Certainly standards of living have improved between our childhood days and today (unless your name is Elizabeth O'bagy and your childhood was last week.) So maybe there is a universal tendency for us to see our past as poorer because it actually was. Still, with the damned-near universality of depictions of childhood years as meager in literature and films...if it were purely a reflection of higher overall standards of living today, there would be some variation here, some riches-to-rags stories.
So...were you a Kaboom kid, or an Applejacks richie-rich? I'll start:
Our family of six children and two parents lived in a three-bedroom, one-bath house. Multiple-bathroom houses were unheard-of, to us, something that rich people somewhere might own. We had one family car, a Ford Maverick, and if we all had to go somewhere, we piled on top of one another. Only one parent worked. For Christmas, we had a limit of $25 (in 1975 dollars), and we'd choose items from the Sears & Roebuck catalog totaling that amount. (I distinctly remember the pages of toys I'd avoid, where they had pricey items, with just one toy costing $50, or $100. I think they even had a few items at $150 -- remote control airplanes and whatnot.) No one in my family (parents, grandparents, siblings, aunts and uncles, even cousins) had ever graduated from university (although a couple of them had briefly attended). At 11, I started spending summers washing dishes for forty hours per week in a restaurant our parents had just purchased (with some deep leveraging) for $1 per hour. I purchased my own first bicycle with my earnings (and a few years later, the awesome Chess Challenger VII.)
Unburden yourself with your own cathartic tales of woe in the comments.
132 comments:
We drank Sanalac powdered milk and smuggled colored margarine into Wisconsin when I was kid. That's how deprived I was.
My mother set a good example by going back to school in 1968 to get a 2-year associate's degree. But yes, I too was the first one to attend a university in my family.
3 bedrooms, 2 bath ranch. White shag carpeting.
We were rich with our Apple Jacks and Ho-Hos!
Lucky enough to have 2 cars, but my dad's Toyota Corolla would quit running if it rained too hard because the wheel wells were not sealed and you could get water into the engine from them.
Mom drove a 1970 Olds Cutlass which in retrospect was a kick-ass car.
4 bedroom house, 4 kids and a grandmother and the two parents.
Which sounds not bad, except that until the basement was remodeled to include a room for brother, we three girls had to share a room.
Which wasn't that bad either, except that this took place when I (youngest in family) was a baby and I didn't sleep well at night. So eldest sister complained that she couldn't sleep due to my crying. So Mom called the pediatrician, who prescribed Phenobarbital as a sleep aid for me.
True story. Things were different then. There was also all of the leaded gas fumes as we sat for hours on the Long Island Expressway going to visit relativeson the weekends. Still makes me carsick just thinking about it. And that brings back the taste of Dramamine, which made me sick before the car ride even had a chance to do it.
It's not impoverishment that sticks in my mind so much (though there were some very lean years) but just the "what the hell were they thinking?" and "how did we survive?" balanced by "well, we were better off not worrying about these things so much."
The average family on my block of three bedroom, 1.5 baths, 1300sf semi-detached twin homes had 4-5 kids plus a Mom and a Dad. Very few of the Moms worked. Grade schools were 3 blocks away [parochial] and 5 blocks away [public].
Which sounds not bad, except that until the basement was remodeled to include a room for brother, we three girls had to share a room.
My dad's family had 8 kids in a two bedroom house. The kids all sleep in an unfinished attic/second story -- four boys and four girls. A large curtain served as a wall dividing the sexes.
The bad news was Dad was a drunk.
The good news was Mom worked and so did her two brothers and her sister.
We didn't do much in the way of vacations.
A couple of times to Ocean city (NJ) and once to /wildwood Crest down't the Jersey Shore was it.
My dad's family had 8 kids in a two bedroom house. The kids all sleep in an unfinished attic/second story -- four boys and four girls. A large curtain served as a wall dividing the sexes.
My parents both grew up in unusually small (for the times) families, but I've been working on our genealogy lately and reflecting on the families with 6-8 kids plus other relatives and/or boarders, living in tiny apartment buildings or row houses in Brooklyn and Queens. I really can't imagine living like that.
And then there was my great grandmother who came across the Atlantic in steerage while she was 7 or 8 months pregnant, with a five year old in tow.
Edutcher- I just got back this morning from 2 wks vacation in Ocean City- hope I hit the Powerball soon so I can retire somewhere like that!
I remember from my youth in Northern 'Bammy having my parents & their friends complain about the cost of food. Maybe because of larger families to feed?
Now, I never hear folks complain about the cost of food, unless I read in the newspaper of really poor families living in a ghetto "food desert", and I live in an area (DC) with very high food prices.
I was born in a shotgun shack in the middle of Illinois cornfield... but it really didn't hurt me none.
Members of my family routinely died of poverty related disease well into the 60s. One of my cousins died from rheumatic fever contracted by living in an unheated shack through an Illinois winter.
My family had fun. We live outdoors as much as possible. All three of my sisters shared one bedroom. As the only son, I got my own. Occasionally, when I go home, I visit our house on the edge of town and I'm amazed at how small it was.
Our lives were rough and tumble. Fighting and playing in the dirt was viewed as just something kids did, and we did it all the time. My dad bought old bicycles (or scrounged them from the dump) and repaired and repainted them for us. Our little town was so safe that the kids disappeared out onto the roads and into the cornfields for the entire day. The rule was that you stayed without shouting distance so that Mom could call you to dinner.
I was pretty surprised to discover, when I started college in 1966 at the U of IL, that I was the bearer of white privilege and probably a member of the Klan. My humanities professors told me so!
Born in '44 we lived in the spare 2nd story bedroom of my grandparents house on Van Buran St for a couple of years, then moved to a rental house on Division St for a year before getting Univ housing which was an end apt (30A) in old tar-paper WW II Army barracks converted into three 2-bed, 1 ba (metal shower only) apts apiece with kerosene stoves for heat. The middle apts were roomier but had fewer windows which made them much hotter in the un air-conditioned summer. Mother planted climbing morning-glories on strings covering the kitchen and living-room windows (end side) to keep out the sun's heat. We finally moved into our "dream" home in 1951--a FLW custom-designed 2 bed-room, 1 and 1/2 bath ranch which we built and furnished totally new compliments of the GI Bill and courtesy of my grandmother's estate when she died. I can remember going with my parents to the Furniture Mart in Chicago to pick out the entire household of new furniture and to the Louisville carpet mills to pick out the carpet. The first night we spent in our new home--a turn-key operation was Christmas Eve of 1951. Mother said: "If I die tonight, I'll die happy."
