The ADHD Chronicles: Smoke Signals
I'll never forget the year I was ten when I was grounded to the yard all summer for nearly setting the house on fire. I know my parents thought I was pretty weird, but I really didn't do it on purpose.
I'd just gotten my allowance and bought a whole bag of candy that I traded for Ethan's cigarette lighter. A real nice one. He probably swiped it from his father, but I didn't care. Nobody at my house smoked, so I didn't have much chance of getting one unless I ripped it off from the drug store, and with my luck, I'd get caught.
It was definitely the best possession of my life, at least up to that point. I saw right away it wasn’t any run-of-the-mill variety. Smooth stainless steel with a blue and red figure barely visible on the bottom right corner. I didn’t recognize the symbol, but it definitely looked important. The neatest part was it felt really good in my hand. Just the perfect fit. I couldn't believe my luck.
I slid it quick into my pocket so nobody else could claim it like my sister Veronica, three years older than me. She knows a good thing when she sees it. Sure, she’d pretend she was protecting her little brother, but I knew she’d want it for herself.
If Veronica hadn’t glommed it, my cousin Wilson would have for sure. His dad and mine are brothers. Their house is barely three blocks from ours, but his parents were never home during the day. Someone was always at our house because my dad worked in an office upstairs, but he didn’t like to be interrupted. My parents told Wilson he could stay at our place every day so he wouldn’t be lonely, but I think he was really there to spy on me. Sure. Like I needed a babysitter
Once home, I slipped through the kitchen and disappeared to my room in the basement so I could get acquainted with my new prize. I figured there have to be lots of things you can do with a lighter besides light up a smoke. Besides, I didn’t have any cigarettes. And truth is I’d never ever had one, but if someone offered, I probably would have accepted. After all, you don’t turn down new opportunities when they come along.
It must have had plenty of lighter fluid in it because every time I’d spin that little wheel, it would spark and instantly bring forth a flame. In one second, I could create fire on demand. I flipped it on and off, on and off, feeling more powerful every time. I started waving it around with the lid open and the flame burning to create patterns in the middle of my bedroom. Then I tried to make shapes that might show up like shadows on the wall, but that didn’t quite work out. Instead, I started swinging my arms in the middle of the room like those torch bearers in the circus that toss burning sticks around like batons.
When that got boring, I sat down on the floor to see if I could burn some tiny scraps of paper. The first one was so small, you could barely see it. A little whoosh came when the flame hit. If I’d blinked, I would have missed it entirely. It changed immediately to a glow as small as an ant and left some wispy gray scrap that I rubbed into the rug until it disappeared.
That's when I saw the hole, smaller than my pinky, in the side of the mattress where the other half of the handle used to be before I ripped it out by mistake trying to discover what held it in place. With a flick of the wheel, I held the flame up near the hole to see if there was anything creepy inside, but the lighter wasn’t nearly as good as a flashlight.
There had to be something else I could do with it. So I scanned the rest of the room for any other opportunities I’d missed. When my eyes came around to the bed again, I noticed these slight wisps of smoke rising from the mattress. It wasn’t really burning, but in a stroke of genius, I thought I should treat it the same as fire.
A pair of my best corduroys was crumpled on the floor. Smother the smoke. That’s all I could think. They’d drummed that into us at school since kindergarten. When no air gets to the fire, it’ll die. I slapped my cords down on top of where the wisps seemed to be coming from, close to the edge of the bed. That seemed to calm things down. So I got some decent advice about at least one thing at school.
I thought it best to hide the lighter in my underwear drawer for another day. When I turned around, though, smoke was coiling up worse than ever, and black-edged holes were burning through the legs of my cords.
Wilson, who's always butting into everyone else's business, came in and whipped the blanket up fast and got a face full. He must have thought he was getting vaporized or something, so he ran back and grabbed the fire extinguisher at the bottom of the stairs. The way he aimed the tank at the mattress and emptied tons of foam all over the place, you’d think he had firefighter training
All I remember was him saying, “Idiot!”
It wasn’t exactly the best time to say anything back. Besides, he’s nearly four years older than me. And at least 30 pounds heavier. Maybe more.
Then he ran up the stairs. I heard later that he found my dad and said, “Uncle Stanley, I hate to bother you, but we have a problem in the basement.”
Between the smoke and the foam, that was the end of all my stuffed animals. 'Course I'd just been keeping them around for old times' sake anyway.
