Anything with wheels...

At one point in my life my mother told me "I am sorry I ever bought you anything with wheels." What?!? Just because I rode my big wheel down the very steep hill into the driveway at Mach 8, or that I tried building a skate ramp in the basement out of a 2"x8" and a piece of plywood, or that I sat on my skateboard at my cousin Tanya's house and road down the center of the 3rd Street hill, or we took the Barbie Rv down the same hill, does not mean that I shouldn't have anything with wheels. It just means that I would have found one way or another to endanger my life in ways that would scare the living daylights out of my mother. For example...climbing around the ancient sheep shed on the neighbor's farm and building a clubhouse on the platform (a very rickety and dangerous platform that was about 12 feet off the ground, I may add) out of old doors and plywood found in various buildings on the farm, complete with old rusty nails and hinges and such that would surely have given me lockjaw if I had cut myself on one of them. Or...swinging from the haymow rope from the 20 foot platform with the neighbor kids, that could have,at any time, let go and I would have plummeted to the floor ending up with a broken something-or-other. Then there is the horseback riding incident that my friend, Dena, and I tried behind the barn where we decided to see if we could stand on the horse's back while at a full out run. Hey! We started with a walk just to gain balance, so I was cautious! Now as the mother of an 8 year-old son I understand exactly what my mother was saying to me. I apparently have given birth to Marvel character, Matt Murdock or as he is known by his secret identity "Daredevil." It started when he was just 9 months old. He was crawling all over and pulling himself up on chairs and couches and had no fear of falling whatsoever. It was at 9 months that he was standing at the coffee table and turned and walked to me all smiles and fearless. I was terrified. He hasn't sat still since.(I would like to interject here that I had a very cautious and somewhat timid daughter five years prior to Daredevil's birth who never once made me shudder in fear of her falling or doing anything remotely scary other than try to crawl out of her crib once and she fell onto a pillow and cried like she broke a leg. I think that fall scared her off of circus tricks or anything of the sort. It took her until she was 10 to learn to ride a two-wheeler because she was afraid of falling...but I digress...) It was at 15 months he decided to go for a ride in the laundry basket down the stairs. Now, I saw this happening as I was at the bathroom at the top of the stairs, however, did you ever have that feeling of the Six-Million Dollar Man? You know the feeling, the faster you run the slower you go? THAT is what was happening to me. I could see him grab the laundry basket and crawl into it and then start skooching toward the edge of the stairs. I stood rooted to the spot willing my limbs to move but was paralyzed and somewhat intrigued at the scene playing out before me. I was immediately whisked back to my childhood and taking the Radio Flyer down the steep hill between Gramma's house and our house...that ended badly as I overshot the road and went ass-over-teakettle down the embankment and wound up in the cornfield stunned and bruised but not bleeding and broken. I forced my legs to move and I started to yell "N-n-n-n-n-o-o-o-o-o-oooooo!" (like Darth Vader in Star Wars) and I reached for him to only grasp air as he began his descent down the 13 Steps into the foyer. I stood frozen with fear as I watched him lean back in the basket and ride smoothly down to the bottom floor like he was on a kiddie rollercoaster. He landed safely at the bottom; not dumped out and thudding down the steps only to land a bruised and bloody screaming mess at the bottom. He jumped out of the basket with an awestruck look on his face. sort of a "That was aMAZING!" look. "WHOOOAAAA!!!" he said and grabbed the handle as if he was going to come back up and do it again. At this point my husband had come running to the bottom of the stairs, grabs the laundry basket out of his tiny little hands and says "I don't THINK so, Daredevil. You have had enough excitement for one day and Mom and Dad have to go in for a cardiac assesment." Baby boy was not so happy with Dad after that. The one thing that I vowed at that point, was he was never going to have anything with wheels. Ever. He is now the proud owner of a two wheeled bike, roller blades and a Radio Flyer red wagon. Thank God our back yard is flat...

