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The Assignment


The year was 1968 and I was eight years old. The hubbub of the previous year’s Canadian centennial had ebbed. We were done singing This Land is Our Land and One-little, Two-little, Three Canadians. Something new was introduced to capture our imagination and his name was Elmer the Safety Elephant.

After a short film and a chat from someone, who was not Elmer, we were tasked with creating posters to promote safety. Our homework assignments would be entered in a provincial contest, with fabulous prizes for the creator of the best safety poster. 

The someone who was not Elmer brought an example of a winning poster from the previous year. I stared in slack-jawed wonder at the creation balanced on the blackboard ledge in front of us. I have no idea what was on the poster – likely a child’s drawing of an elephant. What bedazzled my brain was its shimmering plastic cover. I knew the Glad Wrap had sealed the deal. I was certain my poster didn’t stand a chance if it was not also shimmery and pristine.

I raced off the school bus with my allotted piece of Bristol board forgetting all six of the safety rules that Elmer espoused. Excitedly I outlined my plan to Mom who immediately put the kibosh on the Glad Wrap – an exotic substance that had only been invented two years before.

We did not use plastic wrap in our home as we had a set of perfectly good Tupperware for our leftovers, purchased recently at Jan Brubacher’s Tupperware party. And, no, we could not afford to buy such an extravagance just to cover a poster. And, by the way, what was I going to draw on my poster?

I would not be deterred by her change of subject. I burst into tears. My poster would never win the contest if my miserly mother would not buy me Glad Wrap. She was firm. It was the Shake-a-Pudd’n argument of 1965 all over again.  I stomped up to my bedroom, creating the first of many creases in the Bristol board, and stewed.

A plan was hatched. While we did not use plastic film in our house, we did use plastic sandwich bags – which were not cling wrap, but a barely opaque pouch with a useless fold and flap to encase one’s Wonder Bread. It didn’t occur to me to sneak into the cupboard and grab a handful of clean sandwich bags. No, I spent the next two weeks until the contest deadline, hoarding my lunch refuse.

The day of the contest arrived and each of us stood at the front of the classroom to share our posters. Most were basic drawings and slogans. The kids who lived in the new subdivision, the kid’s whose dads worked somewhere other than fields and barns, unveiled Bristol board creations wrapped in plastic film. And then there was me.

Pride and a growth spurt had me bursting at the seams. I cannot remember what I drew, but as I unveiled my poster with a flourish, whatever I had drawn, was obscured by a patchwork of greasy, stained, wrinkled rectangles of plastic and layers of Scotch tape. Math-challenged, I hadn’t even collected enough jammy bags to cover the whole poster. There were some bare spots where whatever I had drawn was visible through the mess.

Whereas all my classmate’s creations were unveiled with polite clapping and a “Well done” from the teacher, my poster was greeted with stunned and utter silence. My poster was not among those entered in the provincial contest, nor was it ever displayed in our home like the many artistic creations lining the windowsills in the front room or drawings taped to the refrigerator. My poster was never mentioned again.

To this day, while I do look both ways before crossing the road, I cannot remember any of the other five safety rules that Elmer never forgets.

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