JimmyCsays: At the juncture of journalism and daily life in KC

The most intriguing local story of the day is that of an insurance company paying the city of Overland Park $107,000 for a glass sculpture that was broken beyond repair after a 5-year-old boy lifted the sculpture off its base and tumbled to the ground while struggling to hold it aloft.

The story is, as we would say in the news business, “a talker.”

With good reason, The Star is playing it front and center on its website. It’s getting thousands of “views,” I’m sure, and most people who click on the story will also take the time to watch the accompanying one minute, 44 second video that captures the incident from start to finish.

The sculpture, named “Aphrodite di Kansas City,” was on loan to Overland Park, where it was on display and for sale at the Tomahawk Ridge Community Center, 119th and Lowell.

As a result of the insurance company payout, the sculptor, Bill Lyons of Kansas City, will be getting $99,000 — the amount he would have gotten had the piece been purchased while it was on display at the community center.

The boy’s mother, Sarah Goodman, told The Star she had not known about the insurance company’s payment and questioned the estimated six-figure value of the artwork. Goodman has speculated that her son was trying to hug the sculpture, although she — and no other adult caretaker — was on hand when the accident occurred.

The soundless video tends to depict the boy making a conscious effort to lift the artwork off its pedestal, perhaps wondering how heavy it was and if he could hold it.

Aphrodite di Kansas City — before her fall

The first thing the video shows is three women sitting on sofas and talking in what appears to be the lobby of the community center. At the back of the room, people can be seen passing by the sculpture. We see one boy walk by the sculpture, stop, reach up and touch the sculpture.

Then, another boy — who turns out to be “the boy” — comes along, accompanied by a man who could be his father. That boy steps up on the slightly elevated base and takes a close look at the sculpture without touching it. In seconds, the man beckons for the boy to come along, and he quickly steps down and follows — but not without the seeds of destruction being planted.

The video fast forwards to where the same boy comes back, this time with another boy who looks to be about the same age. Boy No. 1 — the one briefly introduced himself to Aphrodite earlier — goes straight to the sculpture and again steps up on the base.

The dominoes leading to disaster then fall in quick succession:

— Boy No. 2 moves a few yards off to the right, watching Boy No. 1.

— Boy No. 2 takes a few steps forward but quickly backs away when Boy No. 1 wraps his arms around the sculpture. Boy No. 1 lifts the sculpture off the pedestal, and Boy No. 2 raises his hands to his mouth in anticipation of impending doom.

— In a minor feat of strength, Boy No. 1 manages to hold the sculpture aloft for a few seconds, but then he and the sculpture fall to the ground, with the sculpture possibly grazing his head and shoulder on the descent. Looking stunned and putting a hand to his head, Boy No. 1 quickly gets up.

— Without hesitation, Boy No. 2 backtracks past the scene and down the hallway from which he and Boy No. 1 had come.

— One of the three women sitting on the sofas gets up and goes over to see what happened. Boy No. 1 breaks into a run, toward and down the same hallway his buddy just disappeared into.

— A woman who appears to be a community-center staff member enters the scene from the right, and the woman who had gone to investigate approaches her, recounts what happened and points toward the hallway.

**

Now, I understand Boy No. 1 is (or was) only five when this incident took place May 19. But as I watched the video over and over, I couldn’t help but wonder how W.C. Fields, comic actor from the 1930s and 1940s, would have reacted.

Fields got a lot of mileage out of his avowed antipathy toward children — on stage and screen, at any rate — and he had some great quotes about children. I think if he were alive today and could see the video of “An Occurrence at Tomahawk Ridge,” he would repeat one of his funniest lines about children:

“Children should neither be seen or heard from – ever again.”

Of course, I don’t believe that. Not for a minute. I feel sorry for the family, and I know it was an accident. At the same time, though, Boy No. 1’s instincts sure didn’t measure up to those of Boy No. 2, and the result was an insurance company essentially buying a pricey sculpture.