Dowbrigade

As a parent, the Dowbrigade considered himself pretty liberal. For example,
we let ‘em stay up as late as they wanted at night, on the theory that
they’d
cause less trouble during the day if they were dog tired. But when
it came to tattoos, we drew the line.

When they asked for
an explanation, we tried to explain our ongoing goal of getting through
life with as few distinguishing characteristics
marring the nondescript anonimity of our body as possible. When we further explained
that this was intended to make more difficult identification by law enforcement,
various spy services, organized crime and minions of the devil, they
seemed to
get
the point.

We wish we could have pointed them to the following article,
as a prime example of what we were talking about, but it’s too late.
Of course, as soon as they moved from under our roof, the first thing
they
did was get tats.

 

WASHINGTON
— The reputed leader of a violent Honduran gang was using an alias,
but
the
tattoos
on his
body
gave him
away. Further
checking
revealed the man arrested in Texas on Feb. 10 was Ever Anibal Rivera
Paz, known as "El Culiche" — The Tapeworm. Rivera Paz had
escaped Jan. 23 from a Honduran prison where he was being held on charges
of masterminding an armed attack on a bus that killed 28 people, including
six children.

Actually, the true reason we have always had an aversion
to tattoos had to do with the first real tattoo we saw, at the impressionable
age
of 17. It was on the right forearm of our Foster Mother on a kibbutz
a few klicks from the West Bank, and it was a number.

Were we to ever, under extreme duress or temporary madness, forced to
mar our body with a real tattoo, the only design we could see ourself
getting would be that same number, on OUR right forearm.

from the Boston Globe