It has been a little over a year since Dad died. I don’t think I am going to live to be 101 like he did. I remember watching him climb in and out of the back of the big International Travelall that he and Mom had driven out to the west coast when they were in their 70's. I was amazed at how limber and strong he was. In his 80's he was digging ditches for a watering system in my front yard and building a brick planter box that was half the length of the front of my house.
Yesterday I tried out my “What would Dad do?” mantra. It did make me think before acting. I was going to get a bagel for breakfast but Dad never had bagels. He would have had a bowl of oatmeal with some fruit and a hamburger patty. He had learned that it was a breakfast that kept his blood sugar steady and he followed that plan religiously. I went home and reluctantly dragged the oatmeal out of the cupboard. Before I could cook it a friend called and we went out for breakfast so I didn’t actually act on “What would Dad do?” However, the mental process of asking the question made me stop and think. I was actually ready to take a different action.
I’m not giving up on the idea and I plan to incorporate it into my decision making process. I still need a more specific action plan about what I am going to do to feel stronger and healthier in the New Year, but my bottom line will be “What would Dad do?” Today I plan to have oatmeal for breakfast, start reading a new book I got for Christmas, take a walk, and have a cup of tea instead of those leftover Christmas cookies. That’s what Dad would have done.
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I wanted to write about “Peace On Earth” for the Christmas season but I got bogged down in frustration over the lack of it, so I made pea soup instead. In a small way I am contributing to global understanding by serving pea soup to my houseguest who is from Austria. It’s warm, it’s comforting, it’s welcoming, it’s the best I can do right now at contributing to positive international and personal relationships. It seems that peace on earth is something everyone wants, but it is impossible to attain. I don’t want to bury my head in the sand and pretend conflict and pain don't exist, but I don’t want to live my life in fear either. I found two videos on YouTube that expressed my frustrations and my hope. My Austrian houseguest showed me this song by U2. It says what I can't say about the frustrations and irony of wanting peace on earth. When I was in the 6th grade chorus, we sang a song called “Let There Be Peace On Earth.” It was one of my favorites. My 6th grade chorus was not even in the same league as this group of kids from PS22. Watching them pour their hearts out in this song gives me hope. It makes me feel better than a nice hot bowl of pea soup. I have been reminiscing with my sister about the toys we had as kids. Here are some of our most memorable baby boomer toy stories. Bonnie Braids My sister got a Bonnie Braids doll as a special gift when she came home from the hospital after a serious bout with the flu. Bonnie Braids was based on a cartoon character from the Dick Tracy comic strip. She was the daughter of Dick Tracy and Tess Trueheart. Bonnie had little pom poms of hair sticking out of the top of her head and one tooth in her smiley little mouth. She came with a tooth brush and a mini tube of Ipana toothpaste. She was my sister’s favorite doll, and mine too. Even though she wasn’t mine I coveted her big time. When we played with Bonnie we paired her up with Teddy, my Teddy bear. My sister had a bear too, named Patty, but she liked Bonnie way better than Patty. Bonnie and Teddy had many adventures together but the most memorable one was when they went on a trip in a trailer. In addition to dolls we also had cars and trucks. We decided to find a box that could be towed to make a trailer for Bonnie and Teddy. We found the perfect box in Mom’s closet. It was just the right size and had exactly the right shape for a trailer, long and thin. We were happily ready to send Bonnie and Teddy on a travel adventure when Mom came in and saw the “trailer.” She was taken aback and told us we would have to find another box. She didn’t explain why, she just said that it was not an appropriate box to use and we had to put it back in the closet. Later, when we were more “mature,” we found out it was a box of feminine hygiene pads. Thank goodness we didn’t haul the trailer box out onto the front porch and invite our next door neighbors over to play. Robert the Robot Space themed things were very popular in the 1950’s. Our space toy was Robert the Robot. Robert could talk. He was hard to understand, but he could actually say whole sentences in an odd electronic voice. I think there was a string you could pull on his back and he would say "I am Robert Robot, Mechanical Man. _?_ me and _?_ me where ever you can. I am Robert Robot, Mechanical Man.” I never could quite figure out what he was saying. When I looked online I discovered that he was saying “Ride me and steer me where ever you can.” If that actually is what he was saying, it’s rather strange because he was way too small to ride. He could move, however, on little wheels. He had wrench-like claws for hands and you could make him hold and carry things. I have more positive memories of Robert than my sister. She was somewhat traumatized by how we acquired him. Our Mom was always entering contests, mostly on the radio. Robert was the grand prize in a contest on a local TV show and my sister, under the encouragement of Mom, won him. My sister would probably never have even entered the contest, but Mom in some strange version of an attempt to build my sister's self esteem made her enter the contest. It was an art contest and my sister remembers that Mom made her trace the picture of a bird from a coloring