God works in mysterious ways. She died in her dream home in a tragic fall in 1992 just as she and Dad were reluctantly moving into a retirement condo with less maint costs.
#"Van BurEn"--see April Apple, Barbancourt is doing its job--if there ain't a typo a post I ain't drinkin' enough..
My mother gave me my first bike when i was five. My father sold it some years later.
Attitudes have certainly changed. I cannot imagine this happening now.
Our town dump custodian lived at the dump in a shelter constructed out of a few 2 x 4s supporting walls and ceiling formed from corrugated sheets of steel. Garbage was filled in around the sides and on the top for stability and (I guess) insulation.
The custodian was a one armed guy. I suspect he lost his arm in WWII.
When I asked my dad why the custodian lived that way he told me that I should respect the guy because he was self-sufficient and earning his own keep.
@ST: If people had had their struthers, they would have helped that guy.
I guess I should add that I was an only child, so that was a blessing (for me) in itself. We didn't take a vacation until 1960 (a 6000 mi 3 month trip touring the West as my parents believed in living well every day on the salaries of two teachers. We always ate the best cuts of meat and Mom & Dad would be called "clothes-horses" today. Dad traded in for a new car every other year (Mom's car) plus we (he) had a used 2nd car which he drove to work on campus. That's where the money went--but then we didn't take family vacations as Dad usually taught summer-school.
@ El Pollo Raylan
Plenty of people in my home town lived in circumstances that were as bad as the custodian of the dump.
We were rich - my parents had two cars, a Kaiser Traveler (later sold for $100) and an Austin Somerset - which ran occasionally.
We got a television in the early '50s - it had a 5" screen and the case was about 4' deep - sumbitch emitted more radiation than a frickin' x-ray machine.
In '55 we moved to a big house - 1-1/2 bathrooms, 3 bedrooms (4 boys, two parents, it worked out) all on a 3/4 acre lot, which I started mowing with a power mower when I was 7 years old. The thinking was if a kid got chopped up in some machinery that would be one less mouth to feed.
We had a victory garden. Compost heap. Eventually my father, through a work connection, bought a '57 Ford two door post sedan. We were livin' large.
A rich guy who lived on the hill had a color tv in 1960. Lurid color. In the never ending quest to keep up with the Joneses, we got a color tv in '67 or '68 - a Heathkit which a neighbor put together for us.
I moved away and now only two of us are still alive. Good times.
Oh yeah, we knew what poverty was - I went to school with share cropper's children and the children of migrant workers. My 6th teacher collected used toys and for a month or so we refurbished them in the classroom then distributed them at Christmas time to families that were worse off than average.
He was a great teacher, taught me much beyond mere school work. He drove used Packards, as Packard had recently gone out of business and he could pick them up used for a song. He built all the furniture in his house.
Plus, his daughter was cute as a button. But that's neither here nor there.
So, by comparison, we knew that while we might want more stuff, there were plenty of people who were much worse off than we were. Kept things in perspective, for sure.
We were hard-working ghetto, which looks like middle class.
We started out dirt poor in a rat infested condemned house, but after Mom got her welding job next to my Dad who taught welding, we just started thriving. Mom divorced Dad for drinking too much, but he still stayed close, and I saw him every week. Then Mom bought a house on her own. She remarried and we started getting a new car every few years and going on annual vacations to the Jersey Shore. I never felt poor when we were, but eventually felt rich, when we reached middle class. Many of my friends were in actual poverty in a generally poor rust belt town. The difference for my family was having two earners. Many people in my extended family still had outhouses in the 70s - real hillbillies.
I think I had the richest possible childhood anyone could hope for. It was jam packed with freedom, independence, adventure and fun. Frankly, I can't believe I survived it. We were fearless and downright suicidal by todays over-protective standards. A very lucky kid.
For breakfast Dad would have two raw eggs in a glass of beer every morning. His favorite meal was cow brains fried in onions, which none of the rest of us ever asked to share. We ate a lot of ghetto German fare. which I hated.
I wouldn't call us "ghetto" - that's too urban. We were something else, something strange and funky.
My parents both lived on farms in Lodi Wisconsin.
They had some sort of pumps for water, no electricity and outdoor toilets. Both my mom's older sister got pregnant and married brother's in Deforest. They remained married until each brother died. They have two huge farms and are filthy rich.
My home in Waunakee was 1100 square feet. Two bedrooms with three kids. My dad was a mechanic and my mom worked part time at Central Retard Center in Madison. My dad ended up owning a road construction company and having 6 homes (currently) but now looking to downsize. They are going up to Bruce Wisconsin on Monday to meet with a Real Estate broker to sell his hunting lodge with 250 acres on the Mighty Chippewa. He bought it for like $10.00 an acre. Now it is worth $2000 an acre. In the winter the road to the lodge stopped and you had to snowmobile a mile to get there. My dad caught on fire at the lodge and my sister pulled a play pigeon and took out his eye. My parents never buy anything and when they did buy things it was with cash. My dad never had a credit card. They like to shop at Goodwill.
hugs please.
tits.
tits
My mom's sisters got pregnant at 13 and 14 and never finished high school. Both their first kids were tards and only lived to be about 30. Each of them had 11 kids.
My dad's parents lived in the same shack all their lives. They had 8 kids. When my grandmother died she had over a million bucks in the bank.
My one sister is like my parents and never spends any money.
I don't have a pot to piss in..except my home.
Applejacks richie-rich here. But blessedly spared the continual rain of gifts that commodify life. Probably too protected but at least not spoiled rotten like those many other kids I knew who expected to be gifted at the drop of a hat.
This cereal proves it. You're freaks and I'm normal.
A few years ago I bought a box of Lucky Charms to see if they really are magically delicious. A single spoonful, spit out, alarms go off and the whole box is tossed. One teaspoon. Lucky Charms, Fruit Loops, and all of those types are crimes against children. Fail.