Wilson and my dad took the scorched mattress and box spring up the basement stairs to the back yard and hosed them down, full force, for what seemed like maybe an hour. They left them totally sopping on the concrete patio.
I was trying to figure out how many days they’d take to dry, but somehow I couldn’t imagine sleeping on them again anyway. They were pretty sad looking.
My sleeping bag on the floor became my sleeping arrangement that night. I don’t remember anyone offering me another choice.
The only good thing was that my mother was away on a business trip for a few days. Maybe we could get everything cleaned up before she got back.
Were we ever surprised the next morning when nothing was left on the patio except the metal frame. And I mean nothing. It was like locusts came and picked everything clean.
I don’t think I’ve ever seen my dad so mad. He grounded me for the whole entire summer, and school wasn't even out yet. I had to pretend I was camping out in that sleeping bag on the floor for a long time before he got me a new mattress. I wonder if a court of law would call that child abuse? I should see what I can find on the Web.
Book Sale
I love books the way Imelda Marcos loved shoes. That’s why sorting used books for the annual Friends-of-the-Library fundraiser turned out to be a more painful task than I’d imagined.
Another volunteer and I agreed to toss any copies that were defaced, torn or unreadable for any reason. That worked until I held in my hands Green Grass of Wyoming with lime green crayon scribbles on the first half dozen pages. How could I possibly discard it? I grew up in Wyoming and went to college in Laramie on the same prairie where Flicka grazed. It joined my personal book pile.
It wasn’t long before I came across a copy of The Wind in the Willows. My mother read it to my brother and me when we were preschoolers, each sitting on either side of her in the old rocker at bedtime. She would read until we fell asleep, and we’d somehow awake in our beds the next morning. I read it again in my teen years and discovered the vocabulary was far beyond that of early readers. But because the comfortable feeling has stayed with me for life, I had to put it aside as a take-home copy even though I was still in possession of the original one my mother read to us.
Before I was ready to call it a day, I discovered yet another copy of The Wind in the Willows, but this one was unique. A hard cover with rounded corners on its outer edges. The appeal was too much to resist. But surely I didn’t need two copies of the same book. Instant decision-making isn’t one of my strong points. I knew I would have to take some time before the sale to decide if I should keep it for posterity.
At home I began reading the books from my personal pile as quickly as I could, knowing the day before the sale would be the absolute deadline. Which ones would I buy to keep for myself? And maybe the bigger question — where would I put them? All our bookshelves were occupied to overflowing. I had books stashed under the bed, in boxes in the storeroom and atop the refrigerator, all waiting for who knows how long, to be read.
The books I’d just brought home needed to be in the sale, though. That’s what it was about. Selling. Raising money. With that noble motive, I returned the book with rounded corners to a sale box, but not without a pang of deep sadness.
Another sorting session brought the most marvelous find: The complete six-volume set of Winston Churchill’s The Second World War. It filled an entire box. A wonderful asset in anyone’s book collection, mine in particular.
On the day of the sale, my 11-year-old son Allan came along to help in our booth at the open-air, community flea market with the agreement that he could spend time exploring other booths when he got bored.
As I arranged everything for the sale, I somehow couldn’t find the right spot to display the Churchill set. It took up too much room on any of the tables.
Less than an hour after the flea market officially opened, a young man approached. “Is that for sale?” He poked his foot in the direction of a lonely box nestled in the grass under the table.
“The Churchill?”
He nodded.
After some hesitation, I said, “I, uh, guess it is.” My eyes misted over a bit.
He was immediately apologetic. “I don’t have to buy it.” He hesitated, then added, “If you’re saving it….”
“Oh, no,” I insisted. “Of course it’s for sale.” I forced a smile and busied myself opening my change pouch.
I sealed in memory my last sight of the box, supported by one upraised arm curled over it as it proudly rode away on the young man’s shoulder.
Allan hitched a ride home after lunch with another volunteer, but I stayed until closing. Our sale was a success, earning over $400 for the library. Exhausted, but happy, I picked up a fast-food meal for my family on the way home.
After relaxing for a moment with a cup of tea, I headed down the hallway. A stack of books on Allan’s desk caught my eye. The Wind in the Willows with curved, instead of square, corners boasted its place on top. I blinked. For a moment I thought I was back at the flea market. “Where did this come from?”
He seemed surprised. “I bought it at the book sale. Don't you love those rounded corners?”
