Mike Matthews
Two tourists are painting a picturesque ruined castle, a half crumbled stone tower on the coast of Italy. What is out of place in this photograph that I saw in the New Yorker magazine is what swats us in the eye: these painters with their backs to us in the foreground of the picture are wearing big bright safety helmets. They are a quarter mile away from that stone tower. Yet it makes sense for them to wear helmets; probably they bicycled to the spot. What doesn’t make sense is for those honking big helmets to occupy the foreground of the photo. Fault here lies with the magazine editor.
Here’s another scene. Not far from my house I see a fellow working at a neighbour’s house, up on the roof with shingles, tools, and so forth. Wearing his orange safety vest. I figured it out: should he fall from that roof and lie stunned, helpless in the yard in the ample shrubbery, the search party would locate him more quickly because of the bright orange and chartreuse vestment.
Here’s a spectacle observed while walking my dog. A woman doing some sort of work up on a high roof is wearing a nice big crash helmet. I was puzzled, for I understand the function of helmets being to protect the head, and hence advisable for those who work beneath falling objects. We wore them working underground when I worked, summer job, in a mine. Wearing one when you work high in the air suggests that you do not understand the direction in which gravity works. That, frankly, is dismal.
Recently I came across the aftermath of a big traffic accident. Many cars were damaged, badly damaged. Police cars, ambulances, and fire trucks were at the scene. Lots of us idle onlookers gathered to gawk. A fellow walking slowly back and forth at the perimeter of the scene was stopped by a police officer , who did not shout but spoke in an intense, meaning ful voice: “where’s your safety vest?
”It’s in my car!” came the reply, in a husky, slow voice. There was something a little wrong with this man.
“Well, get it on!” was the fierce reply from the cop.
“I can’t; I can’t get into my car!” cried the man. The cop just looked bewildered. Turns out this slow-walking chap 1. had a concussion, 2. had just wiggled out from behind the bent steering column of one of the wrecked automobiles at the scene.
Turns out the police officer could not see a problem. Could not see that the problem was the police priorities.
Only one of these examples is fiction, by the way.
I believe that you can see the problem. I believe that you do not need me, little red eyes and whisky breath , shouting in your face. I believe that you are reading this in your home or in your somewhat private workspace because you do not want me, an unpleasant, old, cranky, shrill-voiced person, up close to you and on your case. And you without your helmet or your orange safety vest.
