Here comes the son

Man, you can't turn away for a minute. I let go of Brody's hand, and bam, he's trying to cross the street. These guys didn't seem to mind him too much, though.

Hot, hot heat

While we were out yesterday, the thermometer in the car said it was 108 degrees outside. When it's that hot, there's really only one thing you can do.

Slip N Slide!

Alas, it's not meant to be. According to the box for the Splash Dunk Slip N Slide, it is designed for ages 5-12, up to 110 lbs. That weight restriction would've gotten me about midway through my sophomore year in high school, but now, I'm just a little bit heavier.

They have an adult version of the classic Big Wheel, but no big-kids size Slip N Slide. Presumably, grown-ups don't want to ruin their lawns.

That was the reason I never had one when I was a kid. I was a very deprived child. I had every toy in Toys R Us except for a Slip N Slide, a Big Wheel and Legos. I did have Loc Blocs, but that's like comparing a Mustang to a Gremlin -- with a busted axle.

I had a few friends who had the toys that I didn't, and before you ask, no, that's not why they were my friends.

They had Bubble Yum, too.

Seriously, many a summer day was spent slipping and sliding on someone else's lawn. There was a lot of preparation involved. You had to lay out the track just right -- no wrinkles or folds. Depending on how many kids you had around, you'd invariably have to talk one kid out of trying to set up a ramp.

And despite all this preparation, I'd still always be the hapless schmuck who hit the theretofore-undiscovered rock under the Slip N Slide. I'm sure I have little jagged scars up my sides to this day.

We didn't have a large Big Wheel community in my neighborhood. The closest person I knew who had one was my cousin, who graciously allowed me to ride hers when I went to visit.

And didn't I look like one of Hell's Angels on the Barbie Powder Puff Big Wheel?

They still sell Big Wheels; soon I'll be shopping for one for my son. So far, I haven't seen any with the spinout lever, but I'm sure he'll just be happy that it's not pink.

I can tell I'm growing up a little. I haven't tried talking my wife into letting me buy the adult Big Wheel.

Well, not that many times, anyway.

Today.

Signs that I'm just not paying attention

I'm sure I'm a little late here, but I saw a commercial today for a kids' album that features "The Incy Wincy Spider." Is it no longer cool to call it "The Itsy Bitsy Spider"?
And what exactly is "Incy Wincy," anyway?

Marvel's first family

The Fantastic Four, on the whole, just can't seem to catch a break. I'm not referring specifically to the movie that opens this weekend, because I haven't seen it yet. Nor am I talking to the much-heard-of, little-seen low-budget effort from 1994. Just in general, they aren't a particularly lucky group.

The details of the story change from time to time, but here's the gist of it: Reed Richards, one of the world's leading minds, takes three people with him to fly an experimental spaceship. The pilot is his best friend, Ben Grimm. The other two occupants are his girlfriend, Sue Storm, and her younger brother, Johnny.

The ship doesn't have enough shielding, and the four are bombarded with cosmic rays once they get out into space. The ship malfunctions, and they survive a crash landing to discover they have (ahem) fantastic powers.

You can tell who's in charge by the names they have.

Sue can turn invisible and is called the Invisible Girl. Johnny can shoot flames from his body unlike the way most guys do. He can also fly. He gets called the Human Torch. Poor Ben turns into a walking rockpile and is dubbed the Thing.

But Reed Richards, the world's smartest guy, who allowed unqualified passengers aboard the ship and took said ship into space without authorization or proper shielding, gets to be called Mr. Fantastic. This despite having the power to stretch like a salt-water taffy.

The Fantastic Four is Marvel Comics' first family. Even though they bicker, just like a real family, they still support each other. In the comics, they've done pretty well. Outside of that, well, maybe I'll just lay out the evidence and let you decide.

The Fantastic Four cartoon from Hanna-Barbera is a personal favorite, even though (aside from the Thing) there isn't much characterization and HB's limited animation are a bit weak. Ben Grimm is voiced by Paul Frees, who also did the voice for tons of other cartoon characters, including Boris Badenov. It's his voice I hear any time I read a Fantastic Four comic.

