Buddhist Catholic Contemplative Evangelical General Christian Hindu Jewish Latter-day Saint Muslim New Visions Progressive Christian

Beliefs

Topics

Columnists

Resource Library

Research Tools

Video

Podcasts

Thought Readers

Faith In Media Tracker

Newsletters

Ad-Free & Subscriber Log-In Subscription Support

Follow Patheos

Home
Catholic
Rosie, the Hardy Boys, and the Mystery of the Orange Extension Cord

Rosie, the Hardy Boys, and the Mystery of the Orange Extension Cord

Last updated on: October 20, 2020 at 2:46 pm by Mary Pezzulo

Rosie, the Hardy Boys, and the Mystery of the Orange Extension Cord 2020-10-20T14:46:04-04:00 Mary Pezzulo

LOGO Patheos Explore the world's faith through different perspectives on religion and spirituality! Patheos has the views of the prevalent religions and spiritualities of the world.

We are homeschooling for another year.

Every year I think we’re going to get out of Steubenville and find a nice pleasant city with a nice pleasant school in it for Rose to go to, but every year we’re stuck here, and we homeschool again. This year it’s lonely because COVID has made her beloved after-school lessons too dangerous, but we fill the time. We walk to the park and plan trips we’ll take when a vaccine is widely distributed and we’re safe again. We’re going to take late fall and winter nature hikes all over the state just as soon as we can get a used car.

The library is still open, so we read lots of books.

Rosie is finally, finally turning the corner on her literacy, which has flagged behind. She’s good at math, science and PE, but she doesn’t like to sit still to read. Right now she is reading the Roscoe Riley Rules series aloud to me, and that series comes with my highest recommendation. It’s hysterical. Sometimes I give her a dramatic reading of the last chapter she just finished, just to have the fun of doing all the voices.

After she reads Roscoe Riley to me, Rosie wants me to read something more complicated to her. We have been working our way through the classic Hardy Boys series, which I love. I used to read those bright blue books from cover to cover in a day or two. I imagined a world where teenage boys jetted around on motorcycles and boats and saved their pocked money for microscopes and miniature cameras. I imagined what it was like to be so trusted by the local Coast Guard that they’d take you along on trips to arrest desperate criminals and rescue victims of kidnapping. I related the stories to my father, who explained that it’s not actually economical to counterfeit twenty dollar bills.

I liked the Hardys themselves, though I crushed the hardest on plump, nerdy, affable Chet in his bright yellow jalopy. I’m still sad there wasn’t a spinoff series where Chet gets away from the small town of Bayport and his fat-shaming peers and solves mysteries on his own. Chet deserved better than the Hardys.

Unfortunately, Rosie has also come across one of the modern, “updated” Hardy Boys series in the library, the ones written in the early 2000s. These do not have stout blue hardback covers; they have spastic yellow paperback covers. They do not have fanciful descriptions of accommodating Coast Guard personnel. The Hardys’ peppery maiden Aunt Gertrude has been replaced by the boring “Aunt Trudy.” And Chet and his jalopy barely appear at all.

The books are not exciting. They are not quaint. They have no character whatsoever. And each book contains at least one action sequence that makes absolutely no sense.

Take this example, which I’m not making up. The Hardys are investigating a sabotaged ride at an amusement park which left one woman dead of a head injury. Antics continue as various rides are wrecked, putting the passengers in mortal danger, but people keep riding them anyway. There is a dramatic sequence where the merry-go-round is spinning far too fast and out of control. children are hanging on for dear life, hats and cell phones and purses are flying off like bullets, someone was thrown clear of the ride but luckily landed on a giant teddy bear the Hardys threw under her at the last moment. This wasn’t a lucky coincidence; they actually saw the women falling off the ride and grabbed the bear and threw it to meet her before she landed.

The ride operator comes running out of the bathroom, lamenting that everything was fine when he started the ride and went to take a break, but it’s too late for regret now.

The Hardys jump onto the spinning merry-go-round, timing their jump just right so they’re not hit by the horses. They bravely fight the centrifugal force and hand-over-hand their way to the center of the ride, then tie themselves down with their belts, then yank out the extension cord they find running into the device, and the ride slows back to normal speed so they can pull the lever and let the terrified customers off.

When the ride is stopped, the Hardys find in all the commotion that there’s a dead man lying on the ground beside the ride. He has a small bee clutched in his hand and a small welt from a bee sting on his body but no other sign of swelling or distress. They surmise that he died of an allergic reaction but no one came to his aid because they were distracted by the merry-go-round– another death caused by the saboteur.

They also find that the mysterious extension cord leads back to a hidden generator. The extra electricity was what was making the merry-go-round go too fast.

The people are disgruntled and angry to have been on the sabotaged ride. They want their money back and threaten to sue.

Enter the park owner, “Uncle Bernie,” a grumpy abusive labor-law-violating capitalist who inherited the park from his father. I voice him in a Bernie Sanders voice. Uncle Bernie mollifies the crowd by offering each of them a free hot dog and soft serve for the children, and they all quickly fall in line at the concession stand while the medics carry off the dead body.

Discussion questions:
1) How did the ride operator exit the Merry-go-Round to go to the bathroom, if the ride can only be operated from the middle?

2) Do mechanical merry-go-rounds from the 1930s actually move that much faster if you give them an extra power source?

3) If that’s the case, why do they have a convenient extra plug in case a saboteur wants to give them more juice?

4) If they do, why would the ride operators start the ride without asking questions about the brand new giant orange extension cord that materialized after the park had already been sabotaged at least once? Wouldn’t your first job as a ride operator be to inspect the merry-go-round and make sure nobody accidentally plugged in the make-it-go-too-fast plug?

