HomeMy WebLinkAboutThe Citizen, 2012-06-21, Page 5THE CITIZEN, THURSDAY, JUNE 21, 2012. PAGE 5.
He’s been following me all my life.
Correction: I’VE been following HIM
all my life.
He’s beaten me to every significant place
I’ve visited: national monuments, public
washrooms, bulletin boards – even pages of
books.
It’s Kilroy I’m talking about. You know the
guy? Leaves a cartoon drawing of himself –
just two eyes and a big nose peeping over what
looks like the top of a fence. Under that he
prints his characteristic one-line calling card –
KILROY WAS HERE.
The Kilroy trademark began appearing way
back during World War II when American GIs
took up the practice of scrawling Kilroy’s
inquisitive schnozz and tag line at battle sites
in Germany, Italy – even on palm trees of
engagement zones in the Pacific. It wasn’t
long before civilians got into the act. The
slogan began showing up all around the world.
You could find KILROY WAS HERE graffiti
on the Sphinx, the Arc de Triomphe, the Statue
of Liberty – even atop Mount Everest. Legend
has it that an Apollo astronaut even scrawled it
in dust on the moon.
It’s a fascinating illustration of how even a
trivial, meaningless bit of pop culture fluff
can, for no discernable reason, go viral and
spread around the globe.
Except for one thing: KILROY WAS HERE
is not a meaningless phrase. There really was
a Kilroy and he really did come up with that
famous slogan.
His full name was James Kilroy and he was
an inspector at the Fore River Shipyard in
Quincy, MA. One of his jobs was to keep track
of the number of rivets shipyard workers
installed every day. He would tally up the
number and put a check mark beside the
last rivet so that they wouldn’t be counted
twice. The workers – who got paid by the
number of rivets they placed – quickly wised
up and started erasing the check marks,
fooling the next inspector into re-counting the
rivets and paying them extra. When James
Kilroy wised up to the scam, he added
his cartoon and the line KILROY WAS
HERE to the check mark. End of accounting
problem – and beginning of a world-wide
phenomenon.
The story goes that when Joseph Stalin
emerged from the VIP washroom at the Big
Three conference at Potsdam in 1946 the first
question he had for his aide was “Who is this
Kilroy?”
Reminds me of the Stan and Si.
‘Stan and Si’ is a sandwich. When I was
younger and lived in Thunder Bay, Ontario I
frequently went into restaurants and ordered a
Stan and Si – as did many others. It wasn’t
always printed on the menu, but the waitress
inevitably knew what you meant – basically a
hot roast beef sandwich with some extra
trimmings.
A Thunder Bay newspaper editor explained
to me that Stan and Si were two Thunder
Bay railroad workers who liked to shoot a
game of pool on their lunch hour. They didn’t
have time to sit down so they’d order their
favourite sandwich and eat it while they
played. Pretty soon their lunch became known
as ‘the Stan and Si’. It’s still available as
select Thunder Bay establishments as far as I
know.
Next time I’m in The Lakehead I plan to find
out for sure. I’ll hit the first restaurant I see and
order a Stan and Si with a side of fries.
If they know what it is and bring me one, I’ll
scrawl KILROY WAS HERE on the menu.
Comments? arblack43@shaw.ca
Arthur
Black
Other Views Following Kilroy around the world
As someone who has followed baseball
religiously for nearly his whole life,
from the sport’s perspective, there are
few things more exciting than a player like
Bryce Harper.
Nineteen-year-old Harper plays for the
Washington Nationals and he seems to be a
phenom in every sense of the word. He was
drafted by the Nationals and stormed his way
through the minor leagues, making it up to the
big stage with less than a year of grooming.
Harper is playing the part, hitting with an
average of nearly .300, he’s almost up to 10
home runs on the season and he seems to be a
shoo-in for rookie of the year. Harper is tearing
up pitchers in both the American and National
Leagues, he’s a multi-millionaire and he isn’t
even old enough to buy a beer in the U.S.,
which leads me to my next point.
While in Toronto last week, a reporter asked
Harper if, to celebrate his 434-foot home run
that helped sink the Toronto Blue Jays over the
course of a three-game Washington sweep, he
would be hitting the town and grabbing a beer
in Toronto where he is old enough to do so.
“I’m not answering that,” Harper told the
reporter. “That’s a clown question, bro.”
And that was that. The internet exploded and
for the next few days everything was some
form of a “clown (insert pretty much anything
here), bro.”
Harper is a Mormon, a religion that forbids
alcohol, but really, when it comes down to it,
can’t we all just have a little fun?
Perhaps that’s what Harper was doing in his
own way. Calling a reporter’s question a
“clown question” is certainly humorous in its
way, but when the reporter was clearly trying
to introduce a bit of humour into the
excruciatingly dull world of sports interviews,
why not indulge fans for 30 seconds?
Sports fans will remember when NBA player
Rasheed Wallace played for the Portland Trail
Blazers and he had vowed that he would no
longer speak to the media. However, as a term
of the collective bargaining agreement, the
players had agreed to talk to the press if asked,
lest they get fined by the league. This led to a
press conference where Wallace answered
every single question fired his way with “both
teams played hard, my man”.
The reality of the situation is that the vast
majority of sports interviews are not far off
from Wallace’s string of both teams played
hards. Hockey interviews are essentially just a
combination of players “digging in the
corners” and “finishing their bodychecks” and
“giving 110 per cent”.
I guess where I come down on this is that I
remember how much my friends and I joked
when I was 19. Our whole lives were jokes. All
we did was seek out the next way to make our
friends laugh at that age. It’s sad to see a 19-
year-old essentially refuse to answer a question
simply because there’s a bit of a snicker behind
it. It certainly wasn’t malicious, so really,
what’s the harm in it?