A little over a decade later, the four returned in a new cartoon called, amazingly enough, "The New Fantastic Four." This incarnation is infamous for its addition to the group's roster. In place of the Human Torch was a cross between C-3PO and R2-D2, the annoying robot called Herbie.

Why wasn't the Human Torch in the show? You might have heard a reason, but Mark Evanier, knower of all things cool, has the short answer at his site.

From around the same time, there was also "Fred and Barney Meet the Thing."

No, I'm not kidding. They didn't really meet; it was just a title of a Flinstones-led cartoon anthology. The Thing segment featured a teenage Ben "Benjy" Grimm who turned into the Thing via the (sigh) Thing Ring. He had one on each hand, and when he hit the rings together and said "Thing Ring, do your thing!" tons of orange rocks flew in from nowhere to cover him and transform him into the Thing.

I thought for the longest time that I had hallucinated this cartoon, but I've since seen it on Cartoon Network's sister channel, Boomerang.

Not only was it a bad cartoon, but I have a feeling that it is responsible for another one of my geek pet-peeves. When discussions on the playground (or in the office) drifted toward the episodes of the Superfriends that featured the Wonder Twins, Zan and Jayna, somebody would talk about how they had rings that they touched together to activate their powers.

The twins had only to touch each other. True, most of the time they touched their fists together, but they didn't have rings. I'm sure I'm the only person in the whole world who cares about such things (that's what my wife tells me, anyway), but once a geek, always a geek.

There have been a lot of products tied in with the Fantastic Four. My personal favorite was Fantastic Four bubble gum, which came in a foil-lined pouch similar to the one used for Big League Chew. The chewy tabs came in four flavors: orange, grape, strawberry and watermelon. The big draw was that every pack had 100 pieces. When you're a kid, that's like winning the lottery.

I bought a pack and -- just for grins -- counted all the pieces. I expected it to be close -- 97 or so. But it was a measly 88 pieces. I was so outraged that I wrote a letter to the company. To my surprise, I got a letter back from them, along with a free pack of gum.

And this shows you what kind of annoying kid I was -- I counted the pieces in the free pack. Luckily, it was a little over 100, so I figured I broke even. I wish they still made the stuff; it was really good.

In fact, one of the Tide laundry detergents smells similar to the gum. I don't remember which one it is, but my wife, saint that she is, always picks it up at the store.

Isn’t she, uh, fantastic?

The roof, the roof, the roof is on fire...

There's nothing like the sound of the Fourth of July:

FWAAAASH!

"Oooo!"

SHPRIIIIIIISH!

"Aahhhh!"

sptz.

"That's all it does? That thing was 30 bucks!"

You know, considering I have trouble lighting matches, it's a little weird that I like the Fourth of July so much. But really, what other holiday features explosions?

And no, the baked potatoes that blew up in the oven on Thanksgiving because you forgot to put fork-holes in them don't count.

Fireworks were a big deal when I was a kid. There's the element of the forbidden - playing with fire - and the satisfaction you got from desperately trying to convince your buddies that you had actually set off the big ones.

That night, you'd hear the screams of the Piccolo Petes, the buzzing of the Ground Bloom flowers and the occasional "What was that?" There would be talk about "some jackass must have lit off an M-80" and then it was back to the festivities.

As a kid, my peers and I were fascinated by fireworks. Many an argument stemmed from differing opinions on what percentage of a stick of dynamite an M-80 was.

Compounding the problem was my friend's assertion that since his cousin's friend had seen M-100s and the granddaddy of them all, the M-1000, he was the authority. Not to be outdone, another friend claimed to have heard about the M-1,000,000.

He also claimed that his mom gave Colonel Sanders the recipe for Kentucky Fried Chicken, so you draw your own conclusions.

Now that I'm an adult (chronologically, anyway), I can actually buy fireworks and set them off myself. I just don't know if I'm going to.

