' “@ = Sunday, October 6, 1991 ~ North Shore News

One or two shiners can make you
into a silently accused batterer

MY WIFE got a black eye the other day. Actually, two

black eyes.

She was out with Emily, who at
seven considers herself the ace
mini-golf player in the universe.

I wasn’t there at the time, you
understand.

Neither were my sons.

Or my father-in-law.

Or my brother.

Or my brothers-in-law. Or my
cousins. Gr nephews. Or any male
friends whatsoever. None of us.

lam quick, you'll note, to
mention this.

Wife Bobbi and daughter Emily
were playing mini-golf, just the
two of them. A mother/daughter
bonding thing, I guess.

Emily apparently made a mad
swing with the club. Mom wasn’t
standing far back enough. Whack!
Right between the eyes above the
nose.

Mom is known to be tough.
Low pain threshold. Or is it high?
Viking and Scottish stock anyway.
She has had her foot run over and
not blinked. But this time, she
reports, she screamed and cried
and almost threw up from pain.

All this had a traumatic effect
‘on Emily. So, like a good mother,
my wife forced herself to stop

“howling and gibbering tong
enough to assure her daughter
that it was an accident. Mommy

Bob
Hunter |

STRICTLY PERSONAL

still loved her. Mommy didn't
mean to say all those bad words.

**I'm going to kill myself,”’
Emily announced through her
tears.

Good old Mom <almed her
down, while trying not to sound
like a Canada Goose as she honk-
ed the blood out of her nose onto
the piastic grass.

This made Emily cry even more.

Dad and Big Bro come home
the next day from a camping trip

Firefighter honored

NORTH VANCOUVER City
firefighter Pau! Granger was pres-
ented with the city’s gold medal!
Monday in recognition of his in-
ternational achievements at the
World Police and Fire Games.
Granger won gold medals at the
games in 1989 and 1991 for his

efforts in the triathlon; he also
won two bronze medals in ‘91
cycling events.

1991 medals were also won by
North Shore firefighters in team
triathlon, soccer, arm wrestling,
the hose-reel contest, water skiing,
rugby and racquetball.

DAVID MITCHELL
_On Health Care:

| ¢

One of the most
important areas of |
concern is health care. We
must remain firm in our
commitment to the
delivery on a universal
basis of the highest quality
health care. This should
be the first order of
business for government.

“This issue has a very
personal dimension for
me. My parents are
retired; my father is very
ill. I am extremely con-
cerned about how he is
being handled by the
system. And I continue to
hear horror stories — about
the lack of hospital beds
for people who des-
perately need care; about
long waiting lists for
critical surgery; about
British Columbians
travelling to the U.S. for
crucial medical treatments
that cannot be performed
here.

“This is unacceptable.
Our health care system
has serious structural
problems that must
be dealt with. 99

LIBERAL

West Vanceuver - Garibaldi
Support a Candidate Who Cares ~ 922-7430

to find Mom with this one huge
shiner on her left eye and another,
smaller shiner around the right.

Cmily cried all over again as the
story of the golf club connecting
with Mom's face inevitably came
up.
We all made a special effort to
assure the young lady that we
understood it wasn’t her fault, it
was an accident, nobody hated
her, and no, there was aosolutely
no need to move away and find a
new home where people still loved
her, even if she did sometimes hit
mothers between the eyes with
golf clubs.

So much energy went in sparing
Emily from being traumatized that
we almost forgot about her mom.

In fact, Bobbi was OK except
for the shiners.

What we didn’t expect is the
reaction of people around us.

The first surprise came the next
morning when I had to drive my
car to the garage to get something
repaired,

My wife followed in her car,
parked behind me and got out to
do business with the garage
owner, whom she knows, while I
waited in the lot, busy on the
cellular phone setting up my day’s
interviews.

Normally, the guys at the

garage are friendly, happy-go-
lucky, mano-a-mano types.

But this time, after a couple of
them had gone by and I had said
something cheerful and neither
one had replied, some instinct
made me look up and scrutinize
the men around me in their
coveralls.

Boy, I was strictly getting a
view of their backs, and I swear
one guy spat 2n the pavement
after glaring at me!

What the hell?

I work in daily television, so I
naturally wondered what it was I
might have said on air the day be-
fore to warrant this sort of reac-
tion. Did I say something against
mechanics, maybe against oil
companies? Not that I could
remember.

Ie wasn’t until my wife came
hurrying back to the car,
blushing, that I found out what
was going on. She climbed behind
the wheel and whisked me out of
the lot.

“They think you must have
beaten me up,”’ she explained.

Leoking at her, ! could see why
they would think that.

“Pve gotta get sunglasses,’’ she
added.

The rest of the week was like
that. She hid behind sunglasses.

We had to go to a wedding by the
weekend, so she bought theatrical
makeup and covered the black
eyes so effectively it was probably
Not necessary to wear the
sunglasses as well, but she did
anyway, at least until midnight.

It affected us all. I didn’t want
to be seen in public with a bat-
tered woman. The kids were em-
barrassed. My wife felt like a fool
because she couldn’t go around
explaining to everyone that it had
been an accident.

After a while, she found herself
getting on edge about it. The
harder she trizd to explain about
the accident, the more conde-
scending and sympathetic people
became, treating her as though she
was a masochistic bimbo who was
trying to cover up for me, or try-
ing to save the marriage, or shield
the children, or some such noble
thing...

Then, last night, when the black
eyes had finaliy just about healed,
Bobbi leaned down to kiss Emily
goodnight. Emily's head came up
fast and caught Mom right on the
nose. Bang! Another shiner in the
works.

I think I°ll just leave town until
she heals this time. Or start wear-
ing sungtasses myself.

. .

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