Walk to school? Why, what a revolutionary idea

Somebody vouchsafed an ‘interesting’ idea in the paper the other day: He suggested that for a host of reasons it might be a good idea for children to start walking to and from school instead of being driven by parents.

What a revolutionary and indeed retrograde comment. Children walk? Children who live more than a block from their classroom actually applying a little bit of ‘shank’s mare’ (as my granny used to call it)?

In all seriousness, I applaud the idea and I have been for years trying to get my head around why children are ferried back and forth. I mean, I know they are. I live a mere block away from an elementary school and I see the vehicles plying the roads to drop them off in the morning and then pick them up in the afternoon.

These are elementary kids from the neighborhood and I’ll bet none of them live more than a half-mile distant from the school.

In ‘my day’ (I find I say that a lot of late) we all walked (mainly dawdled as we were in no rush to arrive) we walked one-and-one-tenth mile to school and one-and-one-tenth mile from school each and every day regardless of weather. And since that was back in pre-climate change days we had (I like to think) almost incessant blizzards from September to June. But, we did it and I (and many of my peers) survived to tell the tale.

But wait, there’s more. As I look at an old class photo (the one shown is fourth grade, see if you can find me. The teacher, by the way, was a complete asshole) there ain’t a fat kid in the lot. We was too po’ to be fat. No, really, we ate OK. We actually ate pretty healthfully compared with today. It was just that we walked everywhere we wanted to go. And when school was done, we had ‘chores’ – really kids. Ask Mom and Dad what chores were – and then we just fooled around physically; played games; played sandlot sports; hiked,  rode our bikes far away sometimes. Once when I was about 12 a gang of us rode our bikes to the US border (about 25 miles distant) and we were chagrined when they wouldn’t let a bunch of 12-year-olds across. Bloody Yanks. So, we rode home again.

The point being, we didn’t loll about inside watching TV. It would be decades before video games were to show up – wanna play a game, play Monopoly. There was no texting and there was a party-line land-line phone. Our lives weren’t sedentary.

And, as we were kids we had no money so we didn’t gorge out on crap. We got ‘meals’ and sometimes a snack after school. “Have some celery with cheese, Junior, it’s good for you! And that’s it until supper. You want pop? What is it, your birthday?” So, hence the picture with the paucity of fat kids. Slim kids who walked to school.

Of course, some diligent parents drive their kids because they are of the belief that the streets are crawling with perverts and other evil people dead set on harming their youngsters. Well, there were perverts and evil people throughout history and that’s sort of called ‘life and its risks’. Read Tom Sawyer and know that way back Tom and Huck ran into some pretty evil dudes, including Huck’s drunken old man.

“Don’t talk to strangers,” we were warned, and that was about it. Oh, and “Don’t play with pointed sticks, you’ll put somebody’s eye out.” Never did know anybody who got his eye put out by a pointed stick.

And when school beckoned in its ghastly way, we walked.

And then I fell for Betty and Veronica in an unwholesome manner and my childhood went away

I am quite fond of the comedy Big Bang Theory. I think the cast is talented and very funny and I have in my life had fantasies over such a girl as Penny. What red-blooded lad hasn’t?

But, one thing I don’t get, and perhaps that’s because times have changed, is the obsession by these highly-educated, remarkably intelligent grown men with comic books. Aside from a foray into some of the more brilliant, rebellious and salacious underground comics of the hippie ‘70s I left comic books aside once I realized I was looking at Archie comics no longer for the humor but for the respective racks of Betty and Veronica. Then I knew it was time to grow up.

But I once had a wonderful relationship with comic books and I admire the art and storytelling to this day. Of course, I also worked as a cartoonist for a number of years as a kind of newspaper sideline.

Anyway, here is how it was in the day.

Every store worth its salt had a huge array of these ten-cent sources of magic. Classics Illustrated cost a whole fifteen-cents, and the fact that they gave the basic plotlines for many literary works enables not a few students to get through freshman literature courses at university without even having to resort to the challenge suggested by Cole’s Notes, which demanded actual reading.             

But, I speak more of the regular comic books. I only got a lousy fifteen-cents a week allowance (my parents weren’t poor, just cheap), and that paltry sum left me little flexibility in purchasing power. Coming home from Douglas Road School on allowance day called for a stop at the Rio.  Rio referred to the Rio Vista, a grimy truck stop coffee bar and general store connected to an even grimier cocky-locky type motel – oh, we had heard the tales, even by the tender age of ten. Anyway, at the Rio a kid could get a brown paper bag of French fries (chips, as we called them in those days) for a lowly five-cents. Or, I could take that nickel and get a chocolate bar, or divide it all up for penny candy. For that same nickel you could get fifteen jawbreakers. A bottle of pop was out, however, because that would cost seven cents and that would only leave eight cents from my allowance. Comics were a dime. And, a new comic was generally a must.

