Six Word Story 15

I came, I shrugged, I left. 

A Decade of Delight

Ten years ago today, I married Sylvia and she married me. It's been a pretty amazing decade so far; I feel immense gratitude for our time together, and even ten years on, we're still excited to see each other at the end of each work day. I'm fortunate indeed. I love you, Sylvia! 

Hazing

I watched Richard Linklater's Dazed and Confused tonight. It's a good movie, but I found myself grinding my teeth in anger for much of the film's running time because the plot features the barbaric hazing ritual: older students assault and humiliate younger students as a perverse rite of passage.

I was never subjected to a hazing, but only through sheer luck; hazing was common in Leduc in the 80s. I didn't even realize it was happening until it was all over.

I was furious, though, when I learned how some of my classmates had been abused. As a younger child I'd been a victim of violent perennial bullying, and then as now I have no tolerance for it. I found it especially irksome that in the film the teachers and parents (with one exception) seem content to allow hazing.

I haven't been a teen for a long time, so I have no idea if hazing still happens. I hope not; in my eyes it's utterly criminal and shouldn't be tolerated.

That being said, Dazed and Confused is a good movie. It certainly left an impression.

Mom and the Tripod

Long ago - sometime between 1998 and 2005 - I shot this photo of Mom beside a tripod. You'd think that I would have shot Mom from the tripod, but no. I like the expression on her face: "Why are you doing this?" It's too bad the tripod is in the shot, because otherwise it would be a reasonably well-composed image of Mom and the garden. Well, with a little cropping, maybe. On the other hand, I could use Photoshop to turn the tripod into one of the machines from War of the Worlds, but then it would be menacing my mother, and that's no good. 

Hands That Clench in Fisted Rage

Troll Underfoot