Page 72 - Sharp Summer 2021

THE EXPRESSION “IT’S ALL FUN and games until someone loses an eye” was a popular mantra of my
childhood. Mostly because, with a rowdy household of boys, there was a good chance one of us would be sporting an eye patch at some point.
In fairness, by the time it got down to me, there was nothing my parents hadn’t seen their sons do that could potentially injure themselves or others. From swing- ing in trees to racing on bicycles (we’d all been taught to ride by my dad) to drag racing in cars with wheels that should have been more firmly attached (I once saw the back wheel of my brother Mark’s Camaro roll past him as he skidded to a stop in the ditch across the street from our house), growing up for me was very much a matter of “give it a shot and see if you live.” It got to the point that if I’d told my dad I was going skydiving without a parachute, he would have barely glanced up from his newspaper to say, “Okay. Have fun, Ross.” (My dad often confused our names when we were growing up, so for a while, I thought my full name was John- Larry-Mark-Ross-Stephen.)
Back in the early days of the Patterson household, when it was just John and Larry, they took “fun” to a whole new level. Liter- ally. As the story goes, my parents took my brothers to a travelling circus show when they were seven and five years old. This was back in the late 1950s, so the circus wasn’t the flashy lights and brightly cos- tumed elite athletes that we associate with Cirque du Soleil these days. There was one bright light (possibly stolen from a nearby airport) and a few brave trapeze artists performing death-defying feats high up in the air, but the main act was the animals.
Back then, most kids went to the circus to see the elephants, lions, and whatever other animals the troupe could fit into a travelling caravan (not a Dodge Caravan,
by STEVE PATTERSON
although I understand they do provide good value in terms of cargo space). For the most part, the daring athletes doing the high-wire acts went largely unnoticed by the crowd. After all, why look up when you could look down at whatever sugary snack your parents had bought you to shove into your mouth?
But my brothers were (and still are) different. They looked up at the perfor- mance high above the ground in awe and admiration. Maybe because it was (and still is) an amazing feat to walk across a small wire at an elevated height, especial- ly before the days of high-quality safety netting; or maybe because my dad was too cheap to buy them snacks; or maybe because the high wire reminded them of the clothesline that shot out from the bal- cony of our grandmother’s apartment in Verdun, Quebec — John and Larry became determined to duplicate the high-wire act on their next visit to Nana’s.
It turns out, the third maybe was the right answer.
After returning home from the circus, pumped full of adrenaline like most kids would be after seeing gigantic exotic an- imals in the middle of the city, John and Larry bided their time until they could try out what they’d just seen under the big top (minus the safety net, proper equipment, and years of training). As it turned out, they didn’t have to wait very long. A week after their visit to the circus, my brothers found themselves at Nana’s apartment. Led by Larry, the stuntman/ football player/thrill-seeker of the fam- ily, my older brothers went out onto the balcony. With no balancing stick or lick
of common sense, Larry hoisted himself to the level of the clothesline. John, the sensible one, quickly realized his younger brother’s mistake — but not soon enough. As Larry lost his balance (which he’d never really had), John lunged to grab his arm, and they both fell through the air with the greatest of ease. Only they were not daring young men on a flying trapeze. They were the Patterson boys on the third-floor clothesline, and they landed with a thud onto a mercifully and miraculously placed pad of grass.
72 SHARPMAGAZINE.COM SUMMER 2021
Running Wild
With humour and insight, comedian Steve Patterson’s new book, Dad Up!, investigates modern-day fatherhood
COLUMN : DAD UP!
Illustration by Malte Mueller / Getty