Life’s Outtakes
(Daris Howard, award-winning, syndicated columnist, playwright, and author, can be contacted at daris@darishoward.com; or visit his website at http://www.darishoward.com)
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Word Count 616
The Bad Hair Day
By
Daris Howard
My little nine-year-old daughter, Elliana, came down the stairs to where I was making breakfast. “Dad, I need to dress up like in the olden days for school today.”
“Okay,” I answered. “We have some pioneer costumes in the closet downstairs. You can look through them.”
“No,” she replied. “Not the pioneer days. The 70's and 80's, when you were younger. What did you wear back then?”
It took me a minute to recover from hearing the years I went to high school called the olden days. When I finally did, I told her she probably ought to ask her mother for something that girls wore.
Elliana found her mother, and asked if we had something she could wear for 70's and 80's days at school.
“The olden days,” I added.
“But I don’t want to look stupid,” Elli complained.
“We didn’t look stupid,” I told her.
One of my older daughters chimed in. “Have you looked at your yearbook lately?”
“Yes,” I answered, “ and we didn’t look stupid.” I paused for a moment, and then added, “Okay. Maybe bellbottoms were the exception.”
My wife, Donna, found Elli a dress. It kind of just draped around her. I had forgotten that girls wore those unflattering dresses, but the dress didn’t seem to bother Elli.
“Elli, you better come upstairs and let me do your hair,” Donna said.
“How are you going to do it?” I asked. “The Farrah Fawcett feathered look?” That was the one thing I remembered about girls’ hair from that era.
“What else was there back then?” she replied.
“I thought that was a pretty nice hairstyle,” I said.
“That’s because you didn’t have to spend an hour doing it, nor did you have to worry about a high forehead,” Donna answered back.
The two of them went upstairs, and I finished making breakfast. It took them so long I was sure I would be late getting the kids to school and me to work. When I finally told them they had to hurry, Donna called down that they were almost done.
She then hurried downstairs to help finish up the morning schedule. Meanwhile, Elli turned around and looked for the first time at herself in the mirror. Suddenly we heard a horrible scream. “Aww! I look horrible!”
She came down the stairs, her eyes full of tears. “Mom, what did you do to me?”
“Honey,” her mother answered, “that is the way we always used to do our hair.”
“But I look so stupid,” she wailed.
“But that is the way your mother always used to look,” I said.
Suddenly, everyone turned to look at me, and everything went quiet in the house except for Elli’s sniffling. That was when I realized my choice of words and my timing left a lot to be desired. I decided it might be a good time to retreat out to the van.
Donna helped Elli brush out a portion of the feathering from her hair, and we finally were on our way. When we pulled in to her school, Elli paused before she got out. She just watched the other kids briefly, then turned back to me. “I don’t feel so bad now. Everyone looks stupid. And the boys look even stupider than the girls.”
With that, she skipped off to class, feeling better while I felt worse.
Later that day, when I picked her up, she was wearing her normal clothes that she had stuffed into her pack before school. Her hair was also brushed straight. When I asked her why she had decided to change, she shrugged.
“I couldn’t stand to look stupid like that one te longer than I had to,” she replied.
Article from 5 years back as a second choice.
Children and Water Bottles
By
Daris Howard
As we traveled in Peru, I loved watching the children. We stayed in the city of Agua Calientes (which means “Hot Water”) during the two days we toured Machu Picchu (“Old Mountain”). Agua Calientes was built on the Andean hillside, rising steeply from the roaring Urumbamba River up the cone shaped mountain.
From Aguas Calientes we would catch a small bus up the mountain to the famous ruins of Machu Picchu. Avenida Pachacutec, the street that our hotel was on, was paved with brick and cobblestone and slanted steeply downward for about 20 yards, leveled out for about five yards in front of a shop or hotel doorway, only to slant downward again. The street went this way from far up the mountainside where the hot pools were, all the way down to the Plaza De Armes at the City center.
When the children got out of school they flew quickly up the street in their little blue uniforms, and without even going home to change, would search out the empty 2 and a half liter water bottles left in the trash by the tourists. They would haul them up to the top of Avenida Pachacutec, sit on them and tuck their feet up tight. Holding on to the neck of the bottle, they would go scooting down the hill. They didn’t need any expensive Game-Boys or X-Boxes to have fun, but did as children have done for centuries, using innovation and the simple things of the environment around them.
They were very careful to make sure that no one was walking across their path before they started on their descent. Sometimes they would get up enough speed to make it past the level area and down the next incline. But often they would station a child on each of the plateaus to give an extra shove, helping them on their way. This the children did, sharing water bottles and trading positions, so each child had an equal opportunity for adventure. In this way they entertained themselves for hours.
It looked like so much fun I wanted to give it a try myself, but knew I could never tuck my legs up tight enough to fit on anything smaller than a lazy-boy recliner, so I just watched from a distance. In addition, I was deterred from any such activity when I realized it must be illegal. Every time one of the policemen turned onto the street during their walk about the city, the children would grab their bottles and dart into our hotel to hide. I know the policemen saw them at this activity more than once, because a person can’t stop themselves in mid-slide. But the policemen would just smile as they passed and continue on their way along their designated beats. I’m sure they probably did such things when they were young and might still wish they could give it a try if they could tuck their legs up tight too.
During the time that we stayed there we did a lot of walking around Machu Picchu. Some of us climbed to the Sun Gate and a very few of us made the trek up Machu Picchu Peak. The sun burned down hot on us, especially in that high altitude, leaving my throat dry and parched. I drank a river of water, and yet it never seemed to be enough.
And perhaps I am contributing to juvenile delinquency in the world, but as I lifted my pack to my shoulder to head to the train station for our journey to Ollantaytambo, I carefully set my empty 2 and a half liter water bottles by the hotel door - a gift to the children.
(Daris Howard, award-winning, syndicated columnist, playwright, and author, can be contacted at daris@darishoward.com; or visit his website at http://www.darishoward.com)
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