My son, Brody, is 2, and he's not a big fan of things that are loud -- except for the vaccuum cleaner. We participated in a fireworks test session recently for work, and he was fine with the colors and lights, but once he heard that familiar dinosaur-passing-a-kidney-stone whine from one of the bigger fountains, that was it for him.

My wife, Jen, grew up near Philadelphia, where, to hear her tell it, fireworks were invented.

"OK, you know the finale from the ones we saw last year?"

"Yeah."

"In Philly, that's how it is during the whole thing. And then the end is awesome. This is nothing."

I feel bad for her sometimes. Philadelphia is also home of Philly cheese steaks, killer soft pretzels, frozen custard, Tastykakes and of course, Cheez Doodles.

Not to mention it's the birthplace of the middle stooge, Larry Fine.

In California, it's pretty much just the birthplace of the stooge she married.

But just in case we decide to celebrate, I decided to do a little research. Have you ever noticed the names of some of the fireworks out there? I've already mentioned the Piccolo Pete and the Ground Bloom. There's also the Jumping Jack, the Stellar Performance, Jr. Cuckoo and Smoke Balls, just to name a few.

But I also saw some that, alas, I haven't seen around here, most likely because you can't buy them here. But how can you pass up buying something called Run Like Hell? Nothing But Trouble? Playing With Fire?

But my absolute favorite is from Great Grizzly Fireworks: Uranus is Big!

It's nice to see a company try to inspire a new generation of astronomers, isn't it?

Have a happy and safe Fourth of July.

Fit to be dyed

Published in the Modesto Bee on June 29, 2005

Generally speaking, if you say the word “tattoo” to me, my first thought is “De plane! De plane!” — not “something I need on my body.”

My grandfather had the coolest of cool tattoos — the scantily clad hula girl. And since my mom specifically forbade me to get one like it (I was 4), I hadn’t really thought of getting a tattoo after that.

Oh, sure, there was the time when I was 6 that I wanted an anchor on each forearm like Popeye, but other than that, not a whole lot of interest in getting jabbed with needles and permanently marking my skin.

So imagine my surprise when I found myself at 30, sitting calmly at Blasting Zone in Turlock while some cat was dutifully engraving my arm.

No, I wasn’t drunk. It wasn’t a bet, either.

I’d been toying with the notion of getting a tattoo for about a year. I didn’t really have anything in mind. A few ideas that had come and gone were Pac-Man eating a line of dots around my arm and one of the plastic insert jobbies that you used to use to play 45s on your turntable.



But as I have read over and over, tattoo enthusiasts advise against getting a tattoo unless it is something you simply must have. So, not having that feeling about a video-game character or outdated audio accessories (or even a hula girl), I put the idea on hold.

And then Harry came.

My wife, Jen, and I were ecstatic over the arrival of our second son, Harrison.

He was born at the end of March. The kid popped out with more hair than I’d ever seen on a baby. He reminded me a little of Chewbacca, and — much to my wife’s delight, I’m sure — I referred to him as “my little Wookiee.”

Harry had a cornucopia of medical problems, and at only 7 weeks old, he died.

It hurt. Still does. But we look at the brief time we spent with him as a gift; Jen and I joke that Harry is acting as guardian angel to our 2-year-old, Brody. And given Brody’s sense of curiosity and adventure, he certainly could use one.

I know getting a tattoo isn’t going to bring him back, and it’s not as though I need ink on my arm to remember him, but I guess it’s a way for me to do something.

The whole time he was in the hospital, I just felt useless because I couldn’t do anything to fix him. I talked to him, I held him and played music for him, but I couldn’t do anything that would allow us to take him home.

My sister-in-law got a tattoo of Harry’s initials, which I thought was a cool idea. But I wanted something more than that, and I couldn’t think of something that felt right.

My first thought was to get a tattoo of Chewbacca, but from a practicality standpoint, I didn’t know if that would work. Plus, my, uh, guns aren’t that big. It’s true; I have arms like pipe cleaners.

Harry had a genetic condition that one of the doctors told me is sometimes called Superman syndrome.