book and color it in. Art was not my sister’s thing but it came easily for me. Kids were always comparing us and asking her why she didn’t draw like I did. I suppose Mom was trying to boost my sister's confidence by making her enter the contest. It had the opposite effect. By submitting a drawing that was traced, my sister felt that she had cheated. She was mortified that she had won the contest in what felt to her like an underhanded way. It’s fascinating to me how my sister and I could have experienced the same things and yet remembered them in such different ways. I remember Robert the Robot in a fun sentimental way, but my sister remembers him as tangible evidence of major demoralization. I didn’t even remember that she had won him in a contest until we started talking about our toys and she told me the whole story from her perspective. Now I feel bad about Robert the Robot too. If we still had him we could both boost our self esteem considerably. An original Robert the Robot is now worth between $200 and $1200! Clue We played a lot of games including Chinese Checkers, Sorry, Pick-up Sticks, Tiddly Winks, and Monopoly, but my favorite was the board game CLUE. I still have a thing about mysteries. The object of the game was to determine who murdered the victim "Mr. Boddy," where the crime took place, and which weapon was used. Each player was one of the six suspects: Miss Scarlet, Professor Plum, Mr. Green, Colonel Mustard, Mrs. Peacock, and Mrs. White. They were represented by colored wooden pieces that you moved through the various rooms in Mr. Boddy’s mansion. Each time you entered a room you could make a guess about who the murderer was. After checking out the game on the internet I discovered that we had the 1950 version which was the second version to come out. The first version came out in 1949 and had a piece of string for the “rope.” Ours had a plastic rope, but the other weapons were metal: a gun, a wrench, a lead pipe, a candlestick, and a knife. I loved the board. It had all the rooms in the mansion pictured with 1950’s style furniture as if you were looking down into each room. I never got tired of playing Clue. I have played newer versions including a Clue Jr. with different looking mansions and different pictures of the suspects, but I like the original the best. There is something very satisfying about checking off the clues on your clue sheet with the squatty little pencils. I loved the moment when I was finally ready to make an accusation and slide the cards out of the mysterious mini black envelope to see if I was right. These toys are bringing back a lot of memories. I can think of other ones I would like to write about. The dollhouse my Dad made and the plastic furniture and dolls that went in it, my older sister's doll with the fantastic wardrobe my Mom made, and the Oujia board that my twin sister and I both swear we never consciously controlled, all deserve a special blog. Maybe later. Not every memory from my childhood is happy and carefree, but when I see images of those old toys they transport me back to the times I spent playing board games on the living room carpet with my sisters. I can’t be a kid again, nor would I want to, but it’s a little reminder that I am never too old to play. I think I might even still have that old Clue game stashed away somewhere. Don’t tell Santa but I have already opened one of my Christmas presents. It actually wasn’t from him anyway, it was from my sister. I had put a new pair of boots on my amazon.com wish list and I knew they were under the tree. The other night when I was feeling chilled and in need of something warm and cozy I rifled around and found a box I was quite sure contained the boots. I carefully peeked through the wrapping and there they were. I unwrapped them and slipped them on my feet. Instantly I was transported back to my junior high days when I got a new pair of boots that I loved. I remember they were fur lined and the front opened up in a “V” shape with a little collar of fur around my ankles. You could also fasten them so that they covered your ankles, but the fashionable way to wear them was to leave them open so that the fur was visible. I had been sooooo wanting those boots. By junior high we had graduated from the kind of boots you wore over your shoes to the kind that fit directly on over your socks. All the girls carried a “shoe bag” on their wrists like a purse as we walked to school so that we could change into our shoes and put our boots in our lockers once we got to school. Unfortunately, although the boots my parents bought me fit over my socks, they LOOKED like the kind of boots you wore OVER your shoes. I was mortified in the way only junior high aged kids can be mortified. I hated those boots to my core. A year or so later when I got the new boots I was in heaven. I remember walking around the house in them staring at my feet. I didn’t want to take them off. That was how I felt in the boots my sister just gave me. I wore them around my house like slippers. They are Sketchers. Not only do they have memory foam insoles like my other Sketchers, but they are also lined in fake fur. They feel like puffy clouds of warmth on my feet. I’ve been wearing them night and day since I first put them on. Today I went for a walk with a friend in my new boots. They were perfect. They cradled my feet in comfort and toastiness. It’s been a little crispy in the mornings (although nothing like the below zero weather I grew up with) and I felt all snuggly as I strolled along. Not only are they beyond comfortable but they are ADORABLE too! What more could I ask for except for a couple of cats in my lap and a roaring fire. Even though we won’t be able to be together this Christmas, I feel like I just got a big hug from my sister. Front Page News: Twins Sleep!My sister and I (I'm the