A Boy's-Eye View

For his tenth birthday, my son, out of the blue, asked for an earring. Once I regained consciousness, I arranged to get it done. I confess I was kind of impressed by his 'cool' factor, something neither his father nor I have ever possessed.

My son is also an artist, and his drawing are really coming along. To commemorate the occasion of the 'piercing', he drew a comic. I leave it here in its unedited form for your enjoyment. Then, I shall deconstruct.

I produce it again, with my commentary.

Please note the startlingly accurate drawing of the fine 2000 Volvo V7O I drive. He's got it right; down to the always-flat tire in the front. And, I did only allow for 20 minutes. It's only a little ear, after all (also, I only had 35 cents in my pocket).

Let me brag about the reversal of the "Two Trolls Tattoo Den" sign as seen from the inside. That's Paul sitting down trying to look like he wants to be there. That's me paying, 'tho it must be said I did not actually hand over the cash until I was sure the deed was done.

The child does get his spelling skills from his mother, but he was under duress at the time. Also note that we have definitive proof in the speech bubble that adults DO LIE TO CHILDREN. This is not, as some believe, an attempt to make it easier for the kid. Its intent is to make it easier on the adult. Paul is sitting down here, so as not to faint. I am not in the room.

The close-up of the ear is an actual technical drawing from THE ART OF THE PIERCE, p. 26 (1863). The 'uh-oh' is a direct quote, and the moment when the piercist realised he could have been a taxi driver. Those careful readers out there will have seen the increasing 'unhappy' on the child's face, and the fact that the father has completely disappeared from the frame. That's 'cause he was on the floor.

This last frame is complete fabrication. It was I doing the crying, not the child. It's interesting to note that insurance companies do not pay for damage done by flooding when the culprits walked into the situation at their own request. To reward our collective bravery, all involved went to Tim Hortons for a doughnut.

There you have it, folks. I do hope you've enjoyed this Christmas installment of "Things I Never Thought I'd Let Anyone Do To My Kid". Next year, God forbid, we'll be perusing those tattoo books lying on the table in the waiting room.

The Benefits of Volunteering

original site for this photo

As in most small communities, my hometown had a volunteer fire department. This was in the days before pagers and mobile phones, so in the centre of town, on the top of the highest building (three full floors), there was a siren. If there was a fire, the siren would begin wailing, and all the volunteer firemen – among them Mr. Cooper, the bank manager, Mr. McCall, the pharmacist and Mr. Reed, who was the school janitor – would leave their jobs, jump into their cars and speed to the fire hall. But they weren’t the only ones racing to the fire hall. Imagine that siren going off in the summer, when we kids were out of school and at loose ends.

You got it.

That siren went off, and every kid in town jumped on his or her bike and peddled like mad for the fire hall. It was like a mass evacuation in reverse. We kids were often at the hall before the men were. With our feet half-stuffed into our running shoes, we speculated gleefully over whose house was going up in smoke right now; Ricky was sure he’d seen smoke over the west side of town. Wesley thought he’d seen smoke coming from the baseball diamond. Michele had smelled something burning as she came down Hill Street. Our excitement grew. Could the fire be... could it be... could the fire be at the school? By the time the firemen arrived we kids were practically vibrating. Within moments, the big doors rolled up, and the fire truck was revealed, its flashing lights sending us into a fevered cheering. Kids scattered off the driveway. Mr. Kell, fire chief and owner of the ice cream parlour, was at the wheel. He maneuvered majestically out of the hall, sounded the big horn, BLAAAAAP, and acknowledged us with a salute. By the time the truck’s siren came on, every one of us had jumped back onto a bike. We followed the truck down the main road, feet spinning, streamers streaming, until we got to the highway and couldn’t keep up anymore. First one kid would drop back and then another; then someone would say it was hot, and the whole gang of us would retire to the local pond for a swim.

Then came the summer I was twelve: the siren at the corner went off, and my brother, who was ten, went to the hall without me. He told me all about it, of course. The Stoddart’s abandoned pig barn had burned to the ground, but it wasn’t as exciting to me as it had been. I stopped hearing the siren soon after that. I assumed I had outgrown it, but then I figured out that no one heard the siren anymore. The volunteers were all wearing pagers, the siren had been disconnected. There had been complaints that it was disturbing the peace of the village. Now, by the time the kids knew the fire truck was rolling out, it was already gone. No more excited meetings outside the hall; no more frenetic post mortems at the pond.

I found it sad.

A few months after my husband and I moved from Etobicoke to Flamborough, I was out in the garden and heard something I hadn’t heard in over thirty years. It was very faint, just a ghost of a sound, but unmistakeable. In Flamborough, a rural area with notoriously bad mobile coverage and iffy phone lines, the Freelton Volunteer Fire Department, seven kilometres from my house, still relies on its siren. As I listened, I imagined men and women dropping what they were doing and heading for the fire hall. And I imagined every kid in the village doing exactly the same thing.

I wanted to join them.