One of the greatest live albums of all time is
The Rat Pack Live at The Sands in Las Vegas
and it features Dean Martin, who most
certainly was no Mormon when it came to
alcohol, dropping some off-colour and groan-
worthy humour, and every joke is capped off
with “just trying to have a little fun folks”.
There are a lot of professional athletes who
understand that they get to make millions of
dollars playing a game for a living and they
soften their shell over the years and let their
personality shine through over time. With all of
his skill and the potential for super-stardom,
hopefully Harper starts to break down the wall.
A clown column, bro
Recently I was made aware of a
professional football player who
claims his addiction to video games
nearly ruined his life.
I suppose that, like so many controversial
issues I’ve discussed in the past, I should
preface this one with a disclaimer.
There is nothing entertaining or funny about
true mental health problems, especially not
those that lead to someone having an addictive
personality.
Now, back to former All American defensive
tackle Quinn Pitcock.
Originally Pitcock played for the NFL’s
Indianapolis Colts before Activision’s popular
Call of Duty video game apparently took over
his life.
He began scheduling himself around the
game and eventually took out his anger at life
and the game by microwaving, burning and
destroying the game’s disc before going out to
purchase a new one.
Pitcock, by all indicators, is a gifted football
player with a future in the NFL that and could
have ended had he not been diagnosed with
depression and Attention Deficit Hyperactivity
Disorder (ADHD).
I can’t speak to depression beyond saying
that I know people who have been diagnosed
who genuinely needed the help that they
found. I have also known people (focus on the
past-participle of the verb there, I have little
patience for these people) who were just bored
with life because they chose not to challenge
themselves or chase their dreams.
Given my experience, I can honestly say
Pitcock’s depression, or lack there of, isn’t
something I could comment on. However,
given my experience, I can also say that most
people I know who are, or who become,
depressed do not turn to video games since
they work on an immediate rewards system.
Depressed people usually don’t chase the high
that comes from winning a game. (That said,
one sign of depression is excessive aggression,
and breaking digital video discs, or DVDs,
could definitely be a sign of that.)
I won’t talk about depression because my
limited experience in a handful of psychology
classes do not make me a qualified individual
to talk about it.
Attention Deficit Disorder (ADD) and
ADHD, on the other hand, are topics I can
discuss at length.
I “suffer” from one and or both of them
(there never really was a division explained to
me) and I know a lot of people who have been
diagnosed with the disorders (again, I will say
that sometimes it is over-diagnosed and over-
medicated, but I can’t claim to know enough
about Pitcock to say whether the diagnosis is
accurate).
I can also comment on the “addictive”
nature of video games.
Video games, on their own, aren’t addictive.
You could probably play Pac-Man every day
for a year and then never touch it again.
Already addictive personalities (like, say,
the kind that would lead someone to dedicate
their entire life to a sport before finding
something else to obsess over) can definitely
find video games hard to part with.
I’ve definitely faced that “demon” and I feel
I’ve exerted a measure of control over how
often I indulge in video games. The challenge
was never about the games, it was about me.
Here are some of the symptoms of ADHD:
• Having trouble paying attention, or easily
forget things.
• Frequently switching activities.
• Becoming bored with one activity quickly.
• Having difficulty focusing on organizing
and completing tasks.
• Daydreaming.
• Becoming easily confused.
• Talking nonstop.
• Blurting out inappropriate comments.
• Impatience.
• Having difficulty being quiet.
• Touching things, playing with things, etc.
It’s a real grab-bag of possible symptoms
and a lot of people develop coping
mechanisms if they do have ADHD, a lot of
others, and I hope that I can count myself
among these, try and capitalize on some of
their “symptoms”.
A big reason that I love my job is because it
plays to my tendency to frequently switch
activities. Sure, it can mean that I end up
switching from one half-finished story to
another when I have a great idea about how to
write or pursue it, but really, I find it a
strength, not a weakness.
I suppose that’s what bothered me so much
about Pitcock’s story.
Instead of owning who he is, instead of
realizing that his brain works differently and
embracing it, he blamed it.
He didn’t become addicted to video games
in my opinion if he truly does have ADHD.
Call of Duty is successful because it has
many different options and game types
literally providing hundreds of different
combinations to keep a mind, even one as
easily distracted as those with ADHD are,
entertained. It’s why it’s so successful.
So no, it wasn’t that he was addicted to the
game. He found another activity to obsess
over. He let his “symptoms” bubble to the
surface and, unfortunately, it manifested in a
way that wasn’t as successful as, say, focusing
on the prism (many different facets) that is
professional sports.
I used to blame my ADD and ADHD for
things going wrong in my life but then I was
challenged by a teacher to own it and try and
work within it.
I did, and I have and I hope that someday I
can look back and say that the decision to not
take mind-altering drug treatments and to try
and tame my own mind was a good one.
In the meantime, if I play too many video
games, it’s not because I’m addicted to them.
Addiction, in my mind, is something you can’t
control. Some drugs alter your physiology so
you literally need them to continue.
No, if I choose to indulge in anything, be it
video games, food or even sitting on my deck
baking in the sun, it’s because of exactly that;
my choice.
It’s time that people in this world started
realizing that regardless of what acronyms you
can use to explain your personal quirks, they
are still your personal quirks and they are your
responsibility.
Do not blame video games, do not blame
tobacco companies. If you have a problem you
need to own it and either fix it or embrace it.
Shawn
Loughlin
Shawn’s Sense
Denny
Scott
Denny’s Den
Learning disabilities and games