I'll never forget the year I was ten when I was grounded to the yard all summer for nearly setting the house on fire. I know my parents thought I was pretty weird, but I really didn't do it on purpose.
I'd just gotten my allowance and bought a whole bag of candy that I traded for Ethan's cigarette lighter. A real nice one. He probably swiped it from his father, but I didn't care. Nobody at my house smoked, so I didn't have much chance of getting one unless I ripped it off from the drug store, and with my luck, I'd get caught.
It was definitely the best possession of my life, at least up to that point. I saw right away it wasn’t any run-of-the-mill variety. Smooth stainless steel with a blue and red figure barely visible on the bottom right corner. I didn’t recognize the symbol, but it definitely looked important. The neatest part was it felt really good in my hand. Just the perfect fit. I couldn't believe my luck.
I slid it quick into my pocket so nobody else could claim it like my sister Veronica, three years older than me. She knows a good thing when she sees it. Sure, she’d pretend she was protecting her little brother, but I knew she’d want it for herself.
If Veronica hadn’t glommed it, my cousin Wilson would have for sure. His dad and mine are brothers. Their house is barely three blocks from ours, but his parents were never home during the day. Someone was always at our house because my dad worked in an office upstairs, but he didn’t like to be interrupted. My parents told Wilson he could stay at our place every day so he wouldn’t be lonely, but I think he was really there to spy on me. Sure. Like I needed a babysitter
Once home, I slipped through the kitchen and disappeared to my room in the basement so I could get acquainted with my new prize. I figured there have to be lots of things you can do with a lighter besides light up a smoke. Besides, I didn’t have any cigarettes. And truth is I’d never ever had one, but if someone offered, I probably would have accepted. After all, you don’t turn down new opportunities when they come along.
It must have had plenty of lighter fluid in it because every time I’d spin that little wheel, it would spark and instantly bring forth a flame. In one second, I could create fire on demand. I flipped it on and off, on and off, feeling more powerful every time. I started waving it around with the lid open and the flame burning to create patterns in the middle of my bedroom. Then I tried to make shapes that might show up like shadows on the wall, but that didn’t quite work out. Instead, I started swinging my arms in the middle of the room like those torch bearers in the circus that toss burning sticks around like batons.
When that got boring, I sat down on the floor to see if I could burn some tiny scraps of paper. The first one was so small, you could barely see it. A little whoosh came when the flame hit. If I’d blinked, I would have missed it entirely. It changed immediately to a glow as small as an ant and left some wispy gray scrap that I rubbed into the rug until it disappeared.
That's when I saw the hole, smaller than my pinky, in the side of the mattress where the other half of the handle used to be before I ripped it out by mistake trying to discover what held it in place. With a flick of the wheel, I held the flame up near the hole to see if there was anything creepy inside, but the lighter wasn’t nearly as good as a flashlight.
There had to be something else I could do with it. So I scanned the rest of the room for any other opportunities I’d missed. When my eyes came around to the bed again, I noticed these slight wisps of smoke rising from the mattress. It wasn’t really burning, but in a stroke of genius, I thought I should treat it the same as fire.
A pair of my best corduroys was crumpled on the floor. Smother the smoke. That’s all I could think. They’d drummed that into us at school since kindergarten. When no air gets to the fire, it’ll die. I slapped my cords down on top of where the wisps seemed to be coming from, close to the edge of the bed. That seemed to calm things down. So I got some decent advice about at least one thing at school.
I thought it best to hide the lighter in my underwear drawer for another day. When I turned around, though, smoke was coiling up worse than ever, and black-edged holes were burning through the legs of my cords.
Wilson, who's always butting into everyone else's business, came in and whipped the blanket up fast and got a face full. He must have thought he was getting vaporized or something, so he ran back and grabbed the fire extinguisher at the bottom of the stairs. The way he aimed the tank at the mattress and emptied tons of foam all over the place, you’d think he had firefighter training
All I remember was him saying, “Idiot!”
It wasn’t exactly the best time to say anything back. Besides, he’s nearly four years older than me. And at least 30 pounds heavier. Maybe more.
Then he ran up the stairs. I heard later that he found my dad and said, “Uncle Stanley, I hate to bother you, but we have a problem in the basement.”
Between the smoke and the foam, that was the end of all my stuffed animals. 'Course I'd just been keeping them around for old times' sake anyway.
