Uphill both ways.

It never pays to be the nursemaid.  As typically happens with all parents of young and fairly ill children, the stress of constant care eventually depletes the immune system and you soon find yourself bedridden just about the time the kids have fully recovered and want to return to their life of play and leisure.  It would seem that this rather vile stomach ailment has a firm grip on my colon and hasn’t let go for the better part of two days now.  Don’t get me wrong, it is a smashing good way to lose a few vanity pounds, but I could think of better ways of going about it.  At this point, however, my slimming midsection is the only bright spot in my day, so we will just go with it.  This does bring up a very valid point that my wife and I discussed recently that may shed additional light on the French paradox that I have mention so many times in the past.  I believe one of the banner reasons that the French are so thin is that losing weight when measured in kilos is an excrutiating uphill grind that you would never mentally overcome.  Eat healthy, exercise your ass off and the needle on the scale moves just a fraction of an inch.  However, when the kilos do start to melt away, the conversion is a bit scary to consider.  At the rate I am going, I should actually disappear by Christmas.  That’s ok though, because I have a serious culinary binge planned upon my return to our homeland and coming in at fighting weight will do quite nicely.  Being bound to my boudoir as it has the closest toilet in the house has given me plenty of time to mull over the finer points of life and I am sort of stuck with thoughts of my youth.  Perhaps it is the remembrance of childhood illness that has me so reflective.  As my wife will surely attest, I am kind of a baby when it comes to being ill.  She knows by now that I complain very little about sniffles and aches, so when I start vocalizing discomfort things have gone terribly wrong.

It seems these days that I too often resurrect the time honored tradition of reciting to my children all those things that they are blessed with that I simply didn’t have in the “olden” days.  We all know the list.  It changes from generation to generation, but the sentiment is the same.  We somehow turn a blind eye to the fact that our children have more than we did by our own doing.  That is the hope of all parents I think.  For our children to have all the advantages, some material and some not so much, that we suffered without in our youth.  It is different for everyone, but I hold my list very near and dear to my heart.  Unfortunately, our move overseas has removed some of the bullets from my gun so to speak.  It becomes harder and harder these days for me to draw parallels between my youth and theirs.  After all, my parents didn’t uproot me from my pleasant Midwestern life and throw me into a world completely foreign to my own and expect me to somehow make due.  Much to my surprise they are making due, and in fact prospering as we had hoped they would.  That being said, I think my list is worth reciting just for shits (topical) and giggles.  At the very least, it will give my readers a fair insight into my psyche.  Perhaps this will make sense of why I am the way I am and answer my wife’s continual question of “how do you come up with this shit (there’s that word again)”.  Looking back, I would say I had a fairly Ozzy and Harriet rearing.  A product of the traditional American “nuclear family”.  My father an attorney and my mother a full time stay at home parent.  Funny enough, I have managed in my lifetime to follow in both their career footsteps and I can tell you which one is harder.  That is actually the only reason I maintain my license to practice law.  Someday I hope to retire from my domestic duties in favor of a life of leisure as a practicing attorney.  It is a known fact, that in the past, attorney’s made a fine living and I wouldn’t argue that I did without in the slightest.  While perhaps not fed with a golden spoon, it could have been silver indeed.  That being said, however, the lessons taught by the generation before theirs certainly stayed the course with my parents and I was raised with a certain “Northside” flavor.  “Southsiders” were the wealthy in the town where I grew up.  One of the lasting features of a “Northside” raising was a strong sense of individualism.  Fads are passing fancies and are not worth the dollar spent.  That was sort of the name of the game.  It wasn’t that we couldn’t afford what others had, it was that such consumables are of no real value and do not last the test of time.  Still, there wasn’t anything I wanted more.

There is a notable scene in one of my favorite sitcoms from back home during which a man is consoling a young boy because children had made fun of him for being “different”.  The adult character remarks that as kids we spend our whole lives trying to fit in and not be different in anyway.  And then, suddenly, as if overnight we grow into adults and do everything within our power to be “different”.  There is probably a backlash there we could write a college thesis on, but I will resist the temptation and push forward.  Well, despite my desires, I was guided into adulthood at an earlier age.  From early on, I was taught (or forced) to be “different” and to find acceptance in myself outside of material possessions.  This list I kept was a watershed in my life and likely the single reason I have prospered as I have.  I live my life outside the box and on the “road less traveled by” (thanks again Robert Frost) and that truly has made all the difference in the world.  Still, a few of these luxuries would have been nice.  My wife had them, and to this day it is a matter of contention between us.  

So, without further adue . . . The list.  I wouldn’t say that my parents eased me into self-assurance by occasionally throwing me a bone or two.  Instead, they began from the outset turning me into an outsider so that I could teach myself to understand who I am and what is really important in life.  In addition, any acceptance won would be at my own hands for who I was inside rather than what I had.  Tough lesson to learn in Kindergarten.  Sounds familiar though, did I tell you I thew my kids into a sachool where they don’t speak their language?  History has a strange way of repeating itself.  Perhaps my children are participating on a somewhat different playing field, but the lessons to be learned are the same.  More difficult for my children, yes, but the same nonetheless.  Many of you will recall a time from your own youth when it was expected that the youngest school goers would require a mid-day nap.  They seem to have done away with this to a certain degree, but I remember it well.  You see, when it came time to purchase school supplies, most retailers would stock their shelves to the brim with conventional supplies and items would be diligently checked off the list as the first days of school arrived.  For the youngters, one of those supplies was a heavily padded red and blue mat that would fold nicely into a rectangle to be stored in the back of the class room when not in use.  At nap time, we all collected our mats and laid in the aisle next to our desk.  The padding was nice I thought as it added a barrier between you and the hard black and white checked flooring.  I thought . . . I didn’t know.  You see, my parents sort of skipped that part of the school supply aisle and instead outfitted me with a braided cloth rug of the variety show below.  I suppose perhaps the housewares isle was much less busy than the school supply aisles.  I routinely had the shortest nap of the class, as my little tattered rug was always somehow bunched up in a ball at the back of the closet underneath the red and blue mats (also pictured below).

