Pool Permission Slip: Fill & Download for Free

While on break from middle school, I began an informal graphology study. In the summer of 1981, I discovered a great book by an FBI consultant in the local library near the community swimming pool. Sunburned, I would read while listening to Rush and Cheap Trick records through headphones on the public turntables. I began to analyze and then practice my parents' signatures. And then I had a small epiphany: If all someone ever saw was my rendition of my parents' signatures, then mine would appear the legitimate and theirs the copies.Fast forward to 1984: New school, new town, freshman year. During the enrollment process, Dad stepped out for a few minutes. I took the opportunity to complete the forms, signed them with my rendition of his signature, and returned them to the administrative office.For the next four years, all late and absence excuses that came into the school office and checked against Dad's signature were determined legitimate, because I never asked him to sign anything, neither permission slips nor report cards. Life in high school sometimes just worked better when levels of bureaucracy were effectively managed.Edit: Regarding the use of sunburned vs sunburnt: In standard American usage, sunburned is past tense, while sunburnt is present tense (I was sunburned, I am sunburnt). 1981 was a few years ago, thus the use of past tense.

Long ago and far away, I had a GF with two daughters, 11 and 13.I got along really well with the kids. I let them put makeup on me and cut my hair (I had hair in those days) and helped with costumes for little plays they put on.A sleepover had been planned for a holiday weekend. Permission slips obtained, phone numbers of parents, allergies, etc.My GF’s grandmother died in Kingston about a week before the event and the girls were devastated. She was going to call it off as she had to attend the funeral.I volunteered to be the host.It took a bit of convincing, but she agreed.I went with her to personally meet ALL the parents, so they could assess me and judge.It was a pool party and sleepover and I provided my Red Cross life-saving certificate and my St John’s Ambulance trauma training certificate. I was CPR certified.One parent was a cop and he said he would like to run me through the system and I gave him all my personal details and a couple of personal references, one of which was a county court judge.I was asked about rules. No boys, no booze, no bad behaviour, no bikinis and full pyjamas. 11 pm call to their homes. Any transgression and their parents would be asked to pick them up.One family declined, but later relented. I agreed to not smoke for the duration.Twelve girls for roughly 30 hours.They were absolute angels and all of us had fun. The family room had five inflatable mattresses with tons of blankets and pillows. I watched TV in the living room.While they swam I was dressed in a ’20s lifeguard outfit with a pith helmet and an oversized whistle. I bought six disposable cameras for them to share.The two Jewish girls made me promise I wouldn’t tell about them eating hotdogs.Roughly noon, parents came to retrieve their kids.Consequences: three of the girls wanted me to host their birthday parties. They all wanted another pool/sleepover in August. I got a job offer from one guy to work at a youth centre. Told him I hated kids. What I did was a favour for two kids and a lady I cared about, not a calling. Of course, I did none of that and the GF and I parted ways just after Xmas that year.This was all long before the insidious curse of mobile phones. Had they been around in those days I would not even have suggested being in the same house as twelve girls.It wasn’t perfect. One vomit, one sunburn, one bed-wetter. My GF’s kids dealt with the latter.Fourteen years later one of the girls saw me at the food court in the Eaton Centre and she thanked me for a fun memory. I didn’t remember her, but I recalled the event.I try to live by the KISS method: Keep It Simple, Stupid. When you over-think, over-analyse and over-complicate things, it becomes a nightmare for all involved.

What is the worst anti-vax argument you’ve every heard?Well, I’ve never heard a good anti-vax argument, but I sure know which one I found to be the worst. That was my Dad’s.I was a kid a long time ago, right when vaccines were starting to be available. Everyone I knew was getting vaccinated, but my parents refused to have my brother and me vaccinated for anything. Polio, smallpox, measles, rubella, whooping cough…they refused.My brother and I lived with my grandparents every summer and my youngest aunt and uncles were getting their vaccinations. My Granny never said much on the subject, but when she took my youngest aunt and uncle to get a round of vaccinations, she took my brother and me along and got us the polio vaccine and a smallpox inoculation. And, she told us not to tell my parents.That made a huge impression on me because telling us to keep something secret just wasn’t the kind of thing she ever did. During that school year, they arranged to have vaccinations given at school and my folks refused to sign the permission slip. So, after being the only kid in my class who didn’t line up for the shots, I asked my mother why we weren’t getting them. She said it was my father’s issue.Well, asking my Dad anything was a tougher proposition, but eventually, a couple of years later, I did ask him. He wasn’t at all upset about the question, amazingly enough, but his answer just left me stunned.My Dad informed me that vaccines were destroying the gene pool as people were surviving that would have died otherwise. In fact, he also opposed giving insulin to diabetics. He was quite clear about it. People who didn’t survive things like measles shouldn’t survive because they weren’t “fit” enough.Let me be absolutely clear about what he said. If my brother and I couldn’t survive whooping cough or measles or polio, or smallpox that was fine. We weren’t “fit” to live. I was roughly eight years old at the time.So, I’ve heard some doozies from the anti-vaxxing crowd, but that sink or swim, eugenic attitude was the single most appalling one ever.