Kids’ tastes in comics varied. Some like actioners like Superman or Batman. I didn’t mind Batman as much because I liked ‘his’ costume, but not Robin’s. Some kids liked westerns, but they were never a drawing card for me. Horror comics scared the snot out of me and evoked nightmares. No, mainly I liked the funny ones. Bugs Bunny, Donald Duck, or the Disney compendia called Walt Disney’s Comics and Stories – whatever happened to Bucky Bug? Little Lulu was brilliantly funny and hilariously scripted. Despite the fact the heroine was a girl, she wasn’t a girly-girl so there was no shame in a boy liking Lulu. Anyway, you could always protest that you read for Tubby’s (and it was still politically acceptable to call a fat kid ‘Tubby’ – oops, guess I should have said obese) exploits. And finally, and even more so as I got older, there was Archie. Not as good as the Archie in the funnies, but popular nevertheless.

Around that same time, however, my world of comic book love changed. A kid brought to school some comics that looked like the normal and real thing until I began perusing. This comic was called MAD and this astonishing brilliant satirical offering opened me to a new world of not only hilarity, it also provided me with my introduction to satire. Life would never be the same.

At the height of my comic book collecting, purchasing, trading and other comic related activities, I owned over two-hundred of them. And then I got older and lost interest, and they were discarded. I weep when I think of what they would be worth today. For some reason I was able to keep three, and I still have them. In my possession are a 1952 Bugs Bunny, a 1953 Walt Disney, and a 1955 MAD Magazine – only the second magazine after the Gaines people had switched over from comic book format. But once, damn it, I had them ‘all.’

Here’s a health unto her Majesty and her great big panties

What follows is a repeat from a blog on this date in 2008 (with a few adjustments). And since it is that same Victoria Day holiday I felt it was still apt and because it is a holiday I don’t feel particularly ambitious or creative. Enjoy, I hope.

It was in London’s Victoria and Albert Museum that many years ago I saw a sight that haunts me to this day.

It was a pair of Queen Victoria’s underpants. I don’t know how they got them and wondered if some 19th century pervert had rummaged through her laundry hamper. But, the point is, they were huge! You could have accommodated a troop of Boy Scouts in them.

Not only were they huge – they were crotchless! That’s right, the lady parts of this paragon of rectitude were uncovered.

Did that mean that the Queen of Britain and her Empire was a bit on the kinky side and always ready for action? Well, maybe she was. There was that John Brown rumor, after all. But, it was for another reason that they were gusset-less. And supposedly she and her husband Prince Albert had a riotous sex life with the supposedly prim queen being particularly avid. I mean, good heavens, they spawned about 200 princelings and princesses who worked hard later on to bring about World War One.

Ladies of her day wore commodious skirts, sometimes hooped, and mightily difficult to hitch up when nature called. Consequently, they would merely stand in place – hopefully somewhere out on the lawn, maybe near the croquet pitch, and simply pee down their legs. Neither very sanitary or esthetically dainty, and I don’t mean to be indelicate here, but sometimes a gal has to do what she has to do. Oh, and that is the primary reason for the crotchlessness, I have heard. I wasn’t there to observe.

I only mention all of this stuff because today, in Canada, and elsewhere in the Commonwealth, it is Victoria Day.

So, here’s a toast to the old Queen and her voluminous knickers. Long may they both reign, in our hearts, at least.

So, did he shoot Jesse James or just grab Sarah’s ass?

“That dirty little coward that shot Mr. Howard,

And laid poor Jesse in his grave.”

Do you think Toronto’s adiposity-challenged (i.e. big fat slob) mayor, Rob Ford fancies himself to be much like his namesake in the old West, one Robert Ford (pictured left) who notoriously bumped-off outlaw Jesse James?

There are times I’ve wished that we could have a mayor like old Rob who, some of the time, makes Homer Simpson seem quite functional. Sometimes this community can seem rather dull.

Latest bit of scandal, according to the Toronto Star, which hates Ford’s humongous guts. Anyway, Ford was reportedly seen smoking crack. The report, by the way, was provided by some known crack-dealers. So, it might seem that he doesn’t really want to be Robert Ford, he wants by be former DC Mayor Berry.

