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untold misery, and with its bright orange color was d--ned hard to lose.
First, in the south, the word “toboggan” for a snow sled is not used. If it
ever snows, we sled on plastic garbage can lids or large pieces of
cardboard. A toboggan is a stretchy brimless hat. Second, we never say,
“toboggan”; we say, “boggin.”
“Get your boggin and bring it here; it’s cold outside,” my mother would say,
when Old Man Winter came storming into town in late August or early
September, the temperature plummeting to a bone-chilling 70 degrees.
“I don’t need a boggin; it’s hot outside.” At six years old, there was never a
day cold enough to warrant wearing that d--n boggin. I would rather have
walked to school in an Alaskan blizzard —naked but for snowshoes—than
place that orange blight on my baldhead.
The thing caused other children to go into a rage and physically attack me.
I couldn’t blame them. I had looked in the mirror at the bright orange boggin
and saw the same thing they saw: an orange light for bullies to see by,
covering a bald, semi-spherical, six-year-old head. My boggin worked like
the bullfighter’s red cape.
It was the Bully Beacon.
Other six-year-olds would get a glimpse of it and charge. They would rush
towards me with the nearest weapon they could find, or, if no stick or rock
was nearby, empty-handed. I would flee, but where could I hide my orange
glow?
My mother had to special order the boggin from somewhere; no store in
our town would carry something that hideous, that orange.
I often imagine the phone call:
“Sir, I need a special article of clothing,” My mother tells the clerk,
stationed somewhere in Siberia, where this boggin, if not triple-bright-
orange, might have been acceptable.
“What clothe you want? We have everything Amerikan have and a bag of
the chip, ha ha ha.” This is how I believe a Siberian sales clerk sounded in
the early 70s, and unless you have a recording of one from that era, you
need to take my word for it.
“Well, my son has a disturbing shred of self respect left, and my husband
and I would like to squash it while he’s still young. Do you have something
cheap that will accomplish the goal we have for our first-born son?” My
mother asks, concerned that I not exit childhood with a remnant of self-
esteem.
“First, have you give your son embarrassing haircut?” The dedicated clerk
probes, in case my parents were new to the business of humiliating a child
in front of his peers—they were not.
“Yes, he has a haircut that causes him to cry himself to sleep at night.
When he gets on the bus, the other children are fighting to get at him and
knuckle his head unmercifully, pulling out by the roots the little sprigs and
tufts of hair still dotted randomly around his head. Still he marches out the
door with head held high.” My mother says this, puzzled as to how she
went wrong.
“What about other clothe? He has clothe that see stylish?” the Siberian
devil agent inquires accusingly, expecting her to break now that he’s
discovered a chink in her armor. Not a chance—there was no chink.
“Heavens no, we would never—oh the very thought. My son has never
worn anything that was even remotely stylish or even similar to what
normal kids wear. His pants are too short and are odd colors. His shirts are
all snot-green with large clown buttons. His shoes have massive square
toes and clack resoundingly as he walks down the hall, summoning the
other children to come torment him. Sir, I assure you we’ve taken every
precaution to ensure that our child is miserable both at home and in
school.”
My mother is perturbed that this foreigner would question her ability to
psychologically scar a small child for life.
“Lady Miss, I see you desperate need; I have the thing, the Siberian snow
bonnet, in bully-beacon-orange, with puffy ball on top, also orange.”
My fate was sealed.
The clerk would go on to explain how the miserable boggin, in field tests,
had caused a team of Huskies to attack a polar bear that had one strapped
to his head. As soon as the bear would maul one dog, another would take
its place, driven into frenzy by the site of the horrible headpiece: a grim
foreshadowing of the dance I would have with my classmates.
“Caution you, first couple day you put boggin on despicable, stuck-up
child, you look at him for razor blade. Some sissy take easy way out, other
than wear Siberian snow boggin, orange with puffy ball on top, also
orange.”
“Oh, don’t you worry; he’s not getting off that easy.”
The orangeness was of a strange shade that caused mental distress in
children and adults. Achilles had a heel that was susceptible to attack. A
heel is easy to hide; an orange boggin is a bit more problematic.
It glowed; it pulsed; it called out with a high-pitched keening sound.
It was the Bully-Beacon.
Jet airplanes thousands of feet up traveling faster than sound would
double back for a second look.
Pilot: Did you see the boggin on that kid? Clenching and unclenching fists.
Co-Pilot: Yeah, too bad we don’t have missile capability. I know! We’ll fly in
low and clip him with the landing gear.
Pilot: Great idea. Tower, this is Jumbo 747. We have spotted a small child
wearing an orange Siberian snow boggin with a puffy ball on top, also
orange. Request permission to come in low and clip him with the landing
gear. It’s a safe mission as he is in a wide-open field, fleeing a pack of
classmates and what appears to be two Siberian Huskies. He’s far enough
ahead to prevent harm to non-boggined children.
Tower: Negative on clipping the small child, Jumbo 747; his mother called,
and she wants to make him suffer a while longer. Sorry about that guys.
Pilot: D--n! I sure would like to take a run at him. Clenching and
unchlenching fists.
After the Jumbo jet veered off, “Wanda The Big” and her posse “The
Merciless Dozen” cornered me under the slide.
“Wanda,” I pleaded. “I’ve paid you and your c-c-company every day. Never
have I eaten lunch with your money.” I hoped Wanda would take pity; I was
a good customer after all.
“Look, Dweeb,” Wanda growled. “We made a deal on those dopey clothes
you wear and those clackety-clack shoes, but 50 cents only buys you so
much—it won’t cover that abominable-nation on your head.”
“Look, Wanda, I have my Sunday school tithing money; I’ve been saving it
for a special occasion—it’s yours.” I negotiated, still hoping to play the
good customer card.
“No can do. Did you think you could waltz into my school with that thing on
your head and I’d just let it go? Unless your parents won the lottery, we’re
going to have to teach you to respect other people’s feelings.”
My parents had not won the lottery.
I still wake up screaming, I’M A GOOD CUSTOMER!!…
Don’t feel bad for me; there was a reason my parents made me wear the
hell boggin, and for having me balded by a part-time barber/auto-
mechanic, and for purchasing me clothes that provoked violence in others.
My parents wanted me to learn what they deemed the only important
lesson.
“WOULD YOU JUMP OFF A CLIFF IF YOUR FRIENDS JUMPED OFF A
CLIFF?” My Mother would scream, rant, and rage—the loving care for her
wayward son evident in her drooling cross-eyed visage.
Would you jump off a cliff if your friends did? That was the lesson. I believe
the correct answer was, no, I would not jump off a cliff if I saw a line of
other children marching over the edge. Other children! I had no friends.
Oddly, as important as this lesson was—it never came up. Never once did
I see other children jumping off a cliff, forcing me to make that most difficult
decision.
Of course, I looked for cliffs while wearing the big orange bully beacon of
1974—our house had no razor blades, but there are no cliffs in my
hometown.
I wore the boggin for a number of years. The puffy orange ball finally fell
off and the blinding orange color faded to something only a couple of
shades brighter than fluorescent safety orange. Then one day I lost it, and
it was never mentioned again. All my self-respect had long since vanished,
so it was really a moot point. Normal children now shunned me. My status
as an outcast was complete and irreversible.
I no longer required a bully-beacon.
I had become the thing I despised —I was the Bully-Beacon