I only ever got Applejacks when we went camping. My brother and I always fought over the one they put in the single serving six pacs.
What ever happened to Fiona here at CH? She had an opinion about Lucky Charms.
My childhood was airplanes all around. Noisy sumnabitches, I'm used to that. Grandmother visited us once on base at Barksdale and it drove her nuts. She had to leave.
One time I was sitting there having a hamburger in a place that looks like a restaurant in Mayberry and outside the window airmen are testing a turbine. It is not so close, for safety of course, but the whole restaurant is situated on the airfield to exploit the view of airport activities at ground level, a Mayberry RFD cafe with USAF jets roaring outside.
The flame burns tight and blue, then orange then broad, then tight again, then white, then disappears, then blue, then orange, and the flame changes colors all over the place, the shape of the flame changes and the roaring sound goes louder and louder then backs off. Those guys really do seem to have fun straining the engine through its test cycles. And there is a huge curved metal shield behind the flame to protect the space behind the test.
Sitting on the red vinyl restaurant bench my feet do not reach the floor, and a jet turbine is tested outside the window. That crystal clear memory is of two separate air strips, the second time, I sat there thinking, "That jet testing again. Man, that looks hot out there." And that scene is an emotion in me, and it strikes me as odd now, more of those without the turbines testing outside. My whole childhood was airports.
And cars.
Oddly, even beyond childhood. It's like they cannot be avoided. At 20 years old and not living at home for three years so no reason to be around air bases or airports, a deaf friend introduced me to another of his friends and the next thing I know the two of us are flying to Cheyenne in a tiny Cessna 172 that doesn't even have retractible landing gear, fixed landing gear on that airplane, built-in drag. It's like driving with one foot on the brake. Where we had lunch. Hamburgers again. At the airstrip cafe. Again. Sitting in a red vinyl booth, again, looking outside at the activities on their short runway.
That was my childhood. I have two brothers and two sisters. Without contradicting me, they would describe their experience entirely differently if you asked them.
I have other descriptions too, but they do not have anything to do with economics or cereal or depth of depredation. That cereal is really bad, any parent should know that, but the cereals named that are supposedly attractive are sickening too. Peach crumble for breakfast every morning, bad as that is, would be an improvement in nutrition.
We were middle class, but struggled to be there. My mother always worked because my father drank away his paycheck. I remember he once gave away the family at in a bar one night. They separated when I was about ten and I took care of my little sister after school. We were latch key kids. My mother didn't buy a lot of packaged foods or sodas because she said they were too expensive.
But we had bikes and books - all the really important stuff. I baby sat a lot and used the money for clothes and things I wanted.
My sister and I were the first in our family to go to college.
I find reading about others childhood experiences really interesting. Thanks for a great post.
My grandfather made millions in manufacturing and oil. My mother lived off a small trust he provided and never worked. So we could never be in financial trouble, but we never had much money. We lived mostly on breakfast cereal, PBJ, spaghetti, hamburgers and fast food takeout. When I left for college I was on my own.
My mother spent her time being unhappy and attempted suicide every couple years. I saw my father only twice after she divorced him when I was six. She remarried a glamorous junkie musician psychopath who made life hell for everyone. She eventually had to divorce him then she got addicted to a prescription speed/barb combo and literally lost her mind.
Everything kept getting worse. Four suicides, incest, a murder, lots of drugs, alcohol, craziness, therapy, and rehab.
Somehow I came out of all that relatively OK. I was the only one.
Fiona opened her blog back for comments and is busy moderating them and berating straight men, conservatives and religious people as usual.
These comments are great. Glimpses into your psyches.
Chip, that moment you describe in the diner -- that's how I recall my childhood, in little moments like that. As some memories fade, I can really only remember remembering them -- like a copy of a copy. But a few small moments, most pretty trivial and random, remain vivid.
I am 61 years and don't think I ever tried Lucky Charms and am sure I never hear of Kabooms til I read about it on Ace the other day.
My parents were the first an only ones of their sibs who went to college [Dad was one of ten and Mom was one of six]. Mom got a scholarship to Penn and became a public school teacher.
And who is Fiona?
Chip Ahoy wrote:
"That was my childhood. I have two brothers and two sisters. Without contradicting me, they would describe their experience entirely differently if you asked them."
Well written and crystal clear Chip but I have the opposite experience- we have an older sister who was there with us but tells stories today that leave us thinking we weren't.
And who is Fiona?
fionamcgee, an early commenter at Lem's, now de-funked.
Score Update: Red Sox 13, Yanks 9. Bottom of the ninth.
You are looking at a sweep Trooper.
(I hope I haven't jinxed it)
OT: Kenny Guiton is a better QB than Braxton Miller.
"Smith Brothers Cough Drops"
Something Tim McCarver mentioned in the context of the look of the Sox's beards.
I looked It up, and, it appears to me that McCarver left out something from the name.
See if you can tell what he left out.
Controversy.
We lived in 2-br government apartments until I was 12 and my parents had a house constructed. If you stretch your hand out, you can imagine the town - built on the mesas stretching east toward the Sangre de Christos, with canyons between them. Those were our places; we kids would get home from school, grab a home-made slingshot, and drop down into the canyons, emerging only at dinner.
We ate shredded wheat and raisin bran, eggs and bacon. Except my brother, the slugabed, who claimed never to know bacon existed until I went to college, and he could at last wander to the breakfast table and find the bacon I was no longer there to pre-eat. My mother was a sadist - you could not have desert unless you had cleaned your plate. She would make chocolate cake only on those nights when she had made something particularly loathsome like lima beans or chicken cacciatore, something that exuded vile streams and tentacles of liquid corruption out to defile the rest of your dinner; and you would have to gag that shit down and quell your reverse peristaltic earthquakes while the cake sat on the counter, with frosting a full inch thick.
At 14, I would get home from school, eat a quart of ice-cream so quickly I got a headache, and start preparing my mulishly blank and vacuous face for after dinner when she would swear she had some ice cream around here, but it seemed to be gone; strap my 1903A3 over my shoulder, stuff a handful of .30-06 150-grain shells in my pocket, and head out to the end of the mesa to hunt deer. It was a kindler, gentler time.