This is, of course, the latest in the saga of the victory for redneckism that his critics love to bring up their lunch over. Recently he was assailed for playing grabass with former Toronto mayoral candidate Sarah Thompson. At least, so Thompson and added that she didn’t find his digital wanderings at all arousing. Johnny Depp he ain’t.

There are many other things in the man’s legacy to be considered, but they are too numerous to tally up here.

One thing that ‘Toronto the Good’ accomplished in electing Mr. Ford, however, is to provide ongoing amusement for the rest of Canada. The Maple Leafs hockey team (OK-OK, not this year) cannot always be the fount of comedy they normally are. Now there is Ford.

You see, Toronto is perceived (rightly or wrongly, but mainly rightly) by the rest of Canada as the most puffed-up urban conglomeration of the Great White North. Toronto doesn’t get that most Canadians hate them for their smugness, self-aggrandizement and insufferable sense of superiority over anything the far side of Yonge Street.

But now they have Rob Ford and all other Canadians can say: “But you have Rob Ford, and furthermore you elected him!”

Ha-Ha!

When everything else goes to hell, don’t let me become a bore, too

“You know what I hope?” I said to my wife the other day.

“No, what do you hope?” she asked, not looking up from her book.

“I hope I don’t become one of those boring old geezers who bores people to death with their stories. You know, the ones who go on, and on, and on, and on, and just never know when to stop even though the eyes of everybody in the room are glazing over and they are desperately looking for an excuse to leave. Know what I mean? I mean, seriously, know what I mean?”

“I’m sorry. I wasn’t listening,” she replied, her eyes glazing over.

Actually, I fear many things about getting old, and becoming a bore is merely one of them. Ill health and death are kinda up there, too as well as estimating how much time I have left and why some females can continue to charm me as much as they did in high school despite the fact we’re virtually of pensionable age.

Another inexplicable aspect of age is that odd propensity of certain males to wear their trousers above the waistline. Where do they get those pants with the really long crotches? And at what age does a guy get up and decide to wear long crotch pants that day. A day that comes about, I reckon, about a decade past the first cardigan purchase.

Anyway, this is all uncharted territory for me. But, in spite of any denial I might want to call upon, signs periodically pop up that the old celestial clock is moving forward, whether or not I like it. Just like everybody else, I am getting older by the minute. I had a sign just a while ago.

I was chatting with a clerk at my local supermarket. Something I like to do since I still suffer from the misapprehension that I am charming and handsome and maybe even dashing. And she’s a person I like to chat with as she is chatworthy, smart, pretty and coquettish and has an incurably infectious giggle. About 35-ish, I would guess.

“I love the smell of Certs,” she said, as she was stocking the confection shelf at one of the checkouts.

“But,” I said, “Is it a candy mint, or is it a breath mint?”

“Huh?” she replied, a look of bemusement on her pretty face.

“You know, like the old TV commercial: ‘Certs is a candy mint – Certs is a breath mint. It’s two, it’s two, it’s two mints in one!’. You must remember that.”

“I don’t remember that,” she replied. Then she uttered those heedless and hurtful words: “I think it must have been before my time.”

Feeling crestfallen and a bit more aged, I continued with my errands in the store with just a little less spring in my step.

On the other hand, there is hope. In fact, if popular culture attests to anything (and I rarely think it does), then old fartdom is the new chic. Oldsters are not only vital and interesting, they’re also sexy. I like to keep that thought in mind. It helps me through trying times, like my Certs moment, though I do hope the word ‘codger’ or phrase ‘stupid old buzzard’ didn’t cross her lips when she was recounting the tale to some of her youthful colleagues later.

It is indeed an interesting time in terms of human longevity and ages that were considered ‘old’ when I was a kid aren’t regarded in the same way. The response now in hearing that somebody of, say, 75 has died is: “Gee, that’s not very old. How sad.” Of course, that’s me thinking that, my checkout clerk might have thought, “Wow, I didn’t know he was that old!”

Yet, look at some of our cultural icons. For instance, Harrison Ford is still slashing through jungles and is regarded with credibility and as a ‘hunk’ even though he is surely pushing 90. Well, I do know he’s older than I am, at least. The Rolling Stones are still the best damn rock-and-roll band ever and Keith has been dead for years. Madonna is the same age as my grandmother was when I was a kid. Granny didn’t have any of the bearing of Madonna – thank God. Deborah Harry is well on in her 60s and I still have wanton thoughts aobut her, and Helen Mirren is pushing 70 and she still rings a lot of male chimes.

At the end of the day we carry on and the key to it all, and this I do believe, is to ‘think’ young, but take advantage of whatever maturity we might have acquired along the way.

