The things that stay with you tend to be important

Here is a story I remember from my childhood, one that must have been significant to me considering how clearly I recall it when it seems so trivial. The story begins on Easter of my thirteenth year. I received a pair of sunglasses as a present in my Easter basket; round, mirrored lenses with a skull printed on the outside of them. I thought they were great; photographic evidence of my perceived coolness exists in one of my parents’ photo albums: me that morning, wearing them in my pajamas, grinning like an idiot. Now, as hard as it is to believe after I just revealed my taste in sunglasses, this was the beginning of the age when I became aware and conscious of how I looked. I started to develop a preference for certain clothes, I liked my hair combed a particular way, my sneakers had to be the right brand. I don’t think I was conscious of this process occurring, I was being stretched between the world of a kid and the world of an adolescent and at that age, you don’t discuss and plan different changes going on with your mind and body, they just happen.

One of the biggest enemies of my budding sense of physical appearance was the bicycle helmet. It was truly a multi-faceted enemy; it made my head look gigantically bulbous, messed up my hair, and definitely didn’t convey a grown up look of style to my peers. I abhorred this helmet and rode off without it whenever I could, but the threat of grounding from my doting mother if I was caught always loomed in my mind. Many epic parent vs. puberty battles were waged over the donning of that stupid fucking bike helmet. Little did I know that a helmet and sunglasses would set the stage for a seemingly minuscule interaction that I still remember vividly, roughly fifteen years later.


My main (only) source of income at this age was mowing the lawn of some family friends, the Klockes. Mark and Constance owned a big house on East Ave and in the summertime, they paid me $20 to come and mow the grass. Even though the work was easy and the Klockes were really nice people, it was far from my favorite outside activity. The bike entered the equation as my mode of transportation to the job and with it came the dreaded helmet. My mom’s badgering to make sure I got to the Klockes every week ALWAYS came with this infamous line shouted from the kitchen window, “…AND DON’T FORGET TO WEAR YOUR HELMET!” I would grit my teeth as I opened the garage and practice every new, colorful curse word I picked up in the hallowed halls of Springville Middle School.


In early summer I rode up Main St to East Ave to the Klocke residence, to fulfill my obligation and earn my “paycheck.” That particular day I was wearing both the helmet and the skull sunglasses. Now, cliques were being born and deviant behavior was escalating as I moved through grade seven and into eighth. As I rounded the corner of Franklin and Main and proceeded up the hill, a group of kids that personified both were coming down the other side of the street. This fledgling “stoner clique” didn’t so much scare me physically as they did emotionally. For some reason, I had a fascination with acceptance from this social group and I didn’t know why. I was as straight-laced as they came at that age; great grades, loved reading, the D.A.R.E. program poster child. Why I wanted kids like this to think I was cool is something I still wonder about. As soon as I saw them, I immediately scrambled to grab the sunglasses off of my face, almost falling off my bright yellow ten-speed in the process. I was TERRIFIED of ridicule for the glasses that, just three short months ago, I had been so proud of. I couldn’t do anything about the helmet and I silently cursed my parents again for caring about my physical well-being so much. As I pumped my way up one side of Main St and they sauntered down the other, I heard cat calls; the clearest one I remember in all of it‘s juvenile, creativity-lacking glory: “Heeyyyyy, Haag-it faggot!” I pretended I didn‘t hear but I’m sure my burning face belayed my embarrassment. I overheard some one in the group I was apparently cool with tell the heckler ‘no man, Haag is cool…,” but the damage was already done to my puberty- distorted psyche, as evidenced by the fact that I’m writing about it as a 27 year old.


This story is relevant in my life today because I finally wised up and started wearing a helmet while riding my bike. I no longer find romantic the possibility of splattering my brains all over a City of Buffalo street because some driver neglected his blind spots. Without realizing the apparent significance at first, I also coupled my old arch nemesis with sunglasses mainly because squinting my way through a long ride tends to ruin the experience. On the day that I combined the two, I involuntarily flashed back to that moment of reckoning, when I received one of my first lessons in what it’s like to be the brunt of a joke. I’m not going to lie; for a second, I felt a flash of apprehension in my chest. That feeling was quickly burned away by anger and bitterness. I can’t believe I let some one intimidate me into being embarrassed of something so stupid; my sensitivity was preyed upon and I was ushered into the initial stages of an angry, depressed state of mind that I struggle with to this day. I look for any silver linings, thinking “well, maybe these experiences made me into a person who is more sensitive towards others feelings. Maybe this is why I’m a social worker, helping others who need it and defending them against unfair treatment.” Whichever way I look at it, one thing is for sure; it opened my eyes. It stole the blinders of childhood from me and life’s innocence along with it.