03-13-2016, 10:46 AM
Some of us have to think way back.
We did not get TV until I was about 8 -- Black & White -- color was too expensive as it was brand new :-). I remember watching Armstrong step down onto the moon -- live on TV when I was 12.
Now my dad had a subscription for classical music LP's for years and my mom found me with a hammer and nail, well, griefing them -- like 2/3rds of them. I was very young and don't remember.
Lived in Brazil from age 5 to 9 so we had tropical animals and insects to play with.
Remember the maid yanking me into the house all upset, I had been poking a paralyzed tarantula out of a African wasp's grasp as it tried to climb our gate post to get height to fly off, several times. The wasp sting was dangerous for small kids. Watched out the front window as the wasp finally got high enough to fly off (about 3' and dropped 2' before getting level).
Termite mounds were lots of fun. Poking grass down the holes and bringing up the soldiers.
Throwing the big grasshoppers into spider webs and watching the spider wrap it (2" diameter spiders :-) ).
Kite flying was big in Brazil. I made a folded newspaper sheet kite, attached a brand new spool of sewing thread to it and flew it until the thread ran out and it flew away. Mom was not happy that her new thread was missing. I am still amazed to this day that I flew out around 300 yards/meters of sewing thread with a newspaper kite (no sticks, just paper with a tail of paper) without losing it or breaking the thread.
Mostly played with my 2 brothers and my sister growing up. Little TV, no video games, no cell phones, etc. But we would leave in the morning and show up for meals and bedtime. Like I was the eldest at around 7 or 8 when we started doing this -- no way can parents do this today. We always had a pet animal or 3 underfoot. My brothers, sister and I were always hunting for snakes, newts, lizards and the like.
I am a berry and wild fruit fiend. I knew where every berry bush, plum tree, cherry tree, apple tree, nut tree was for miles around within the year of moving to a new place. Remember finding an abandoned plum orchard in Georgia and gorging on perfectly ripe plums until I was sick. Visiting a memorable black berry bramble every day for weeks each year for several years in Ontario and searching for ripe berries hidden from sight in the hollows under the canes. Oh and strawberries, I could spend all day in the summer combing the fields for wild strawberries -- commercial strawberries are just *not* the same.
My mom could bake bread and baked treats but was pretty much a dangerous cook for anything else -- burn water (melted pots and kettles), break unbreakable Corningware, dyslexic with white powders (mixed up sugar and salt countless times). So all us kids learned to cook early and surprising well. But I am a bit dyslexic with white powders too and made a batch of muffins that were perfect baseballs and could be hit multiple times before they broke. I was 10 and just learning but salt and sugar sure look the same.
4 and 5 year old Kindergarten in Wales at the start of the 60's was interesting. I remember that all 26 boys of 46 kids were all named David (patron saint of Wales) and all the boys were called by their second name or last name. And we were taught reading and writing -- I became a bookworm by 6. I remember my Gram serving me black tea and not liking it at all (still don't). But a year later at 6, I started drinking coffee in Brazil and liked it --- well, I liked the sugar too much causing me to quit at 15 (5 spoons per cup) -- and restart/quit many times -- drinking it again with 2 'cubes' of sugar -- I have to be very strict and not let myself use a spoon and free flowing sugar.
We went through some rough financial times and my mom always served lima beans (still hate them). Luckily, my sister's cat loved them and would hunch under the table eating all our lima beans. But mom did have some hits over the years looking at 4 hungry kids to feed -- I still love maraschino cherries and creme cheese sandwiches, or walnuts and creme cheese (mom was down to feeding us her baking supplies). My wife just looks funny at me when I take condensed mushroom soup undiluted and make grilled soup sandwiches, hmmm. I can still happily gnaw on a chunk of unsweetened or semi-sweet bakers chocolate -- k, I raided for those as a kid.
My best memories seem to revolve around food. My dad loved to primitive camp and eat off the land. Camping in Florida for a week catching and eating escargo, crab, frog legs, flounder, grouper, sea perch, and ells was a really memorable trip -- yes we kids, at 11 down to 7, ate that stuff and loved it -- didn't know we were not supposed to like it. Ok, not that keen on ells actually but I still love frogs legs. Hiking and finding a whole field of fiddle heads -- we collected a garbage bag full and froze them, hmmm. Another time we found a 3' by 4' bed of perfectly ripe puffball mushrooms where most were hexagonal, garbage bag again
, and hmmm. Morels, chanterelle's, ink caps, oyster, we kids learned to eat and love them. My sister finds soccerball size puffballs most autumns here in Southern Ontario Canada -- we all gather round a slice filling the frying pan :-).