Multiple-bathroom houses were unheard-of
I hate to ask you to reveal anything you're uncomfortable with, but where and in particular when was this? We were fairly poor (not dirt poor, but buying a book was out of the question: libraries only) when I was young, largely because my parents got married out of high school and had two kids by the time they were 21. But even so we had places fairly quickly that had two bathrooms.
Terrible skimming skills, I see it was 75.
Maybe because I lived in Phoenix then. There were no old homes.
Obligatory
I was reading a Florence King op-ed one day in which she declared poor white trash drank evaporated milk in their coffee. I thought we were smarter and had better taste than other people because we did that. My bad.
I was the youngest, so thank God I don't remember our poorest times, which were the first couple of years of my life. My parents had bought a house 10 miles out from town. The fall before I was born they moved in. The well ran dry and our car's engine blew. My dad hitch-hiked back and forth to work. They carried milk jugs of water from the fire station to our house.
One day, my dad had caught a ride with a guy, and to thank him, he invited the guy in for dinner. All we had to eat was potatoes. My sisters' recollection of that moment is chilling--you can smell the poverty while they're talking. Our condition improved from those couple of hellatious years, but we were not well off by any US standard.
We lived in a 32 foot trailer and moved constantly. I mean CONSTANTLY. Sometimes 6 or more times in a year. Going to school was rather challenging. This trailer lifestyle was by choice since my parents, both of them, were printers by trade and could pull a traveling card with the union. They could then go from town to town and substitute for the permanent employees in the papers. The Toledo Blade, San Francisco Chronicle, New Orleans Picayune etc etc etc etc. It is pretty much a blur and I have very little recollection of school or of ever having any friends until I was in the 5th grade when we did stop being trailer trash :-)
We were actually pretty well off for those days, even though my brother and I had no clue, since both parents were making rather good wages. We went to Mexico annually to visit with my Grandmother and other aunts and uncles. They were very well off and had an apartment in Mexico City, a home in Taxco and another in Tequisquiapan.
When my mother finally put her foot down and insisted we stop traveling, we settled in a nice area of the South Bay Area, Calif. In the rural area where my friends were the sons and daughters of cattle ranchers and orchard owners. We actually had a pretty good life and bought new cars quite often. I distinctly do remember the salmon pink Edsel that my mother insisted on buying when we lived in Pasco Washington. We felt very cool and special driving around in it!!!
No Kaboom for us for breakfast. Cheerios and Frosted Flakes. Milk with Chocolate Nestle's Quick mixed into it. Lots of other adventurous food too for the times 50's and 60's, since my Dad is quite the 'foodie' and a darned good gourmet cook. I also remember having escargot in a fancy restaurant in Mexico City. They were very good and I ate the whole plate. I was 7 and yes....I did know that they were snails.
We were blue collar but ate well and the 2 week vacation @ the shore were always memorable. Kids remember vacations. They need not be fancy. We rented cheap cottages. One year my old man got a free week but we had to paint the exterior of the cottage. He made it fun and taught us the value of work and family @ the same time.
Lem, I've been watching NESN the last few nights. Eckersley sucks as an announcer.
Smith Brothers -heh - I saw a couple Hispanic guys in a truck the other day that said "Smith Brothers Electricians". I asked them "I thought you guys were in the cough drop business" and they looked at me like I was nuts.
This is so weird.
During work, I convinced myself to share something pleasant that's happening to me. Pleasant and embarrassing at he same time.
So I come home, finish watching the game, I sit down to write, I write what I think the title should be.
That's it.
The idea now seems terrible.
It's only embarrassing if I share it.
The original family car was a 1950 Ford 2-door sedan, bought new. It may have had a color when it was a baby, but by the time I was learning in it, it was a sort of fuscous smudge. It would - if you popped the clutch and speedshifted it mercilessly - turn 37 in the quarter. There were friends on the highschool track team who could give it real competition. Then was a 55 plymouth wagon with overdrive. Its lowest point was the exhaust manifold, so when you took it crashing around the woods, you returned to town with the engine murmurring "Lub-dub, lug-dub." Fortunately my father had done this almost as often as I had, proving that it could happen to anybody (who treated it like a Jeep), so I was not penalized unduly for smashing it up. In the intervals when the manifold was broken, I established that if you let it back off hard in second with the ignition off, when you switched it back on, you unleashed a shattering blast and a flattened ball of orange flame burst from beneath it. Last was a 1963 Buick LeSabre, which I was not allowed to drive very much. When I did I attempted to achieve deep levels of irresponsibility. The Dynaflow was capable of 70 in L, > 100 in D. The driver, though he strove mightily, was never quite capable (in that car, at least) of seducing Laura W.
Both my grandfathers were convinced that if you wanted real quality in a unit, Real Quality, there was one brand and only one: Oldsmobile. In the coolest of these I was standing up on the floor in the back seat - if there were seat belts then, a fact of which I am uncertain, we didn't use them; we draped ourselves like laundry over the front seat, bounced around the back seat and slept on the back window ledge. I was hanging over my grandfather's shoulder. Now if you had a Rocket 88, you did not drive like a pussy. I noticed that when the car surged powerfully forward, the speedometer was miraculously green until 35, turned yellow from 35 to 50, and then turned red. I asked and asked until he told me, "You ain't seen nothing. Not nothing. Wait'll I run this unit up ... to 90!" I begged him to do it (he refused) or at least to tell me what would happen then, and he said, very seriously, "Then, boy, she begins singing 'Nearer My God to Thee.' Just like a choir of angels, boy."
I was just speaking with my mom about their "partying ways" last night.
On Saturday's in the fall they would go with the VP of the local bank to Badger games. This was when my dad was starting his construction company. The VP paid for the entire day.
It started with drinks in some converted barn at 9 in the morning. Then onto the Hofbrau Haus for brunch and more drinks. Next they went to the game and each had little bottles of brandy. Next dinner.
Bowling started at 9 but before bowling two drinkies. Then 3 drinks at the Waun-A-Bowl.
Brandy Seven was their drink of choice, natch.
They would be up at 6 the next day.