Now, before this becomes tiring and boring, I shall end it.

You may not think that ‘you’ count, but your vote surely does

It’s Election Day here in the bailiwick of British Columbia. This is not something that pleases me as I am of the WC Fields school in that I invariably vote ‘against’ rather than ‘for’.

That’s because few are the politicians who actually deserve to have me cast a ballot in their direction. This time around has been more difficult than most, if I’m honest about it. In other words, have any of you done anything that makes you worthy of my tax dollars.

Hardly.

At the same time I am always reminded come election time how much I cherish the freedoms we have in this moderately democratic society – and remember even our societies in the liberated West are only true democracies on election day – and that I can go off to cast my ballot without a bunch of goons waylaying me along the way. I never noticed any grenade attacks nor bloodied victims lying in the gutters along the way.

This is a good thing. It’s a good thing that I haven’t recently seen tanks plying our thoroughfares and I haven’t had to stop at a checkpoint at any locale on my travels. No boots of stormtroopers coming up my steps at 2 a.m. either.

This, however, doesn’t let our politicians – either existing or aspirant – off the hook. There are huge illnesses and inequalities in this blessed society of ours. Care for the environment is a kind of seat-of-the-pants shambles; care of underprivileged children is shockingly lax; education is (always) in a state of turmoil and no, in my esteem as a former teachers, the answer is not throwing more money at teachers despite their union’s belief they deserve it. Medical costs have soared and access has diminished;

And, we’re hugely in debt. If we ran our household accounts the way governments do we’d all be declaring personal bankruptcy. Yet the promises of even more expenditures were vomited out by both sides prior to the election. OK, and I want a new BMW convertible, and that shouldn’t be so hard for you considering the way you plan on spending should your bozos win.

Anyway, I have exercised my franchise and was happy to have the opportunity to do so, despite how much I might bitch.

Happy Mother’s Day to all you lovely maternal sorts

So, Ma, how’s it going these days?

The following is a reposting of a blog I wrote back in 2006, with a few changes and a few addendums.

First off, due to my warm and affectionate nature (well, some of the time), I wish to express my love and admiration to all the mothers out there on this their special day.
I think good mothers are God’s most compelling and vital  incarnations, and their responsibilities are huge in terms of creating a world in which we can all live in decency and comfort. I have known many such mothers, and continue to know such mothers, and for them I feel a certain awe — since I never had such an experience with my own. In that I was unfortunate. I once did have a wonderful mother-in-law, and in that I was privileged. In fact, so deep was my love for her that I never did get mother-in-law jokes. They didn’t apply to me. Since she died in 1987, rarely has an extended period gone by that I haven’t thought about her. Even though I am no longer married to her daughter, she still figures prominently in my life. In fact, I suspect she might even understand why I am no longer married to her daughter.

 I was also (secondarily) married to a woman whom I admired hugely in her maternal skills and love. We had other glitches but I would never indict her mothering skills and the love she conveyed with the end result being a very successful and functional daughter. The work pays off.

Of my own mother, there is not much I can say. I’ve often wondered about ‘Mama’s Boys’. How can that be so? What does that feel like? Needless to say, I wasn’t one. My mother, in the days of my early childhood, was quite beautiful. She was also funny, witty, well-read, intelligent, stylish and all that other stuff that doesn’t matter much to a child. Actually, I came to appreciate those traits more when I was in my teens, and Mother and I would often make library and art gallery forays together. Doesn’t sound so bad, does it?

What was bad was that she was never demonstrably affectionate. I do not recall, literally, ever having been hugged or kissed by my mother. Neither do my brothers. We often felt that we were inconveniences. Oh, we were well fed, had clothing, a warm house, and it was kind of like we were irritating guests in that house.

No, she wasn’t ‘cold’ in the sense of prim and stoic. What she was, was emotionally aloof. She was kind of like the person you are talking to at a party who is constantly scanning the room to see if there is somebody more interesting to speak to. If that happened, Mother would be gone in a trice.

What made it even worse was that she was an alcoholic. Alcoholism is a progressive disease, and as she aged, the booze factor became less and less tolerable. And, like most alcoholic households, the place was filled with denial. I had long since left home by the time she got genuinely intolerable, but her alcoholism was the elephant in the living room that was always ignored. Ultimately she became ill-spirited and rather cruel, but the elephant remained firmly in place.

And then she died, back in 1992. I’m still not quite sure how I feel about that. I’m yet to sort it out, but I’m still working on it.

But, to my cherished maternal friends the very happiest of mother’s days. You thoroughly deserve your accolades.