Healthy Harold is worth saving (because he saved me)
Warning: this article is going to be a massive downer.
In recent horrible news, the federal government has slashed it’s funding to Life Education Australia. LEA is known amongst Australian’s primarily for their travelling caravan that visits schools. Along with Healthy Harold, the talking giraffe, they promoted the benefits of a balanced lifestyle to children all across Australia.
It was always a comforting sight to see the colourful caravan with the smiling giraffe parked out the front of the school. Once a year, your teacher would ask you all to line up, and you’d make your way to the magical caravan where learning and health was basically fun.
Harold and his team (usually made up of people called ‘The Man’ and ‘The Lady’) taught us the importance of a balanced diet, sun safety and the negative effect of cigarettes, drugs and alcohol on the human body.
The end of funding for LEA means that on July 1st, Healthy Harold is no longer able to operate. Basically, Malcolm Turnbull is like that US dentist who killed Cecil the Lion except he’s a Prime Minister who’s killed the concept of a talking giraffe that makes learning fun.
Rightio then.
To be honest, I’m not handling the news too well.
It’s basically the worst Healthy Harold related news I’ve had since I realised that he’s a puppet.
Some of the things I was taught by Harold, I could have learnt in the classroom, or maybe even just learnt eventually by living my life in the real world. But I didn’t have to, because Harold taught me and I remembered.
Here are just a few things that Healthy Harold taught me:
- How painkillers work.
- Why smoking destroys your immune system.
- Why good diets contain variety.
- Where a good deal of our internal organs are and what they do.
- Why drugs are bad for you.
- Don’t be a showy asshole.
You probably noticed the first five things are pretty straight forward, maybe you were even nodding along as you read them, but the last one is kind of strange.
Second warning: this is where the article starts to be about me.
One of the possibly hundreds of magical things I remember about Healthy Harold was an anatomical figure of a human body they had in the caravan that displayed many of the human internal organs.
Every year, The Lady opened the cupboard where Sally stood (I can’t remember if that was the name of the model or if I’m just making it up) and asked for a helper. Hands would shoot into the air with intense anticipation and each year, one lucky kid was selected to be the helper.
Usually that kid was asked a question like “Can you show me where the heart is?” and they would touch Sally’s corresponding body part which would light up. Invariably, The Lady would say “Wow! Do you have a battery up you sleeve?”
Every. Year.
And in Year 6, guess what brilliant idea I had.
The morning I would see Healthy Harold for the final time (so already an emotional day) I pinched a AAA battery from the remote, and tucked it into my sleeve, held in place by an era-appropriate silver bracelet. I told my closest friends (all three) about my plan before class started.
I would make sure I would get picked to go up and touch Sally and when The Lady asked if ‘I have a battery up my sleeve’ I’d pull the battery from my sleeve in front of the whole class. What a funny boy I would be.
So I waited. I was first to line up to leave class. First in the caravan. Sat right at the front. Waiting. Knowing that soon The Lady would open the cupboard where Sally stood and ask for a helper. No sooner did she do it than my hand shot up in the air like a starting gun.
“Your hand was up right away, you can come up here!”
I’d been chosen. It was working.
“Benedict can you tell me where the liver is?”
I touched Sally’s liver and it lit up beneath my fingers.
“Wow Benedict! How did you do that? Are you magic?”
Silence.
Oh lord. She wasn’t saying it.
One of my three friends chirped out, “He’s got a battery up his sleeve!”
“Haha,” said The Lady as if she’d never heard the expression before. “Do you Benedict?”
I pulled the battery out of my sleeve and stared her dead in the face. The caravan went silent. I kept staring at The Lady so I didn’t have to make eye contact with anyone in my class, who were watching on in confused horror.
“Well,” said The Lady struggling to find her words, “Maybe that’s what made the magic work then…”
From that point on I felt so awkward I was silent even when she brought Harold out from behind the little mini curtains to talk to us. I hardly said good bye to him. I’d aged.
It’s only because I’ve heard the news of the LEA funding cuts that I now realise, Healthy Harold inadvertently taught me a very important lesson:
Don’t be a showy asshole.
I’d gone too far to make people laugh and I made an ass of myself. And how lucky I was I did.
You see, if I didn’t do it in Year 6 I would have never realised it was wrong to attempt such a pathetically ridiculous cry for attention. If I never did it, I could have tried something similar at an older age, when there would almost certainly be more severe consequences.
If I didn’t learn to not be a dick at the age of 11, there’s a strong chance I would have grown up obliviously arrogant, thinking I could do anything. Maybe instead I’d ask a girl out in front of the whole geography class, start a uni hacky sack league or even try my hand at a pyramid scheme because I believe myself to be the exception to the rule.
Yes, those things would have taught me not to be a showy asshole but with far greater consequences. By embarrassing myself in front of Healthy Harold I didn’t need to learn it in the classroom, or in the world, because I learnt it with him.
I don’t smoke because he said it was wrong. My diet is balanced because he said it was good. And when I take a Panadol I remember the funny exercise The Lady made us do to teach us how painkillers work.
My embarrassing joke had turned me into an adult. An adult too old for Healthy Harold but wise enough not to smoke, eat junk food or act like a dick at barbecues.
Losing my childhood meant I lost Harold and now it appears I’m not the only one who’s going to lose him.
Please don’t let Aussie children lose out on Healthy Harold. Sign the petition to get the message to the government and keep children smiling at the sight of the colourful caravan out the front of their school.
UPDA