Winnipeg Free Press

Winnipeg Free Press (Newspaper) - September 17, 2000, Winnipeg, Manitoba Editor Elizabeth 6977234 Fum skit Mukh 2000 Magazine b3 family what treasures a garage can hold we recently cleaned out the when i say of i mean my a garage performs two main functions it provides a place to Park the car and it stores items you cant Possi Bly keep in your maybe that just one my garage is like most families garages examining the articles stored inside tells you a lot about the homeowners and the human Condi is a catalogue of most of the items we examined during the recent purge and in the order in which they were piled or hidden Paul Mckie a pain spattered 15yearold wooden step some spatters Date Back to a House we owned in at five feet the ladder is Short and we regularly risk our lives by standing on the yellow warning Label on the top step that danger do not stand on this step a paint stick stuck in an old cottage cheese i plastic Bird seed we need to get new seed but the Birds in my neighbourhood eat Way too much and i cant keep i Teny Earold faded Canvas Lawn were waiting for someone to put their Back end through them before there maybe not even i Extension Cord i fourteen Earold Gas Barbecue that would frighten any fire i Clear the entire backyard whenever i Light my wife has seen that improperly i stroller i various paint old paint cans essentially an Arsenal Saddam Hussein would and we keep it next to the toddlers a storm window that fits a bedroom window that we dont have a plastic owl we used years ago to Chase away pigeons and squirrels nest ing in our they pecked out one of the owls i stroller 2 i several some in i an useless rubber Hose that i left out All Winter one i faded Christmas lights i finally removed from the front window where they were displayed for seven or eight straight years All four no word on How Long ill display them inside my i several Garden some Are years old but curiously look like i1 cant find Extension Cordia bedroom door were stripping a Rusty wheelbarrow something else i left out All Winter a few times with a Tubeless tire that refuses to theres stuff in it but i have no idea a reel style push Lawn i several pieces of new plywood left Over from roof sure i have no use for but i paid for them and in keeping i Small wooden sled for babies which i dont have i weather beaten platform i old pieces of Wood with nails pulled from the bathroom during a renovation two years those will come in i where the hell is that Extension Cord i the last remaining piece of Wood from our 1981 now used by neighbourhood children in various i Chimney from a woo burning we bought the House because of the cosy we removed the stove when the Chimney cleaner said it would Burn Down the i three soccer a regulation Bas two Peewee basketballs and assorted baseball bats stored in two wooden a nine metre Extension ladder i can barely lift that serves As storage rack for a Pool rollerblade Beach umbrella and bad Minton i water stained notebook i used to make this i sprinkler we bought in the Spring that never worked and were too Lazy to i the new i Tomato we didst grow tomatoes this last year we planted tomatoes but still didst grow i two a plastic Turtle wheel a still no Extension i old wooden pop bottle crate that has been a rocket race and i use it instead of the wobbly wooden step of and my the less said about that the Paul Mckie is a reporter with the Winnipeg free Perry journal wildly popular device latest Chance for parents to say no by Rick Shewchik every once in life presents parents with a perfect Opportunity to Tell our children the wildly popular Scooter is the latest youve seen the a thin Little Metal platform with a Small wheel in a Small wheel in Back and handlebars attached to a pole extending upward from the front you stand on it with one foot and push yourself along with the other while steering with the they were a hit in great grandpas there a hit the afterschool to shows my son likes to watch have Scooter ads featuring Geeky kids the Young ones wearing the older ones trying to look Cool by going Bare headed coasting Down a gradual coming to a Stop and that what i Call but How can it be As the Scooter is almost worse than requiring far More Effort than a bicycle to cover much less ground at a much slower rate of As sport or i dont see How it can possibly compete in manoeuvrability or Speed with inline skates or but As a must have item for today its the hottest thing Why because you see ads for them on a lot of kids already have and they Cost around our 11yearold son wants a he wanted one the first time he saw he asks for one every time he sees he tried one out at the state fair in despite skidding onto his butt while trying to execute a tight he got up and said he had to have Hes not getting because parents have to say no More than they say its Good for kids to be denied some of their whims and though i have nothing against these they Are simply has nothing to do with the recent alarmist news stories that say scooters have caused a Sharp uptick in Young people visiting emergency it be