Don't Look Up

When I was a kid, many balding men were called Curly. Many fat boys were called Fats or Fatso, then when they became adults, were called Slim. Many other boys and men, most of whom wore short hair in those days such that their scalps were easily visible, were called Lumpy or Bumpy. The reason for the latter group was New Year's Eve. You see, at the stroke of midnight for the new year, it was common in the small-town area in which I lived for people to shoot their firearms into the night air. My father would let loose with a couple of blasts from his shotgun, and my mother would shoot all the rounds of her pistol. Many kids, of course, were outdoors at that time with their fireworks and their own guns, and it was a matter of a few minutes before all those bullets returned at high speed back to earth and to the unprotected heads of people. People then were tougher and more hardheaded and more thickskinned than they are now, so very few were seriously injured or embarassed as they acquired year-long lumps or bumps on their cranium. Indeed, it was a kind of badge of honor to have survived the midnight slaughter.