By The Skin Of My Shin

When I was in seventh grade, some girls trying to get a toehold on the adolescent food chain pointed at me in the hallway and made fun of my hairy legs. They were extrapolating from a fine blonde fuzz above my knee socks. My classmates were wearing nylons with garter belts by then. I found myself incapable of consulting my mother about shaving, let alone nylons. I was the baby in the family, with old parents, and already had internalized my role as the one who would keep my parents young, so I couldn't bear to remind them I was growing up. I shut myself in the bathroom and grabbed my father's razor to take care of this vital issue myself. I remember thinking it would require a lot of pressure. I started with the shin bone and neatly peeled off a long strip of skin. In too big a hurry to put two and two together, I did the same thing on the other leg. It looked like the Bates Motel in there. I pressed layers of toilet paper to the shins and hid them under knee socks until the scabs fell off.

The first time I recalled and related that episode, in my forties, I burst into tears. Over leg fuzz.

You can still see the scars. It's a little reminder of the power of peer pressure. If we'd been expected to shave our wrists, I wouldn't be here today. It's a dangerous age, and those who sprout out a little ways from smooth will get shorn down. The bulletins on acceptable behavior and wardrobe are changed almost hourly and it's essential to keep up. Sometimes it's a matter of life and death.

Right here, we've heard report of a student teacher, Seth Stambaugh, who was dismissed because of a short conversation he had with a kid in his fourth-grade class. Johnny wanted to know why the teacher wasn't married yet. "It's illegal for me, because if I did marry I would choose a man," he told the youngster. Wrong answer. Oh, not wrong in the sense of being anything but the truth. But as everybody knows, the correct answer is: "I just haven't met the right girl yet." Not "I just haven't met a girl with a penis yet." The teacher failed to stick to the script, and the script has been around a long time.

1916, Iowa. Johnny: Who are you voting for for President, Mrs. Bonkworthy?
     Incorrect answer: I am not legally allowed to vote, Johnny, but if I could, it would be for Mr. Wilson.
     Correct answer: Heavens to Murgatroid, Johnny, my brain is far too fluffy to hold facts and opinions in it! Now let's move on to our history texts. Johnny, maybe you can read it aloud, and that way I can learn it, too.


2010, Texas. Johnny: Why is the sky blue?
     Incorrect answer: Well, Johnny, the longer wavelengths of light pass right through the air, while the shorter blue wavelengths of light are absorbed and then scattered off the gas molecules in the atmosphere that God probably didn't whomp up in one day a few thousand years ago.
     Correct answer: Who knows? Purty, though, ain't it?

Kids really shouldn't get too much information. Not in an institution of learning, certainly.

No one has said, but I suspect Johnny was put up to this question by his parents. Somebody had already complained to the school about the student teacher's attire, which was suspiciously neat and tidy. I think somebody's parents tried to seal the deal by putting him on the spot and hoping he'd tell the truth, and then this dire threat to their son's welfare could be excised from the classroom.

He's probably not a direct threat, or he would have answered "I am not married because I am waiting for the nanosecond you, Johnny, turn eighteen, after I have groomed you for ten years."

He's probably just the other kind of threat, the one who demonstrates that it is normal for some people to be gay, thus setting into motion a vacuum of impressionable youngsters into the irresistible gay lifestyle choice. Johnny's parents obviously realize that anyone would choose a same-sex relationship as long as it was acceptable. Who wouldn't?

Odds are, at least one child in that class, maybe even Johnny, has an inkling that he might have something in common with that teacher, and he has just learned the consequences. That strikes me as being a threat, but that's because I've never thought Johnny would be better off dead than with Fred.

As lifestyle choices go, suicide is a poor one, with no future in it. I would have thought it was a more difficult choice to make than, say, snapping out of it and cruising the opposite sex for someone you could always divorce later. But apparently, for some of our children, it's easier.

The Woes City

Portland, Oregon: The month of May has recently adjourned after setting a record of one hundred and forty-five consecutive days of rain, smashing the previous single-month record of eighty-nine days in 1876 ("Dead Man's April"). Portlanders woke up last week to the news that a woman who had jumped from a tall building fell directly on another woman on the sidewalk, killing both instantly. Slouching in coffee shops, languidly stroking the ridged scars on their wrists, they pondered, in that crescent of time between the last coffee and the first beer, which of the two women was the most fortunate.

Although suicide pacts among the young have largely been thwarted by lethargy, pedestrians have been observed to linger on bridges. In the animal world, cats are irritable, slugs exhibit zip, and the baby bird population has proven susceptible to drowning, with natural selection now favoring the picky eater.

In those few areas experiencing sunbreaks, rods and cones have snapped audibly; temporary blindness is reported to have led to a spike in fatal car wrecks, some of which have been ruled accidental. Elsewhere, sporadic sunbreaks have been blamed for the socially corrosive introduction of hope.

Sociologists are also studying the possible detriment to the spirit arising from Portlanders' self-satisfaction as environmental advocates, noting that the reputation is largely unearned. Anyone willing to wait a couple years can boast a green roof, they point out, although green vehicles take a little longer.

As always, natives spurn the personal use of umbrellas, which merely add to the number of items that require drying out. These are observed only in the days leading up to the Rose Festival to protect hybrid tea roses in competition. Portland is, in fact, known as the Rose City, an umbrella term (as it were) encompassing many individual Black Spot Fungus neighborhoods, and this holds the key to understanding springtime weather patterns in the area.

Traditionally, the Rose Festival concludes with a week of parades in June, beginning with the Starlight Parade, an evening event named after a mythical sky phenomenon. This parade always features a clown troupe called the Rainmakers, who carry inside-out umbrellas and spray spectators with water pistols, an activity that was finally abandoned when nobody noticed. The Grand Floral Parade is held one week later, with thousands of plastic-covered spectators lining the streets to witness the annual drenching of delicate petals and princess curls. It's a festive scene, and marks the coming of the sunny season, which begins the next day. Meteorologists explain that our prevailing weather pattern arises when a deep plume of moisture embedded in a powerful jet stream stretching from Japan to the Oregon coast collides with the Rose Festival Grand Floral Parade.

The hail, on the other hand, is thought to be caused by the planting of peonies.