5) If the ride was actually spinning fast enough to cause people to fly outward, wouldn’t the death and injury toll for such an emergency be extremely high? Wouldn’t they all at minimum have brain damage and whiplash?

6) How many laws of physics did the Hardys have to break to be able to rescue that falling woman and get to the middle of the ride?

7) Was the part where everyone quietly shuffles off to get free hot dog after their chilling ordeal and witnessing the medics cart off a dead man draped in a sheet meant to be biting social commentary?

I don’t have any answers, and neither does the book. I am increasingly excited for our next weekly library trip where I’m going to return all the bright yellow Hardy Boys and grab something interesting. Maybe Harriet the Spy.

I am also looking forward to next year or so, when it will be safe to go places and ride merry-go-rounds again. Though I’ll be sure to inspect any rides for a bright orange extension cord first.

For now, it’s good to have books.

Image via Pixabay.

Mary Pezzulo is the author of Meditations on the Way of the Cross.

Steel Magnificat operates almost entirely on tips. To tip the author, visit our donate page.

Previous Post

October 19, 2020

The True Effect of COVID and the Pro-Life Movement on Abortion

Next Post

October 21, 2020 Suppose You Thought You Were A Christian

Browse Our Archives

Select a Category abortion Abuse Advent America American Christianity angel angels Annunciation Appalachia apparition apparition chaser apparition chasers apparition culture art art review babies baby baby Jesus Bad Lip Reading bad statue contest bath beauty Bible story blog blogkeeping blood book review Brandon Sanderson breastfeeding bus Catholic catholic conspiracy alarmism Catholic Oppositional Disorder Charismatic Renewal Charlie the Cat chastity Christ Christian idenitity Christianity and Judaism Chronic Illness clean clothing COD piece comedy compassion conscience conspiracy theory conversion cop-on-black violence Crucifixion cry of the poor culture Daesh Daily Saints death death penalty devotional diaconate diaper diapers dirty disability Donald Trump Dorothy Day dream drugs Eastern Catholicism Eastern Christianity education election election update Elsewhere on Patheos empathy environment Fear feminism film review fish flashback fluffy buns food Franciscan University of Steubenville Friendship Room fun Gabriel gardening gospel hair-splitting Heaven hell heresy Hillary Clinton history Holly the Witch Holy Spirit holy war Homeschooling homosexuality horror human dignity humor Icon idol immigrants infection inter-religious dialogue Interpretation of Scripture Islam Jesus Jihad Joseph joy laity and lay vocations lamb dinner laundry lent lgbtq literature love manners Mary Medicine and Science Meditation mercy mess milk misogyny Missouri monasticism monster motherhood mourn with those mourn movies movis music mystery nature neurodiversity New Pro-Life Movement news nonsense nostalgia O antiphons obituary objectification Ohio Valley Ordinary Time ordination Ordo Amoris parable paradox Passover peanut butter personal beliefs pets philosophy Planet Charismatic poetry politics polls poop Pope Francis Pope Leo power in the Church prayer prayer request prayers preferential option for non-violence president presidential election priest primary private revelation pro-life prophecy Public face of Catholicism Pure Flix Q and A race racism random rape rape. sexuality reader's request Reckoners refugee religious trauma ressurrection Right to life Saints saints and celebrations same-sex same-sex marriage satire scandal secular feasts seder Seven Joys Seven Last Words sex sexual ethics sexuality silencing six months skid row slavery social justice Speculative fiction spiritual abuse spoon stain story suffering suffrage suffragette Sunday Gospel temple Tenebrae Responsories Terror the exorcist The Friendship Room The New Pro-Life Movement Things I Learned on the Internet tin cup traffic true story tv review Uncategorized USCCB vice and temptation violence Virtue virtue and vice war Way of the Cross whimsy whole life women's ordination work of mercy Year A

Select a Month October 2026 September 2026 August 2026 July 2026 June 2026 May 2026 April 2026 March 2026 February 2026 January 2026 December 2025 November 2025 October 2025 September 2025 August 2025 July 2025 June 2025 May 2025 April 2025 March 2025 February 2025 January 2025 December 2024 November 2024 October 2024 September 2024 August 2024 July 2024 June 2024 May 2024 April 2024 March 2024 February 2024 January 2024 December 2023 November 2023 October 2023 September 2023 August 2023 July 2023 June 2023 May 2023 April 2023 March 2023 February 2023 January 2023 December 2022 November 2022 October 2022 September 2022 August 2022 July 2022 June 2022 May 2022 April 2022 March 2022 February 2022 January 2022 December 2021 November 2021 October 2021 September 2021 August 2021 July 2021 June 2021 May 2021 April 2021 March 2021 February 2021 January 2021 December 2020 November 2020 October 2020 September 2020 August 2020 July 2020 June 2020 May 2020 April 2020 March 2020 February 2020 January 2020 December 2019 November 2019 October 2019 September 2019 August 2019 July 2019 June 2019 May 2019 April 2019 March 2019 February 2019 January 2019 December 2018 November 2018 October 2018 September 2018 August 2018 July 2018 June 2018 May 2018 April 2018 March 2018 February 2018 January 2018 December 2017 November 2017 October 2017 September 2017 August 2017 July 2017 June 2017 May 2017 April 2017 March 2017 February 2017 January 2017 December 2016 November 2016 October 2016 September 2016 August 2016 July 2016 June 2016 May 2016 April 2016 March 2016

TAKE THE

Religious Wisdom Quiz

What Christian group is known for its emphasis on "total depravity"?

Select your answer to see how you score.

Baptists Methodists Orthodox Reformed (Calvinists)