Come-on pollo. Admit it. you just wanted to have an excuse to say defunct.
Oh nooo.
Did I say de-funked before?
One of my favorite breakfast food stories involves my son.
Our extended family came to our town for Thanksgiving one year and my sister, wanting to contribute to the overalk grocery load for the week, brought some Pop Tarts. My son was then five and had never tried them, and naturally took to them like a dog to its vomit (wait, am I mixing metaphirs?) well, you get the idea.
So, we have a fabulous feast on Thanksgiving Day, and all the yummy leftovers through the weekend, and we all say goodbye and part ways.
Son goes back to school on Monday and teacher asks everyone to draw a picture and tell about their favorite food from Thanksgiving. Yup, he draws a Pop Tart.
"I was just speaking with my mom about their "partying ways" last night."
You are all over he place titus.
@Lem: "De-funked" has some nice German double entendre which only I get. It would mean de-sparked or extinguished. That is how seriously ill I am when it comes to word play and such.
Why does Trooper York care so much about the Althouse blog? Why should he mention it here? Could it be possible that he only rouses himself from his food stupor to try to cause disention and controversy? Why doesn't he leave Althouse alone and mind his own business?
And I did mean distension. All those slices of pizza....
I found this upstairs on the kitchen counter... I'm having some.
It's really good.
You are not alone. pollo
With my Spanish I hear all kinds of word play. I have to be in some kind of mood for the silliness to come forth though. I cant quite predict it.
Like the last night the Boston bombers where loose with the police chasing them. I took to top, ended up going to sleep around 3 or 4 am.
I was in a trance or something.
If you ask me now what I was talking about... I have no recollection. other than I was following the news and playing/riffing off what they were saying. it was clean pleasure.
Kaboom! All that distension .
Wasn't there a rag named kaboom?
Interesting - a cereal and a cleanser with the same name.
funny dub of billy mays right there.
Titus said...
My mom's sisters got pregnant at 13 and 14 and never finished high school. Both their first kids were tards and only lived to be about 30. Each of them had 11 kids.
Are there any "tards" in your immediate family?
@AJ: I must have powers to conjure or something...
No tales of woe from me. A leave it to Beaver childhood, 70s style. No Cleaver Mansion, just a 3 bd. 1.5 bathroom house. And Dad never wore a suit or Mom pearls. But everything else was pretty similar.
Of course, the annual vacation was a trip to the nearest national park. One of the small town "rich kids" went to Hawaii and/or Mexico every year for a week, and was thought to be a Millionaire.
One joy of childhood was 'Captain Crunch' and Saturday AM cartoons. Never heard of "Kaboom". 'Cocoa Puffs' were good too.
Simon is the Hank Kingsley Jr. of commenters; the best ever in a crowded medium.
Be careful Sir as your brilliance can intimidate shits AND decent folks.
I grew up 15 miles from Titus. I, with my very own eyes, have seen Suzy the most Duck.
I remember at the trap club in my hometown, because of The Debilitating Cold, I developed the habit of grasping a hot light bulb with m bare 13 ear old hands in order to warm them between rounds when inside the trap house, loading the machine.
Fuck that cold.
The cold stole my "y's" all those ears ago and I hate them (that damn letter and the The Cold) for it.
I had the potential to use "y's" like --others whom are not me--ain't never even seen o.
I didn't mention anybody specifically. Just made an allusion in passing that was sniffed out by the blood hound nose of the guilty.
Who knew massive box wine consumption could so improve your sense of smell?
@ Trooper Pork,
I am not Althouse. I am not Meade. Why don't you get a life and leave those two people alone?
I remember cooking my own oatmeal before going to school. Cream of wheat was big around my house, too. The specks were weevils. More protein for us.
We also had box cereal - my father preferred Muffets, long gone from the market here. We had Wheaties and Rice Krispies and shredded wheat, too. No sugary cereal for us.
My neighbor's mother brought home an off brand Cheerio clone - OKs cereal - made by Kellogg's. Had a Scotsman named Big Otis as their mascot. So, in addition to Os, there were Ks. That might be part of the reason that cereal failed.
"Of any of several colors averaging a brownish-gray."
This is bodily function mixture ala "Blurrrrrred Lns."
And fuscous.
NQUB wrote: I grew up 15 miles from Titus. I, with my very own eyes, have seen Suzy the most Duck.
Which town? I grew up in Middleton.
Sixty: Cream Of Wheat sounds rich in gluten.
fionamcgee said...
@ Trooper Pork,
I am not Althouse. I am not Meade.
I'd like to buy a vowel. An "I" please.
Tom Wopat from The Dukes of Hazard was raised in Lodi.
The Dukes of Hazard Titus, meaning tort Heaven. Allowing Hazard to define has definitely cost all but attorneys almost everything.
I feel for you.
Just North of Middleton on Hwy. 12. Bout twenty miles North. Culver's and Mueller's started there. Great, great people.
@NQUB: I know that area. I used to bike to DL on the small roads east of 12 and then over to the Merrimac Ferry. I also went to Fish Lake quite a bit. It was a favorite SCUBA destination.
@NQUB: I also had an aunt who lived in a trailer just outside of Sauk City.
Mmmmmm....Cream of Wheat. I still love that for breakfast. I usually throw in a handful of raisens, or craisens or dried cherries. Add a good tbsp of butter and cream with some raw sugar. Heaven.
Do you know that you can treat Cream of Wheat, which is really just semolina, the same way as polenta. Cook it up with some butter and salt in it. Pour it into a shallow pan and let set until firm. I put it overnight into the fridge. Next day cut it into squares or other shapes and sautee/fry in butter and serve with grated Parmesan cheese.
@ Sixty. I keep the dry stuff in the freezer to minimize the weevils. They are still there....just dormant. Same thing for cornmeal, polenta, flour and other dried types of ingredients that go weevily.
@NQUB: Whatever became of this place?
I am not Althouse. I am not Meade. Why don't you get a life and leave those two people alone?
Strange. If "fiona" is not either one of those, then why did SHE hear the internet dog whistle and show up? Trooper alluded but did not name names. If fiona makes the connection between them and her/itself from a once in a month mention of her/its name....well, that does seem a tad coincidental.