More obvious that some kids Are going to wipe out on their new scooters we did it need investigative reporters to Alert us to that in i dont think Riding a Scooter is inordinately As kids activities the Scooter stories have mentioned that the number of injuries sustained while in line skating or skateboarding is still far higher than those sustained by Scooter we Haven forbidden our son to have a he just never wanted one All that he has inline skates and rarely uses Here we Are getting to the reason Why Hes not getting a scooters being a he would tire of perhaps even before he maimed himself on and then it would sit in our garage next to the inline the Badminton rackets and the unused and taking up space that could bet Ter be used for a larger door Ding Buffer zone Between my car and my but that not even the whole reason were saying were saying no because parents have to say no More than they say its Good for kids to be denied some of their whims and though i have nothing against these they Are simply so when my son sees one of the Neighbour kids on a Scooter a perfectly harmless toy that i begrudge no Parent buying for their child and he i really want a ill and the next time he sees the child actors on the to and getting ecstatic about turning wheelies on their and he i just have to have a Shell and Well both feel a Little better about our parenting our willpower and our we stood up to the Scooter and we did not you its really not about the Scooter at its about picking your and i chose to win the Scooter its going to Snow in two and even i can say no for that Saint Paul Pioneer press today language teens have special code All their own by Ricardo Gandara Texas while paying for my Coffee at the grocery i Tell the fifty something Man behind the counter this Coffee is heres my peace huh he what did you say i was this Coffee is heres my Why didst you say that in the first place you didst make any he its teen after collecting teen Slang from kids around town and trying it on i got at the i told a coworker slow your Roll i think she thought i was telling her she was gaining too much at i told a Par the plan is tight Tell some other rents parents to i got a Blank so i went to the drag to show off my newfound College students will right i stopped Ben who said he was can you understand this someone ranked stole my Mon keys i messed i left them on the its weak not Ben was i know what you said but no one talks like younger teenagers and Slang is their Ever evolving Way to communicate with one its their special Way to relate to their they want to exclude especially their Slang identifies you As a member of a special said Donna to professor of linguistics and expert on Slang at Swarthmore College in Swarth and when youre you dont want to speak like your parents or a 23 year old or a its Nice to have your own special code to keep people a piece of us Slang makes said Katie a Junior at Bowie High How we talk is who we Are and what we its showing a piece of Slang int new it was popularized after the second world War with the Advent of teens joined in the neat was so ubiquitous that it must have become annoying but its still used so there must be a last ing fifties teens also used Cool Cherry really threads cloth kicks shoes and foam domes stuffed said Mike author of language in the score meant get some far Bummer and what a trip were expressions you might use after you in the the Fonz to continued to have an but now the commercials were influencing the try youll like from Alka Seltzer the 80s brought expressions such As totally so gnarly and totally tubular from the movie Valley girl All meaning when Clara Pellar wheres the beef in a Wendy Adver North americans found inventive ways to capitalize on the thanks to postal workers resort ing to shooting sprees in the going came to you know what it after the release of the movie clueless in of my came out of every teen girls and what about whatever not you the although teenagers invent some Slang that unique to their Circle of friends babe Aruba is a term of endearment bowies Baldwin uses for her friends Many of their words Are not Phat Cool and a bomb awesome originated from the jazz Era in the Slang is Ellis when More people got radios and tvs after words popped up now with the its All but Slang int necessarily the same it differs from one group to another in High schools and City to Pflugerville Matthew who travels the country because Hes a bal let noticed it this past skaters dont use the same words As the and the gangsters dont use the same words As the and the preps dont talk like the he for the surfer word groovy is accepted in Boca but considered weird in in Houston youre Likely to hear Street something like in chillin hang ing with my homies friends this week he Napoli advises parents not to get riled up about the Slang their kids aside from the Nasty and degrading i know that parents refer to adolescence As the psychotic but from the kids Point of View they want to be different than their they want their own using their special language is one she so slow your Cox newspapers ;