No matter though, after a quick and restless nap it would soon be time for a spot of coloring . . . one of my favorites.  Digging through our charming olden time wooden school desks, we would retrieve our pencil boxes and get to work.  Almost all children would retrieve their little yellow school box with the school bus sticker on top and commence to their artistic endeavors.  That’s right, I said “ALMOST” all children.  You see, I didn’t have that same little plastic art box.  Instead, my supplies were kept in an Antonio and Cleopatra Cigar Box that still smelled of a humidor and had traces of loose tobacco wedged into its corners.  And I wonder why I  have a raging nicotine habit as an adult.  


At the end of the day, there isn’t a better way to return home with your art projects and various worksheets than in a Trapper Keeper.  Well, that’s what I thought anyway.  It was a brilliant multi-foldered affair with a cool Velcro closure that would keep your papers organized in style and comfort.  Unfortunately, I wasn’t so lucky or organized.  Instead, I jammed my papers into the loose binding of a glue bound notebook of paper that had a cartoon cowboy on the front and the script “I’d rather chew than boogie”.  I am beginning to think that my parents may  have owned stock in RJ Reynolds.  I am frankly surprised my backpack didn’t have Joe Camel on the back of it.  

That’s ok, the day of a Kindergartener isn’t all that long.  By lunch time, the teasing would cease and I could seek solice at home to lick my stinging wounds.    Eventually, however, half days give into whole and a new set of challenges arise that I would love to forget.  I was not forced to suffer the woefull menu that was the school lunch when I was a child, but instead, I was treated to a culinary experience that had the school lunchers asking for second helpings.  Next to the trapper keeper, the metal lunch box with pop top thermos was the true object of my affection growing up.  The one pictured below was one of my favorites.  Luke Duke is still my hero.  

What I had to transport my lunch to, and ultimately from, school was a bit less reliable.  My folks outfitted me with a lovely brown Styrofoam number.  It was pretty much shapped like its metal counterparts, but a bit less sturdy in the end.  Styrofoam has a way of losing structural integrity after a few weeks of childish abuse.  By the end of the year, the side of my lunchbox had disentigrated and the contents of my lunch kept falling out before I got to school.  By the time lunch rolled around, I was lucky to find anything at all inside the broken shell.  Really, though, the box wasn’t the most insulting part of this ordeal.  It was the contents that left my cheeks flushed and my belly wanting for a change.  See, most kids had a lovely peanut butter and jelly on white bread, with a grab bag of chips and perhaps a nice fruit rollup for desert.  In the alternative, they would have a Hostess cake that would make my mouth water in envy.  I tell you no lie my friends, I didn’t have the slightest clue what white bread even tasted like until I was an adult.  Instead, I had a ham sandwich (thickly sliced), without condiments because they would spoil , on Roman Meal whole wheat bread.  Instead of chips I would have carrot or celery sticks and a fantastic sliced apple or on special occasions apple sauce for desert.  To wash all of that down, I was not so lucky as to garner a capri-sun, but rather a glass bottle of V8 juice.  Try trading deserts with that lot in your basket.  I know what you are all thinking . . . that lunch doesn’t sound too bad.  Yeah, well you’re all adults.  Try to get your kids to eat that shit and see what their reaction is. 

Eventually you get enough age behind you that your appearance begins to matter and what you wear is noted by your peers.  When I was a kid, there were two notable items that any self respecting kid wouldn’t be caught dead without.  During the winter months, that was a killer pair of moon boots.  A friend of mine had a pair that were solid white until you went out in the cold, at which point a picture of a space ship would magically appear.  Now, I doubt that they kept your feet very warm or dry, but they were cool and at a certain age, that is all that matters.  I was outfitted with a pair of green rubber boots similar to the ones shown below except that mine had a nylon upper with a yellow thinsulate lining poking out the top.  I matched my green rubber booties with a smashing multipocketed London Fog Jacket because my parents thought that it was an acceptable substitute for the Michael Jackson jacket that my friends were wearing.

During the summer months, the humiliation was a bit more severe.  Jams were the name of the game.  They were a long board short affair with wild fluorescent patterns.  Sort of Hawaiian shirt meets Bermuda short.  What I had, were corduroy in finish and just short enough to show the bottom of your ass cheeks when you bent down on the playground to pick up a soccer ball.  My parents believed that a keen match to this would be a madras long sleeve shirt with the sleeves rolled up.  How I wasn’t beating the chicks off of me with a stick I will never know.

This trend of humiliation continued for most of my youth until the age came at which a line must be drawn in the sand.  By High School, my vocal disapproval of my outcast status was heard and I was set free to go my own way.  By this time, however, the damage had been done and the lessons well taught.  While the kid in me wishes things had been different, the truth is that as an adult, I appreciate the self-assurance that these trials provided.  I am comfortable in my skin and don’t give a damn what others think of my appearance.  You will accept me as I am or you can go to hell for all I care.  This is indeed a trait I hope to pass on to my kids, however, I don’t think I will subject them to booty shorts and V8 juice to get them there.  That is my cross to bear.  I hope this has been informative and has given new insight why I am the way I am.  At the very least, I hope it is a lesson to all you parents out there . . . Your children will forgive, they just won’t EVER forget.  Take care.  R