Lurking is understandable, but surely she/it has something of substance to offer in some of the other threads besides discussing those other people, who shall not be mentioned because evidently the dog whistle is still being listened for.
Wow. I was across from J. Elway getting gas three days ago, now this in this large world.
I remember The Firehouse on Water Street served me "kitty cocktails" of 7-Up and grenadine. I don't remember the ballroom.
I have heard Sauk Prairie had a reputation for drinking large quantities of beverages containing alcohol.
Only drunken townies and me like this fact though, as history is seemingly not on our side.
Get me one to please....
Get me one, too please.
@DBQ: I mentioned Fiona first as a riff on Lucky Charms, linking an old chirbit.
Maybe Fiona has a google alert on fiona.
Seems like a huge bunch of data to sort though.
Get me one too, please.
Good to hear some of the backstory of people on here whom I like and admire. I knew there was a reason I loved guys like Bag-o and Shouting T.
Six people in a 5-room railroad flat where you had to walk thru every room. Always seemed normal to me but not to my 2 older sibs. Rough and tough neighborhood, lots of dead teens and young adults aside from the VN war. More there too. Prison for some. Bad shit does constellate 'round dysfunction.
A'int say'n more than that.
The ferry had to stop for me last year.
Dad didn't let me take the boat out this year.
I would give a testicle in twenty years, enduring that pain, for this not to be true.
I fucked up.
here is the chocolate I was talking about.
Maybe Fiona has a google alert on fiona.
Why would anyone bother to do that? I mean, really....who would care if someone dropped your fictional name in an anonymous internet comment session?
Serious question. Why?
It's a good question, DBQ. I've only heard of one or two other people who had google alerts on their (real) names.
Now I'd like to buy another vowel: "a" (miniscule)
When my misdiagnosis of celiac sprue was corrected I bought a box of Cream of Wheat to see if it was at all as I remembered it. I don't think I was able to finish the whole box. It seemed to be a library paste analogue.
My old man would put raisins in the cooked cereal "Hey boy, you want flies in yours?"
Why, but of course father, thank you for your thoughtfulness and attention.
Green Acres is the best. Packed 7 nights a week with Ted there seemingly 8 days a week.
I have never been in an establishment better than Green Acres, right next to Snuffy's Campgroud over the bridge.
I had salmon exquisite, and simply unmatched dedication to detail from the ever-present owner across the board regarding the facilitators.
I got an autograph of Paul Greuber in grade school.
I used to like my Cream of Wheat with lumps.
Haven't had any in a long time but as an adult I find it too bland, just like plain grits.
Now Cream of Wheat with bacon and maple syrup is pretty good.
And grits with bacon and cheese. Or with grillades, or shrimp.
Better yet, bacon and eggs, feed the grits to the livestock, just sayin'...
The trick with Cream of Wheat is to not ever get the instant kind.
Or get Malt-o-Meal.
Cream of Wheat is my favorite cereal. It's cousin is corn meal mush. Almost as yummy.
I used to make corn meal mush for the kids and put blueberries in it. They loved it. One day I when my in-laws were visiting, I asked my f-i-l if wanted to share in the feast of corn meal mush. He told me that he had eaten his share in life and didn't intend to eat any more.
He was a poor preacher's kid. They ate corn meal mush three meals a day a lot. One Christmas he and his sister each got an orange and they got a rubber ball to share. My m-i-l was even poorer than he was.
The first, in a bowl, a layer of good cheddar cheese, Tillamook my choice nowadays. Then Grits, of white corn, course ground. Then two or more runny fried eggs. Slice and dice it, mix it all up. Bacon on the side.
There is a novella, there, in all your posts here.
Mine would be too boring, non exceptional, though I do remember having to use baking soda for toothpaste when funds were short. Along with much else which I would never write here.
I thought the whole point of Creme of Wheat was to eat lots of milk, fruit, cinnamon, and sugar.
Never could understand the appeal of grits though.
Green Acres is the best. Packed 7 nights a week with Ted there seemingly 8 days a week.
I can picture that rustic venue. It had a different name when I used to visit Sauk City. I've never been in there and can't recall what it was called then though. Perhaps someone can help.
Jeez. I am quite a bit different from most people here. That didn't occur to me. Most of my friends come from odd backgrounds too. I guess that's part of how friendship works.
Then again, my plan wasn't to turn conservative in middle age.
Never could understand the appeal of grits though.
Me neither, though I grew up in the South. Southerners are proud that they like their grits and Northerners don't.
The first time I had grits I thought they were Cream of Wheat.
They might have tasted better if I hadn't already put in milk and sugar.
Grits are an acquired taste, I suppose. Like Scotch, or anchovies, or caviar. Though for many in the South, at a certain time, they were the difference between going to sleep hungry or seemingly full.
So...were you a Kaboom kid, or an Applejacks richie-rich?
Neither.
Boo Berry was also favored.
But cereal was eagerly eschewed for a bird's nest.
I'm not crazy about Polenta either.
The best use of corn is Bourbon.
There were 13 kids at home, but we always had enough. I was never aware of the many times my parents were afraid. Money problems, local crime, hippie riots (we were in Chicago in '68).
I never knew that some people never wore hand-me-downs, or bought brand name cereal. I suppose we were low income, but that's a lotta kids to feed.
God bless my parents. They gave us everything they had, every day. I see my Mom standing in the kitchen, smoking, head cradling a phone, creating meals for us over and over and over, no matter how she felt.
We had everything we needed, in them.
We ate cream of wheat on a plate, sprinkled with sugar. As it cooled it would slightly congeal, and we'd go around the edge with the spoon.
Fond memories of chocolate Moto-meal.
Know what I love? Milk toast.
Never heard of Kaboom. I was vaguely aware of other cereal options but we always got the same generic o's. Not Cheerios. GenericOs. Children did not have standing to make food suggestions. I remember begging for something called Koogle. Peanut butter spread with chocolate mixed in. Saw it advertised on TV and, as they say, it seemed like a good idea at the time. In actual fact: Hideous. Mom only splurged on stuff Dad liked. During the health craze she got Grapenuts for a few months but nobody ate them. We had a little teeny tiny house then we had a bigger house out in the middle of fields which was great except we had to walk a mile to play with the neighbor kids. Also, field work all summer long. Strawberries, feh. Very hard work.
