The Dick Tracy character looks to his wrist to communicate.
This is as an odds-and-ends piece, though I’m not writing about bolts of cloth. Language historians say the origin of “odds and ends” dates to 16th-century tailors who fashioned shirtwaists and skirts from “odd ends” of long lengths of material. Just so, I’ll fashion a message from leavings.
THE THINGAMAJIG ON YOUR WRIST… One reason the wrist was created was to secure a timepiece so that, at a glance, one can know the time. The latest variation is an “all-in-one health wearable” that tracks one’s steps and heartbeats. Apple hopes that someday its SmartWatch also will monitor glucose levels.
I was reminded of this during a conversation with a detective friend. He looked to his wrist to confirm something, and I said, “The detective wears a fancy arm piece… like Dick Tracy.” (Warning: Generation gap yawning open ahead.) His response was, “Who’s Dick Tracy?”
Tracy was the 1931 comic strip creation of cartoonist Chester Gould. In 1946, the crime-fighting detective with a jutting chin began sporting a revolutionary “wrist radio,” after an inventor friend showed Gould such a gadget. The rest is history, a subject that some detectives might want to investigate.
ALL CHILDREN ARE INJURED BY THEIR PARENTS… That silly notion is advanced by Mitch Albom, author of a best-seller memoir called Tuesdays with Morrie. His take on parents is found in his subsequent novel, the five people you meet in heaven. To wit: “All parents damage their children. It cannot be helped. A youth, like pristine glass, absorbs the prints of its handlers. Some parents smudge, others crack, a few shatter childhoods completely into jagged little pieces, beyond repair.”
A smarter take on child development is that youth are “shaped” by their parents through teaching and coaching, disciplining and example. To the credit of most parents, the shaping mostly is for the better.
Without such intervention by Mom and Dad, children would be all-natural creatures of a baser sort. In the 2020 U.S. census, 18 million kids were identified as living in homes without a father. The damage to many of those children from not having both parents rear them is spelled out in any number of discouraging reports.
A MIND GLOMS ONTO THE DARNEDEST THINGS… Probably 20 years ago, I was helping a friend in the kitchen and was asked to empty a full-sized can of soup into a pan. I did so, then went to the faucet to dribble a little water into the can and rinse it, whereupon my friend said, haughtily, “We don’t add water.” I explained I didn’t either, but I did flush the drabs of soup from a can.
To this day, I cannot empty a commercial can of soup into a pan or bowl without thinking of my friend’s rebuke. Every time. The memory is automatic. “We don’t add water.” Funny thing is, she usually was anything but haughty in her demeanor. Maybe that’s why my brain seized upon it. The surprise of the remark forever etched it in my memory.