one in the back trying hard to stifle a smile) appeared on the front page of the local newspaper on December 25, 1953. Unfortunately I laminated the newspaper clipping in my younger days to preserve it and the plastic wrinkled over the top of the photo. Oh well, what are a few wrinkles anyway. It's all part of getting older. The day we got our first TV was an incredibly memorable day. The local newspaper had called my Mom and asked if they could take pictures of me and my sister to be published on Christmas day. They found us by looking in local birth records to see if any twins had been born near Christmas who would be around 5 years old. My sister and I were born in January 1948. Evidently we fit the bill. Mom dressed us up in identically adorable little dresses, with a ribbon tying our hair back from our foreheads. Normally we didn’t wear ribbons in our hair. This was a really big deal! We were excited about having our picture taken for the newspaper but we were even more excited about the fact that our TV was scheduled to be delivered that very same day. I think the photographer and the TV arrived at about the same time. My sister and I just wanted the picture taking thing to be over with so we could check out our new TV. The photographer decided that they wanted to take a picture of us sleeping, the basic “sugar plums dancing in their heads” shot. So Mom took everyone upstairs and put us into our pajamas. We each had our own bed but the photographer put us together in one bed. Actually it was the foot of the bed, which I suppose made a better angle to shoot from. We had our Teddy Bears, Teddy and Patty. Patty only had one eye, but they altered the photo and drew another eye on the published photo. I think she was cooler with one eye. It gave her a pirate kind of vibe. My sister was so much better than I was at pretending to be sleeping for the photo. She told me recently that she was doing everything the way they wanted because she wanted to get it over with as fast as possible. She remembered she could hear them moving in the TV downstairs. As a result of her focused cooperation, she looked completely relaxed and natural. I, on the other hand was self conscious and way too smiley to look like I was asleep. Not wanting to be outdone by my sister I tried really hard not to smile and they were finally able to get a decent shot. This, of course, was in the days of film as opposed to digital cameras and we had to wait for Christmas day, when it was published, to actually see the photo. We didn’t care. As soon as the photo shoot was over we scrambled downstairs to see the TV. The amazing thing is that although we both clearly remembered the first part of the day, neither of us remember actually sitting down and watching the TV. I suspect there was some delay in getting it set up. Or maybe we had to wait until our Dad came home. For whatever reason neither of us remember watching TV that day. Later I remember dutifully watching Crusader Rabbit. Dad watched it with us. We would be seriously glued to the screen and he would be laughing hysterically. I think it was actually geared as much towards adults as it was for kids. Life Before TV and BeyondAll of this and more we watched in black and white with no remote on a TV that had two channels and unpredictable reception. One of us had to stand by the TV and hold onto the “rabbit ears” antenna. It was magical! George Bailey experienced the ups and downs of the Christmas season. Me too.
I spent one morning with a friend making mini succulent gardens to use as table decorations for a fundraising luncheon. The project gave me an excuse to do one of my favorite things, thrift store shopping. I found some really cool cups to use as planters and we collected succulent cuttings from a friend’s garden to plant in the cups. We got down and dirty cramming those succulent cuttings into their new homes.
It’s been a tradition with my friends to treat each other with some kind of a performance or event for Christmas. This year we’ve shared an inspiring concert and even a musical version of “It’s a Wonderful Life.” I’m looking forward to a “girl’s lunch” at a new restaurant and a murder mystery play called “The Last Noel.” It’s supposed to be tongue-in-cheek Sam Spade-ish. Even if it's totally corny it will be fun. It was George Bailey’s connection with the people of Bedford Falls that led to his transformation at the end of the movie. Even with all the difficulties he had to deal with, he realized that he had made a difference to the people in his life just by being who he was. At the end of the movie Clarence leaves a copy of a book for George with this inscription: “Remember George: no man who is a failure who has friends.” Building memories with my friends and family makes me realize I really do have a wonderful life. Ho, Ho, Ho! The Christmas season is here and it’s time for me to drag massive quantities of decorations out of my garage and into my house. Considering my Scandinavian heritage, it’s not surprising gnomes are involved.
I do have a Jul Tomte and Jul Nisse in my house. Several Christmases ago I made some stuffed ones out of socks to give to my friends and family. I made some for myself too and I keep them out all year long, watching over me and my house. I managed to catch some photos of them even though they are normally quite reclusive.
For more about Jul Tomte check out this hilarious article I found on an online site called MinnPost. It was written by Max Sparber and titled Tomte: Scandinavian Christmas traditions at the American Swedish Institute. It’s about his experience meeting a Jul Tomte at the American Swedish Institute in Minneapolis. https://www.minnpost.com/max-about-town/2011/12/tomte-scandinavian-christmas-traditions-american-swedish-institute |
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