When I was small you could
get a paper cut from just about everything.
From a computer display.
While petting a puppy.
You could get several paper cuts pressing down hard on
a pinkening snow ball.
We wore gloves in the summer.
Heavy mittens in the pool.
so well i remember summer’s sodden-mitten rules:
**water tag–must feel finger pressure through mitten or you’re NOT it. honesty is imperative or mittens at forty paces.
**apres-swim, no sodden mittens on the computer (but ok for snow ball and nice for puppy).
and always yelled out and warned until you willed one on yourself…Mr. Martuci the janitor at Strathmore…he sacred one on me….
Good one! Are swimming pool mittens what Wordsworth meant by “the coarser pleasures of my boyish days?”
Laura: I think that’s exactly what he meant….
Back in his days swimming pool mittens were usually steam-power operated. Which could be really problematic, as you’d expect. If the mittens were miscalibrated, the entire pool would sometimes turn to steam. On the upside, you’d then be left with (temporarily) very powerful mittens.
-Cecil
Thanks, Cecil. That’s puts a whole new gloss on my interpretation of “Lines Written Above Tintern Abbey.” Nowadays we have those superabsorbant NASA-made mittens. Jump in the pool with those and all the water disappears. You hit your tailbone on the drain.