Oooooh, this is a fun game! My childhood was a hoot!
Government cheese, clothes from Goodwill, walking to/from the school bus in the winter with holes in my shoes, knowing better than to even ask for things that my friends were doing like ballet class and ski school.
Home full of cigarette smoke which was embarrassing by the 80s when I was a kid, because my not-poor friends mostly had parents who had quit or at least smoked outside.
Double-wide on a rented lot in the dank, dark, damp, mildewy, slug-infested western Washington woods.
Divorced parents-dad who was unreliable with the child support and when he was supposed to show up to pick us up for his weekends with us, and mom who was too beat down by poverty and worry to enjoy being a mother or actually teach us anything. My sister and I were sexually abused by one of her boyfriends. I pretty much raised myself from about age 13. Moved out for good at 16 and had a series of older and slightly dangerous boyfriends. It's a miracle I didn't wind up diseased, pregnant or on drugs.
I was bright in school, always in the gifted program, excelled until high school where my shit fell apart. I did not have the character to bootstrap myself up and lost the opportunity to go to a good university of which I was entirely capable.
Older sister who joined the military and got the fuck out as soon as she possibly could, and wound up in two consecutive shitty marriages.
Younger brother grew up full of rage after years of abandonment by dad & by mom's various boyfriends. He blew shit up in the Marines for a few years and now does odd jobs.
My kids have it so much better. We don't live large but at least most of their clothes are new, they go to ballet and piano lessons and their dad coaches their softball teams, they fit in with the decent kids at school, they've taken vacations and traveled internationally, and maybe most importantly of all they have parents who are married, in love with each other, and committed to God and the Church. There is a lot of fun, relaxation and laughter in our house, which there never was when I was growing up. No one ever laughed.
P.S. We never would have had Kaboom--even if it hadn't predated my time--because it was name-brand.
My parents hung out with the owners of The Okee Lodge. I thought that place was amazing. The Okee Lodge mysteriously burned down. All my families weddings/birthdays and events were held there.
My parents would go to dances at that place in Sauk Chick. In Sauk my parents eat at a place called Leystara something or another right over the bridge. And some baron Main Street that serves burgers and has baseball heads in a glass case above the outside door.
My parents go to Green Acres weekly. Beautiful old house, two floors, gorgeous shutters. Very old school supper club.
I am sick off all the new "family restaurants" around the area now. There is one in Waunakee and Sauk and all over the state and one by Vitense Golf. They are not real Wisconsin and they are run by foreigners trying to make Scony food.
I went to Fish Lake too Chick! Hugs!
I don't know if anyone goes there now.
Now my sister and her family hang out at Crystal Lake.
http://www.hngnews.com/lodi_enterprise/community/article_0b681d26-c1db-52ea-bdcf-6051b27532f7.html
Okee Lodge linky winky.
My dad and mom were friends of Lowell and Connie Brownrig. My mom said they burned it down for the insurance money.
Lowell and Connie divorced. Lowell died. Connie moved to Vegas with some lounge act and died a few years ago in a trailer outside Vegas.
Hmmm. In comparison to the bulk of the commentariat here, my upbringing seems like a blend of Richard Corey and Thurston Howell (3rd). Solid middle class, maybe even upper-middle, and I mean solid; no yearly trips to Hawaii, but none of your ghastly 'Kaboom', either.
We weren't technically poor as we didn't receive any type of government assistance, but I suspect we were just slightly over the cutoff.
I am one of five kids, my parents have been married for 50 years, and we grew up in a poor agrarian area in the northern part of the country.
One car, house on the train tracks just across from the fire dept. In those days before cell phones, the all-volunteer dept. was called by way of a titanically loud horn that could be heard 10-15 miles away. When it went off when I was outside, it almost scared all of the waste products out of my body.
My dad was not a farmer, but I worked on some of the local farms starting at age 7.
In the 70s oil was expensive and wood was cheap, so we burned 8 cords of wood a winter. I split and piled more wood than I care to remember.
One winter when I was young, we didn't have enough blankets, so I slept under my mom's Sunday winter coat. It had a fake fur lining. It wasn't long enough to cover me, so I slept in the fetus position.
I got my first paper route when I was 12. It covered most of the town and took 2 hours a day. I used the money for the food I was craving as a very active developing preteen.
Sugared cereal of any kind was for rich kids. We only got rice krispies and corn flakes.
I used the money from my farm labor to buy school clothes, and any left over went to toys and candy.
Haying season on the farm was the worst. Bales were 70 pounds; the baling cord cut my hands while the sharp edges of cut hay shredded my pants and subsequently the skin on my thighs. Stacking hay in the barn loft was cruel; the temps reached 100+ degrees while dirt and chaff filled the air, your ears, your nose, and your throat.
Odd one out here.
My daddy was rich (and my mama good-lookin').
No cereal for breakfast as a kid. Breakfast was usually toasted bread with butter, jam, or cheese, and fruit (mango, papaya, pineapple).
Lower middle class beginnings for me and my family.
Just four of us. I'm an only child now. My only older brother is gone.
My mom's side of the family had some money, my dad's side of the family - dirt poor.
First home I remember was a small one car garage ranch home near the highway. Today's standards would still classify that house as lower mid-class I suppose.
We drank re-constituted powdered milk. My mom canned everything and made homemade bread. I wanted wonder bread. (???) Years of psycho-analysis will never answer that one. We ate canned chipped beef and canned beans and canned peaches and canned tomatoes. Lots of homemade jam. Awesome homemade jam.
We always had cereal. In winter malto-meal, cream of wheat and oatmeal all made the rounds. My mother was a bit of a health-nut (long before it was hip) and she would not let us have "sugared" cereal. Though - occasionally- a box of honeycomb or sugar pops would surprise us. My brother liked cocopuffs. I liked fruity stuff like loops or pebbles. All considered treats, and therefore rare.
Mom hand-packed my lunch and while the other kids were eating snak-pak pudding and cheetos and such, I had raisins, carrots and celery.
I think I was a bit mal-nourished to tell you the truth. I was always hungry.
