guns

Christmas Day Humiliation

December 24, 2008

A newspaper photo published this week shows a “Leave It to Beaver” family posing next to a Christmas tree in 1956. The family includes a boy holding his new shotgun.

Except for his well-coiffed hair and fancy bathrobe, the boy reminds me of what I might have looked like six years later when I turned twelve. I held a gun that Christmas morning but not a shotgun or the .22 rifle I desperately wanted. My father didn’t like guns, so the compromise gift was something smaller and far less dangerous. I hid my disappointment and was eager to shoot my new BB gun. Read More

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Gun: does not compute

August 9, 2008

Atticus Bales Tong, three days shy of three years old, doesn’t know the meaning of the word gun. Suzame and I didn’t set out to deprive him of this knowledge, though it’s no doubt a dividend of allowing scant TV viewing — and only since he turned two.

I learned this today when I handed him a garden hose. The hose has a squeeze-handle nozzle. I said, “Here’s your gun.” And he didn’t know what I meant. And this is a boy with a remarkable vocabulary, including some Spanish, French, and Cantonese.

Sometimes ignorance is a state of grace. How long can it last?

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