Now that’s a “Made in Canada” product I could really get behind and support :-)
Day: January 17, 2014
Quote of the day
Old School Tattoos
Norman Keith Collins (January 14, 1911 – June 12, 1973) was a prominent American tattoo artist, famous for his tattooing of sailors; he was also known as “Sailor Jerry”. Collins was born on January 14, 1911 in Reno but grew up in Northern California. As a child he hopped freight trains across the country and learned tattooing from a man named “Big Mike” from Palmer, Alaska, originally using the hand-pricking method. In the late 1920s he met Tatts Thomas from Chicago who taught him how to use a tattoo machine. He practiced on drunks brought in from skid row. He later sailed the Pacific Ocean before settling in Hawaii in the 1930s. He often wore plain white T-shirts that exposed his ink-sleeved arms.
At age 19 Collins enlisted in the United States Navy. During his subsequent travels at sea he was exposed to the art and imagery of Southeast Asia. He remained a sailor for his entire life thereafter. Even during his career as a tattoo artist he worked as a licensed skipper of a large three-masted schooner, on which he conducted tours of the Hawaiian islands.
Thank you, Feldschlösschen
Bean had a full-blown, kicking and screaming meltdown this morning. He didn’t want to go to school, he wanted to stay at home, he wanted his scooter, he wanted, he wanted…. At one point, the conversation went something along these lines:
I want to bring my scooter.
Ok, you can bring your scooter.
I don’t want to bring my scooter.
Ok, we’ll need to walk then.
I don’t want to walk. I want my scooter.
Ok, you can bring your scooter.
I don’t want to bring my scooter.
Basically, saying the opposite of all that we offered. In the end, seeing as we were already too late for the bus and would be late for school anyway, I just dragged him out of the house towards school, with him screaming his head off all along the way. Not a pretty picture, nor fun for any person involved.
It was drizzling outside, and he was dragging his feet on the cycle path along the busy bit of the street we need to walk along, with him complaining that water was getting in his face, and to not touch him, that I was walking too fast, yada yada yada.
When we reached the roundabout that we needed to cross, the sodium road lights just happened to click off at that exact moment, and that seemed to flip a switch that automagically stopped the tantrum. Then a Feldschlösschen lorry drove past us, and that started us talking about lorries, and what they might be carrying, and all of a sudden we were friends again. A few minutes later, he asked me if we could hold hands, and that was that. He was a happy boy again.
At one point, he had his rabbit, only one mitten (because it was a bit cold, but he still wanted to be able to suck his thumb), and my hat (so that the water wouldn’t get in his face, even though my hat was a bit sweaty).
Strange, random little boy.