Wilson and my dad took the scorched mattress and box spring up the basement stairs to the back yard and hosed them down, full force, for what seemed like maybe an hour. They left them totally sopping on the concrete patio.
I was trying to figure out how many days they’d take to dry, but somehow I couldn’t imagine sleeping on them again anyway. They were pretty sad looking.
My sleeping bag on the floor became my sleeping arrangement that night. I don’t remember anyone offering me another choice.
The only good thing was that my mother was away on a business trip for a few days. Maybe we could get everything cleaned up before she got back.
Were we ever surprised the next morning when nothing was left on the patio except the metal frame. And I mean nothing. It was like locusts came and picked everything clean.
I don’t think I’ve ever seen my dad so mad. He grounded me for the whole entire summer, and school wasn't even out yet. I had to pretend I was camping out in that sleeping bag on the floor for a long time before he got me a new mattress. I wonder if a court of law would call that child abuse? I should see what I can find on the Web.
Book Sale
I love books the way Imelda Marcos loved shoes. That’s why sorting used books for the annual Friends-of-the-Library fundraiser turned out to be a more painful task than I’d imagined.
Another volunteer and I agreed to toss any copies that were defaced, torn or unreadable for any reason. That worked until I held in my hands Green Grass of Wyoming with lime green crayon scribbles on the first half dozen pages. How could I possibly discard it? I grew up in Wyoming and went to college in Laramie on the same prairie where Flicka grazed. It joined my personal book pile.
It wasn’t long before I came across a copy of The Wind in the Willows. My mother read it to my brother and me when we were preschoolers, each sitting on either side of her in the old rocker at bedtime. She would read until we fell asleep, and we’d somehow awake in our beds the next morning. I read it again in my teen years and discovered the vocabulary was far beyond that of early readers. But because the comfortable feeling has stayed with me for life, I had to put it aside as a take-home copy even though I was still in possession of the original one my mother read to us.
Before I was ready to call it a day, I discovered yet another copy of The Wind in the Willows, but this one was unique. A hard cover with rounded corners on its outer edges. The appeal was too much to resist. But surely I didn’t need two copies of the same book. Instant decision-making isn’t one of my strong points. I knew I would have to take some time before the sale to decide if I should keep it for posterity.
At home I began reading the books from my personal pile as quickly as I could, knowing the day before the sale would be the absolute deadline. Which ones would I buy to keep for myself? And maybe the bigger question — where would I put them? All our bookshelves were occupied to overflowing. I had books stashed under the bed, in boxes in the storeroom and atop the refrigerator, all waiting for who knows how long, to be read.
The books I’d just brought home needed to be in the sale, though. That’s what it was about. Selling. Raising money. With that noble motive, I returned the book with rounded corners to a sale box, but not without a pang of deep sadness.
Another sorting session brought the most marvelous find: The complete six-volume set of Winston Churchill’s The Second World War. It filled an entire box. A wonderful asset in anyone’s book collection, mine in particular.
On the day of the sale, my 11-year-old son Allan came along to help in our booth at the open-air, community flea market with the agreement that he could spend time exploring other booths when he got bored.
As I arranged everything for the sale, I somehow couldn’t find the right spot to display the Churchill set. It took up too much room on any of the tables.
Less than an hour after the flea market officially opened, a young man approached. “Is that for sale?” He poked his foot in the direction of a lonely box nestled in the grass under the table.
“The Churchill?”
He nodded.
After some hesitation, I said, “I, uh, guess it is.” My eyes misted over a bit.
He was immediately apologetic. “I don’t have to buy it.” He hesitated, then added, “If you’re saving it….”
“Oh, no,” I insisted. “Of course it’s for sale.” I forced a smile and busied myself opening my change pouch.
I sealed in memory my last sight of the box, supported by one upraised arm curled over it as it proudly rode away on the young man’s shoulder.
Allan hitched a ride home after lunch with another volunteer, but I stayed until closing. Our sale was a success, earning over $400 for the library. Exhausted, but happy, I picked up a fast-food meal for my family on the way home.
After relaxing for a moment with a cup of tea, I headed down the hallway. A stack of books on Allan’s desk caught my eye. The Wind in the Willows with curved, instead of square, corners boasted its place on top. I blinked. For a moment I thought I was back at the flea market. “Where did this come from?”
He seemed surprised. “I bought it at the book sale. Don't you love those rounded corners?”
