Dad devised all kind of slavish ways to impart discipline and 'go get what you want' attitude, and I was all, just give it to me.
He made my brother and me mow the yard no matter where we lived and that started early. Then when I wanted something he said earn the money and get whatever I want. Then that turned into earning everything for everything I wanted. And then he suggested go with what I know and mow yards for money, but then I should buy my own lawn mower and buy my own gasoline, and mix the oil that goes into the gasoline and keep the spark plugs clean and do the maintenance on the motor, and the proper rope to start it, the undercarriage cleaned up and the blade balanced and sharpened, and do his yard I mean our yard for free, and edging while I'm at it, and I'm all frustrated with these income impediments, "Come on, Dad, I'm ten."
Maybe he was trying to teach me to be a better negotiator but the whole thing was slavery.
13 comments:
Honor your father and your mother, that your days may be long in the land that the LORD your God is giving you.
I'm puzzled.
What a story.
Childhood is a balance between enjoyment and responsibility. The years of roof scrubbing described in that story is excessive and downright cruel.
Maybe you should talk to Barack. He seems to want to free the slaves all over again.
Of course, he wants to make us all slaves so it will look more impressive when he does it.
If he does it.
Competency is not his best thing.
So how do you make the geese crash on the roof? You shoot them and get the trajectory just right? Parenting is hard.
I'm guessing the geese are a guise for something else.
Closest bird to a goose I ever saw was a pigeon. One even shat on my head once (shit, shat, has have or had shatten). They were German pigeons. Eine taube Scheisse auf meinem Kopf in den Schatten.
Ich wischte mir den Kopf an meine Freunde T-Shirt.
Because he laughed. Schweinehund!
Eine taube nahm eine Scheisse auf meinem Kopf in den Schatten.
It must have been like a freak weather thing and the birds were exhausted and pushed down together.
Then the roof thing became a way for the dad to keep his three boys out of trouble the entire time they were growing up. They never tried bleach. They never tried re-covering the roof that whole time, they don't last forever you know.
And the zombie geese DID haunt the boy, his whole life, the whole thing reads like the thing a psychiatrist sorts. Cartoonists are lucky, their art is their psychiatrist. It seems.
And I like the misdirection of making us think the dad intends to dress the geese and cook them. That had me going there.
And the art is very good. The view from the ladder, the danger up there. What a way to keep boys off the roof, assign them a job up there. No more problem with roof-climbing.
Rains of frogs kept girls busy.
INTJ thoughts on the story.
The dad was right. The geese were likely infected with something and should be disposed of. He probably should have burned them but the dump would do.
The dad probably should have explained a bit more about why the geese should be disposed of away from the property. But...hey...that was the way people were back in those "olden" days.
The kids defied their father and scrubbing the roof is a relatively painless way to be reminded over and over of their defiance. Also as Chip notes. A great way to keep them from getting into other troubles.
The brothers got to bond together stronger through this experience than they would if they were not given the old "put'em through Hell routine" by the Dad.
Kids exaggerate and have very active imaginations. Their memories of things get inflated over time. The giant yard you used to have when you were little was, upon seeing it again as an adult, really very small. The roof was probably not really stained with blood as badly as they remembered
The drawings are excellent.
:-)
Thanks chip.
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