint. They are listenting to the blower wail and that big 528 thump through the oval tube exhaust! Who says blow-through carbs don’t have good manners?!

FAST FACTS

1969 Dodge Dart | Ron Bookman | Hampton, Virginia

ENGINE Type: 528ci Chrysler wedge big-block Bore x stroke: 4.38(bore) x 4.15 (stroke), 528 ci Block: aluminum Indy Maxx Rotating assembly: Callies Dragon Slayer crankshaft, GRP I-beam rods, Ross thermal-coated pistons Compression ratio: 8.25:! Cylinder heads: Indy 440-1 with porting and modifications done by Muscle Motorsports Camshaft: Racer Brown camshaft with .625 lift at .050-inch lift Valvetrain: 2.19 x 1.81 valves, Jesel belt drive, T&D 1.6 ratio rockers, K Motion valve springs, Manley pushrods, COMP Cams retainers and locks Induction: intercooled ProCharger F2 centrifugal supercharger, C&S Specialties aerosol billet blow-through carb with dual needle and seat bowls, Indy 400-14-3 single-plane with provision for 4500-series carb Fuel system: MagnaFuel 750-series electric fuel pump Exhaust: custom step headers 2 1/8 to 2 ¼ by Don Williams at Virginia Rod Company, Spintech oval mufflers, 10-inch merge collectors that dump ahead of rear axle Ignition: MSD Power Grid controls ignition Data Logging: RacePak V300 data logger Oiling system: Melling oil pump, Milodon swinging pickup, 9-quart Hamburger oil pan Cooling: CVR 55gpm water pump on stock aluminum Mopar housing, BeCool triple-pass aluminum radiator, custom VRC built shroud and dual 12-inch electric fans Fuel: gasoline on street and C16 at the drag strip Output: 1,410 hp Engine built by: Larry Peto at Larry’s Engine and Marine Tucson, Arizona Best e.t.: 8.02/174 (that he’ll admit to! Grudge racing demands some secrecy) Weight: 3,020 lbs without driver

DRIVETRAIN Transmission: ATI T400 SuperCase automatic, 9-inch ProTorque converter (4,500 rpm stall), B&M super cooler with electric fan Driveshaft: 4-inch aluminum driveshaft by Inland Empire Driveline Rearend: Moser Fab 9 rear axle, Strange aluminum center section, 3.54 gears, spool

CHASSIS Front suspension: Riley Motorsports AlterKtion K-frame, Viking coilovers Rear suspension: Top Gun Pro Mod four-link, McAmis anti-roll bar, Stanhuff coilover shocks Steering: McAmis rack and pinion steering system Brakes: Strange race disc brakes on all four corners Chassis: NHRA 7.50 certified roll cage built by Don Williams and Bobby Starcher of VRC

PAINT & INTERIOR Color: Southern Polyurethane Satin Painter: Tim’s customs; York County, Virginia Interior: Kirkey race seats with custom trimming and cushioning, custom adjustable shifter, Grant 633 steering wheel, RacePak dash, custom carpet, hand-stitched headliner Interior work by Kirk’s Upholstry in Hampton, Virginia

WHEELS & TIRES Wheels: Billet Specialties 4.5×15 (front), Billet Specialties double bead lock 15×15 (rear) Tires: Mickey Thompson front runners 26×4.5×15; Mickey Thompson ET Street R 32×14.5×15 (rear)

Special thanks: Ron wants to thank Don Williams of Virginia Rod Company, Larry Peto of Larry’s engine and Marine, Tim Lucento of Tim’s Customs, and Gary Harris along with everyone else who contributed to this car’s build.

The post Think You’re Fast? This ’69 Dart Will Knock Your Lights Out! appeared first on Hot Rod Network.

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