The day I went shopping for a lunch pale and thermos combo - the shelves were empty and the selection was thin. Ended up with a "Welcome back Kotter" lunch pal. Got laughed at.
years later "Twist and Shout" music store had a Welcome back Kotter mug on their check out counter holding the pens. Who's laughing now, suckas.
"Haying season on the farm was the worst. Bales were 70 pounds; the baling cord cut my hands while the sharp edges of cut hay shredded my pants and subsequently the skin on my thighs. Stacking hay in the barn loft was cruel; the temps reached 100+ degrees while dirt and chaff filled the air, your ears, your nose, and your throat."
What I always hated was picking rocks. Unlike haying where you had to be bigger because the bales were heavy, everyone picked rocks, even the little ones. Most hay bales now are the huge ones that get picked up one at a time with the tractor.
Hacking the dust out of your nose and throat gets to be a habit. At NDSU there would get to be shiny spots on the sidewalks over winter where the Ag students would do the hack-spit thing... usually at crosswalks though I've no notion why there.
yashu: How did you end up kinda conservative? (Unless I've misread your posts.)
yashu: How did you end up kinda conservative? (Unless I've misread your posts.)
Good question.
Prima facie (just by looking at me), socially, culturally, by education and lifestyle, all indications point to me being a liberal.
I'd describe myself as "classical liberal" or "small l libertarian" who finds conservatives much more politically congenial than leftists/ progressives. But I've also come to respect conservatism per se, in many ways (even where I disagree). So, on the contemporary American political spectrum, that makes me, decidedly: right-wing.
Short answer is, primarily, a combination of two forces: seeds planted in childhood (my father's influence, as an immigrant become American citizen & entrepreneur) & reaction to the political environment in academia. (And a particular turning point around 9/11. When, incidentally, I started reading political blogs.)
I started the long answer, but it started getting too long. Might post it later, or maybe not. Too much autobiography.
How about you?
Synova, too funny. We picked rocks too, especially from an early age, but it didn't seem as onerous as other jobs. The thing I didn't understand as a kid was how rocks seemingly continue to migrate to the surface. The second year I picked rocks, I was amazed that we went back to the same fields that we picked the year before. Didn't we do these last year, I thought? I guess I still don't know exactly what causes rocks to continually migrate, but they do.
Frost heave, and the soils in which it occurs are called congeliturbates. As the soil freezes, the water in it uptakes air and expands, lifting the whole surface including the rocks. Then the fines, the smallest particles, sift or slide back in under the rocks, suspending them. It was particularly maddening in New England, where you can find old, angrily or sadly abandoned fields walled in by stones that had been reaped from the ground and piled in neat rows. The Pueblo Indians were cautious in their tread in the spring, knowing the Earth to be pregnant. What it delivered to the early New Mexicans was food; what it delivered to New Englanders was a crop of stones each year. Thousands of tons of plow-busting stones, pried out and loaded into stone-boats to be aligned in walls, and never a pause or respite, never a single year when you could just plow and seed without that tooth-jarring jolt when you hit another mini-monadnock of metagreywacke. How the stones chortled in their silent way.
Among the trees that have reclaimed those New England fields, still bounded by the walls, is a rich harvest of stones awaiting the return of Sisyphean farmers who'd rather be playing video games. "You picked a fine to leave me, Lucille" was originally written by a lonely stone who pushed her farmer into irretrievable frustration.
yashu: Makes sense. Similar to my changes.
I still call myself a liberal if I get to explain the context -- classic liberalism. Individual freedom, limited government, and the enlightenment.
A big part of being liberal, I thought, was having an open mind and a commitment to honest engagement -- like Gregory Peck in "To Kill a Mockingbird." When 9-11 happened and the liberal folks I knew and admired went into "Why Do They Hate Us?" I got off the bus.
I had already read the Quran and Islamic history. I knew that was the wrong question and I discovered my liberal friends were unable to see, as Orwell put it, what was in front of their noses, and even less able to change their minds.
The problem with liberalism and the left is that once you start tugging on one loose thread, the rest come undone as well. I went from being a Chomskian leftist to something else within a year.
creeley: My "conversion" probably wasn't quite as drastic as yours (I was never a Chomskian leftist), but yes, I went through something very much like that.
Do you know many, or any, like us in real (offline) life? I know there are others like us, online, but-- I can't say I know anyone in real life that fits our profile. I.e. in literary/ artistic/ academic circles, in cities like SF or NYC.
Of course, I'm not very demonstrative about my politics in the circles in which I run. In fact, I'm mostly a coward/ closet case. Or more charitably, taciturn. Kinda lonely, isn't it.
I wonder whether it was quite this stark in decades past. I mean, I know in the past (30s, 40s, 50, 60s) there might have been more outright communists, Trotskyites, Stalinists, Maoists, etc. (With good reason, of course, since many-- misguidedly-- saw that as the foil to fascism.) But maybe, ironically?, the hegemony of leftism (in the guise of neo- or post-Marxism) wasn't as total then as it is now, in academia & the arts? I don't know.
For example-- to be on recent blog topic-- there's a strain of Robert Frost that's very sympathetic to free market capitalism (though I hate to be so reductive about poetry). In this, following the very American Ralph Waldo Emerson, etc.
Hard to imagine a great renowned poet writing today along those ideological lines.
Nowadays, among artists and intellectuals, there are only post-Marxists. (Whatever exceptions there are only prove the rule.)
As stuffy and dogmatic an ideological culture as the Scholastic Middle Ages, in a way.
yashu: Most of my male friends were, like myself, liberal/hippie types coming out of the seventies but following various paths they drifted into differing shades of conservatism. None of my female friends did so, for whatever reasons.
These were men I knew in Boston, SF, and LA, so it does happen.
American arts and academia has long been liberal, but you're right that in the last couple decades a leftist hegemony has won out there.
The men I mentioned, with one exception, were too independent to take the advanced degree route, which I suspect left them more open to conservative views.
Hard to imagine a great renowned poet writing today along those ideological lines.
During the Iraq War I remember a poll showing that 96% of American poets opposed the war. I was involved with an online group of poets and I got so tired of being attacked by them that I stopped writing and reading poetry, aside from revisiting old loves occasionally.
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