Modern Technology

We had a black and white 19 inch tv until the antenna (anyone under the age of 30 would have no idea what that is) got hit by lightning and *zzzap!* there went the tv. I remember it so well because I was 4 and it was Halloween. I was watching a Scooby-Doo Halloween Special- I still don't know how it ended... A couple of days later, Dad came home with a brand new 19 inch COLOUR TV! Click! Who KNEW that Carol Burnett was in such a glorious array of colour?!? This was a whole knew foray into the wonderfully mind numbing world of television viewing. Marshall Matt Dillon wore a pink shirt, Miss Kitty had eyeshadow the colour of sapphires, the Hudson Brothers were visited by a colourful Rod Hull and his Emu, Sonny and Cher had eye dazzling glittery costumes that were a briliant array of rainbow colours. I was 5 years old before I knew that The Wizard of Oz was partially in colour. Unfortunately, it made the flying monkeys even scarier than normal black and white... That was the extent of modern technology until I was about 13 or 14. Then came the glorious Video Cassetter Recorder! Ah the VCR!! Now I could watch movies I saw in the theatre a year ago! Mom rented a VCR for us one weekend for $5 and two movies for $2. The VCR itself looked somewhat like a box droid from Star Wars. You would push the eject button and the cassette feed would pop up from the top on well oiled hinges. You would put the cassette into the feed and click the feed back down into the machine and then hit play. Michael J. Fox in "Back to the Future" filled the screen (but first I had to turn the knob to Channel 3 so we could watch it) and the strains of Huey Lewis filled the living room. Next up, Footloose with Kevin Bacon (the original and the best one, in my opinion). We didn't have video games in our house, hence the reason I was not and am not a huge video game fan. Nah, I went to Tanya's house to play their Atari 2600 and Pac-Man and Donkey Kong for that. Back then, if you wanted to get a hold of someone, you called them on the phone. You knkow, a land line. A phone that hung on the wall and had a 12 foot cord attached to it so you were limited to the range in which you could get away from the phone. The phone actually rang in a *brrrriiiiiinggggg* sound (not in some ringtone by Barry Manilow or Donna Summer or some other artist of the time) and was followed by the sound of three people in our house yelling "PHONE!!!!" If no one was home, the phone rang and rang...and then people hung up and tried later. We were not able to leave a message (only rich people had answering machines) nor were we able to text them as to their current whereabouts. Cell phones were not heard of at that time. It all seemed so Star Trek-y that we would be able to talk to someone away from home! It never ceases to amaze me how we managed to do without a lot of the modern ameneties that we have now. How did we exist without cell phones and computers and 90 inch flat screen plasma televisions? We did the best with what we had and we were satisfied... Wouldn't it be great to be like that again some days? ...excuse me...I have to answer my cell...

Valentine's Day Revelries

Ah Valentine's Day...the day when all children decorate the average brown box in glorious shades of red and pink with glittery hearts and Cupids and wait for their friends to drop their Snoopy Valentine's into their mailboxes. Cherry Lollipops, smarties, conversation hearts, heart shaped pink marshmallows and chocolates abound! Nowadays, teachers ask that children send no candy but "healthy snacks" instead. WHAT!?! That is blasphemy!! Valentine's Day is all about the candy people! Even teachers were children once and they received all the sugary nasty sweet treats at one point too. Have they forgotten what it is to be children at Valentine's?!? I mean, that is like getting a "A donation has been made in your name to a local food pantry" card in your stocking at the age of 7 instead of presents!! Now, I understand that todays educators are under pressure to conform to the whole "healthy living" thing. I get that. But it is only one day a year and it is all about moderation. When I was a kid, the more chocolate you got the better your Valentine's Day. You knew your friends liked you when you got a boatload of chocolate. One of my classmates mothers used to make sugar cookies with each student's name on it. They were beautiful, too. Almost too beautiful to eat but eat them we did...and with gusto! Our teachers even gave out candy...sometimes a a regular sized Hershey bar! That's what I am talking about!! I don't know about you, but it is an awful mess to deliver a heart shaped pineapple slice into a kids valentine's box. The other valentine's stick together, and not all kids like pineapple... In middle school and high school we used to send "Candy-Grams" for Valentine's day. this included a heart shaped valentine (that you could write a Valentine's message on) with a lollipop taped to it. You could always tell how many friends you had by the number of "Candy-Grams" you received. At the time they cost 50 cents each. So, for 5 bucks you had 10 friends taken care of! All day long you would see kids walking (or in some cases running) thru the halls with suckers sticking out of their mouths. Of course, my mother's words of "Don't run with something in your mouth!" would pop into my head every time I saw it, but regardless, I was one of the idiots running around with a sucker in my mouth. Oh well. I never fell and jammed it into the back f my throat and choked to death, so hey! So, I sent my son off to school this morning with his Valentine's for his classmates with a sucker taped to them. Yes. I am a rebel. Sue me...