This is particularly amusing as I’ve been crazy about Superman since I was very little — a superfreak, if you will (the kind you don’t bring home to mother).

So I made up my mind. A Superman shield with Harry’s initials.

Perfect.

Yeah, I know, every moron and his brother has a Superman “S” tattoo, but I don’t care.

I wasn’t doing it to be cool — even though Jon Bon Jovi has one, too — I wanted something that meant something to me.

All I had to do was muster the courage to get it done.

Once I made up my mind, I didn’t really have any second thoughts. The worst thing I could think of was the image of the tattoo artist having convulsive sneezes while inking up my arm, then having to explain it to people.

“Oh, the tattoo? Well, I’m a big Jackson Pollack fan.”

My wife, on the other hand, was becoming increasingly apprehensive about letting a needle jab her repeatedly. Her tattoo, to be fair, was a little more intricate than mine: a monarch butterfly with Harry’s initials.



See, at Harry’s funeral, a monarch butterfly flew in from nowhere and landed on the casket before taking off shortly after. A quick “hi and bye” to be sure, but it seemed appropriate.

Jen decided to get her tattoo just above her ankle, which didn’t surprise me. I knew she wouldn’t get it on her arm; as she likes to say, she has “sensitive
arms.”

Once we got to the tattoo parlor — and no, we didn’t stick out in the slightest, thanks for asking — we met our respective artists.

We explained what we wanted and filled out the necessary paperwork before getting down to business. This took only a few minutes, but those few minutes stretched into eons for Jen, who kept saying she wasn’t sure if she wanted to do it, especially if they were going to use needles.

Because mine was relatively simple, I got to go first, which I wasn’t expecting. I wanted Jen to go first, primarily because if I shot through the stratosphere the second the needle hit my skin, it would be a little harder to convince her that it didn’t
hurt at all.

Jay, my tattoo artist, asked me if I was nervous.

“A little. Not as much as she is,” I said, hefting a thumb in my wife’s direction. Yeah, I sold her out. What do you want? I was nervous.

“OK, you’re gonna feel just a little pressure,” he said.

Now, as you’re probably already thinking, people generally hear this line in only one other situation.

Paying your mechanic.

Or is it sitting in the dentist’s chair? I get them confused sometimes.

I was surprised to find that it really was just a little pressure.

It hurt a little bit, but not nearly as bad as I thought it would. Jen said afterward that I didn’t even flinch when the needle hit.

“Yeah,” I said, “I didn’t want you to think it hurt that much.”

“Did it?”

“I had a needle in my arm. What do you think?”

“Wuss.”

Jen was an absolute trooper with her tattoo, which, by the way, looks really cool. Jopa, her tattoo artist, said he’s inked first-timers who screamed. She didn’t. I lent her my support and offered my hand for her to squeeze.

Which reminds me — I’d like to thank my brother for helping me type this.

Kidding.

I’m really proud of her; she did a good job. Of course, she had the support of her husband and her sister, who didn’t make fun (well, didn’t make much fun) of the faces she was making. Hey, we bought her a smoothie; that should count for something.

So, would I get another tattoo?

Something for my other son, perhaps?

I don’t know. Brody and I spend a lot of time drawing and singing. I have a feeling that we’ll bond that way.

Jen might get another one.

Right about the time I’m picked as People magazine’s Sexiest Man Alive. Or Sexiest Woman, for that matter.

But I’m glad I got it. I mean, I’ll always remember Harry, but this way, other people will get to know him.

“Cool tattoo. Superman, right?”

“Yeah, I got it for my son, Harry. Let me tell you about him. First of all, he had a ton of hair … ”

Jeffrey Sparkman is a content coordinator and blogger for modbee.com. Read more of his thoughts and those of other local writers at www.modbee.com/blogs.

Greetings and salutations!

My name is Jeff Sparkman. I work in the online department of the Modesto Bee. This weblog, Siftin', is where my brain spills onto my keyboard. I hope you enjoy what comes out.

Uh, and I assure you, it's not as gross as it sounds.