Bill's Bulletin Board
By Bill Rea

I suspect most of you, like me, are wondering where the summer went.

There are a lot of school kids who are right now enduring their first week of academic incarceration who can easily harken back to the care-free days of late June and early July, and wonder how two months could have gone by so fast.

It's only been in the years since I left school that I have envied the kids as they get back to class, because as we all know, school beats working (financial consideration notwithstanding). But I still have a bit of empathy.

There are many things about summer I'm going to miss, and a couple of things I'm not.

The abundance of bugs and insects are on the list of things that I'm going to miss.

I like to think I have a humane attitude to all living things. I stopped fishing many years ago because I couldn't justify, in my own mind, the idea of forcing a fellow creature to fight for it's very life. The concept no longer struck me as sporting.

As much as I dislike insects, I hate killing them. My wife is often amused to see me deal with a spider or some other hideous creature in the house. I'll grab a hunk of paper towel and try and wrap the critter in it, taking care not to squish it. Then I'll hasten to the front door and toss the package on the stoop. That way, the offender gets to take its chance against the hands of nature and I get to sleep that night with a sort-ofclear conscience, along with the knowledge that I have spared myself the task of cleaning up the corpse of some bug.

And before any of you accuse me of littering, the paper towel is usually picked up after its occupant has had a chance to get free and face its fate.

Flies are annoying too, if for no other reason than they don't seem to do much, apart hang around where ever I happen to be and bother me. They seem to have an attraction to my work station in my office, and there have been many times over the last couple of months when I wished they would just buzz off (pun fully intended).

Bees, wasps and hornets are the worst, however. They are the worst because they sting. Add to that the fact that some people are allergic to such injury.

I have been stung enough times to know I'm not allergic. I just don't like it. And when it comes to these pests, my humane instincts are put on hold.

Beth noticed the start of a wasps' nest on the fence in our back yard a couple of weeks ago. I got out a can of repellent recommended for these invaders (we keep a supply on hand for just such emergencies), and the nest was history in minutes.

But if they can't hang around our back yard, there are plenty of others.

Beth and I attended a yard party last Sunday to celebrate a milestone birthday of one of her uncles. There were about 30 guests on hand, not counting the wasps. If you add the wasps to the calculation, the figure was probably well in excess of 100. Yet with all that activity, involving food and drink, there was only one case of a person being stung. You'll be happy and relieved to know it wasn't me. But, as is so often the case at such functions. The victim was a little kid. And being very little, she naturally didn't take it too well. What kid would?

I think I was about three or four the first time I was stung. I was enduring my confinement in the back yard, to which I was banished

on nice days when my mother didn't want me cluttering up the house (this was before working moms were common). Since I knew nothing about stinging insects in those days, I neither expected or feared anything of that nature, that is until it attacked - getting me on the neck. Naturally, I screamed for my mommy, although I forget exactly how she dealt with the issue. Her methods must have been effective, though. I am, after all, still here.

The next time I got stung was more memorable, because it was a double feature. I guess I was five, and was walking up the front porch of our house with my cousin Shelley, who would have been very close to her fourth birthday. I suddenly felt a stinging pain on one of my legs, near the knee, and started screaming as loud as I could. Since fiveyear old kids are not generally known for empathy, I failed to notice my cousin was also screaming. I later overheard my mother describing the event to my dad, commenting that she had first thought my yelling had frightened Shelley into some sort of panic.

Such was not the case. We were both tagged within seconds of each other, on the leg, near the knee. My aunt and mother were eventually able to calm the two of us down, then applied the perfect remedy. But I guess it doesn't take a whole lot of maternal grit to

understand the therapeutic value to little kids of a couple of orange Popsicles.

But everyone has to grow, and eventually one learns they can handle even being stung without racing to mother in a blind panic.

Shortly after starting Grade 4, I was outside with a bunch of my fellows, waiting for the first practice in the school's lunch hour soccer league. The teacher was just starting to line us up for some drill when one of the kids (meaning me) let out a yell. One of these pesky insects had gone after my right forefinger. Now I don't think it was any point of shame that I let out a yell, and I was rather impressed with the way I handled the situation from then on. There was no panic, no tears, no wild scene at all. I even recall cracking a few jokes. The teacher told me to go and run cold water on my injury, and I actually resisted, not wanting to miss any of the soccer activity.

It was probably the very first macho act I ever committed, and I frankly think I handled it very well.

But don't get the idea that I was a grown-up from that day on. About a year later, I got stung again, just outside our house, and went running inside screaming for my mother.

So I wasn't kidding when I said it was a good thing I didn't get stung at that party last Sunday. Who knows what kind of scene might have developed?