FFWD Weekly
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Good Listener by Ian Doig "There we go! That’s fuuuuun! Wooooo!" A five-year-old kid repeatedly punches his dad’s left buttock as hard and fast as he can. Dad patiently pushes a loaded baby stroller through the main gates into the Stampede grounds. He breathes a sigh of relief. In here you must be "at least this tall" to ride the old man’s ass. Living anywhere near downtown during Stampede can be trying. This being the second last day of the event, drunken "WOO!ing" and the "BLAM-buh-BLAM!’ of nightly fireworks has worn thin. And that’s just in the Good Listener’s bedroom (Ba-dum-bum!). Despite the noise, there’s nothing like a visit to the Greatest Outdoor Show On Earth to bring out the inner youngster. Just inside the grounds a substantial crowd has gathered at the brown soft drink stage to enjoy brassière-clad singer Bif Naked. A shirtless teenager in a red cowboy hat has scrawled "LAy mE BIF" on his back and chest. Ah, puppy love. Nearby a weeping young woman is comforted by family members. He doesn’t even know you’re alive? Perhaps it’s better this way. With that much Magic Marker in his system he’s only got another 10 minutes to live. Over at Indian Village they’re serving mouth-watering bannock and Indian tacos. There’s a little boy sitting on the lower shingles of the food kiosk’s A-frame roof. He’s playing with a carved willow stick and watching over his younger siblings as they fight over a yellow toy duck. "Rita!" he says sternly, "You’re gonna get a spanking when we get home." He pauses and looks around. "Just kidding." He drops his stick to the ground. Little Rita picks it up. "My stick," says big brother. "Where’d you found it?" she asks. Passing it up to him she lets her smaller brother have the duck. "Found it at the ditch." The Ditch is a lesser-known midway game. I think it’s played with rocks and pop cans. You’ve got to win five ducks to get one of those sticks. You’d need an afternoon and twenty ducks to win the log. "Have you ever forgotten that you’re not s’posed to spit when you’re in the house?" Two young men behind me gnaw on corn dogs as I eat my taco. "I did once," laughs the one in the tank top. "And I just looked around and no one saw and I just thought, ‘Shit, I just spat in my own house.’" "Yeah, try writing graffiti on your own bathroom walls too!" offers the one in the sport coat. "I wrote one that said ‘For a good time call Bobby.’ And then Bobby was over taking a crap and he said, ‘Man, why’d you write that about me?’" When Bobby’s in the kitchen I hope to hell he remembers he’s not in the bathroom. The midway is a beehive of wandering straw hats and bad tattoos. After an hour of strolling through the crowds I sneak into one of the cantinas. As I pull a wooden stool up to a vinyl-topped barrel an Australian guy in a cowboy hat and vest wipes a puddle of liquid off the barrel. "Don’t worry about it, it’s just pee!" You know Bobby? A couple in their early 30s sit down nearby. "We gave Kayla $30 and just let her go. We counted down for her: ‘Now you have 20, now you have 10.’ Then she’s, ‘Oh no!’ That’s how we taught Mike, too. We just let him spend it all." She laughs and takes a sip of beer. Sheesh! There was some teaching going on all right. Back in my day we thought a mitt full of ride tickets and a cherry Sno Kone was generous. The fireworks start. To the muffled sounds of the Grandstand show the air bursts with colour and sound. Two guys belt out overly-loud "YEEHOO!s." A female security guard wearing a white cowboy hat shoos them along with her walkie talkie. "You oughtta know better than to do that around kids!" They both giggle like children. Just then a passing 10-year-old boy whacks his friend in the ass and groin as fast and hard as he can with a pink and green inflated hammer. "Hey, gimme that," says the second kid protecting his privates. Bobby and Kayla and the two YEEHOO!ers may have learned some valuable things about kids on the midway. I, however, learned the most important thing. "I oughtta know better than to have kids!"

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