Car trips are another memory, "yellow bug, punch, no punch back...". Returning from the beach in Santos to Sao Paulo through very thick fog up the *old* road with dozens of switch backs instead of the *new* highway (my dad likes exploring) with my mom hanging out the window helping see a few feet past the hood. Cross Canada 3 times and down the Eastern side of North America at least 3 times, 4 kids on a mattress in the back of a station wagon -- I think we played every traveling game possible -- no seatbelts in the cars in those days.
Btw, I hate spiders and scorpions though not terrified. Still empty my shoes or boots when camping -- old habits from the tropics never die, even in Canada's wilderness.
Without TV, you invent some really fun games like rubber band chess where you try to shoot specific pieces off the board from 10 feet away :-).
My dad's a certified pyro (chemist, model rockets, certified fireworks marshal), my mom is an accidental pyro (pots), and all us kids are certified pyro's :-). Magnifying glasses were confiscated many times, then I learned my glasses worked just as well. My brother at 4 years old set fire to the field next to our house in Brazil and it took the whole neighborhood 1/2 a day to put it out. Mom was a smoker so matches and lighters were always being confiscated from us 4. I still have a chunk of 'candle' wood in my childhood memory box -- a piece of pine so soaked in resin it lights very easily -- we were only allowed 1 banker's box each when we moved from Georgia -- special firewood was important to me :-). It sits with a hunk of sassafras root from Georgia -- I love root beer.
We did not get TV until I was about 8 -- Black & White -- color was too expensive as it was brand new :-). I remember watching Armstrong step down onto the moon -- live on TV when I was 12.
Now my dad had a subscription for classical music LP's for years and my mom found me with a hammer and nail, well, griefing them -- like 2/3rds of them. I was very young and don't remember.
Lived in Brazil from age 5 to 9 so we had tropical animals and insects to play with.
Remember the maid yanking me into the house all upset, I had been poking a paralyzed tarantula out of a African wasp's grasp as it tried to climb our gate post to get height to fly off, several times. The wasp sting was dangerous for small kids. Watched out the front window as the wasp finally got high enough to fly off (about 3' and dropped 2' before getting level).
Termite mounds were lots of fun. Poking grass down the holes and bringing up the soldiers.
Throwing the big grasshoppers into spider webs and watching the spider wrap it (2" diameter spiders :-) ).
Kite flying was big in Brazil. I made a folded newspaper sheet kite, attached a brand new spool of sewing thread to it and flew it until the thread ran out and it flew away. Mom was not happy that her new thread was missing. I am still amazed to this day that I flew out around 300 yards/meters of sewing thread with a newspaper kite (no sticks, just paper with a tail of paper) without losing it or breaking the thread.
Mostly played with my 2 brothers and my sister growing up. Little TV, no video games, no cell phones, etc. But we would leave in the morning and show up for meals and bedtime. Like I was the eldest at around 7 or 8 when we started doing this -- no way can parents do this today. We always had a pet animal or 3 underfoot. My brothers, sister and I were always hunting for snakes, newts, lizards and the like.
I am a berry and wild fruit fiend. I knew where every berry bush, plum tree, cherry tree, apple tree, nut tree was for miles around within the year of moving to a new place. Remember finding an abandoned plum orchard in Georgia and gorging on perfectly ripe plums until I was sick. Visiting a memorable black berry bramble every day for weeks each year for several years in Ontario and searching for ripe berries hidden from sight in the hollows under the canes. Oh and strawberries, I could spend all day in the summer combing the fields for wild strawberries -- commercial strawberries are just *not* the same.
My mom could bake bread and baked treats but was pretty much a dangerous cook for anything else -- burn water (melted pots and kettles), break unbreakable Corningware, dyslexic with white powders (mixed up sugar and salt countless times). So all us kids learned to cook early and surprising well. But I am a bit dyslexic with white powders too and made a batch of muffins that were perfect baseballs and could be hit multiple times before they broke. I was 10 and just learning but salt and sugar sure look the same.
4 and 5 year old Kindergarten in Wales at the start of the 60's was interesting. I remember that all 26 boys of 46 kids were all named David (patron saint of Wales) and all the boys were called by their second name or last name. And we were taught reading and writing -- I became a bookworm by 6. I remember my Gram serving me black tea and not liking it at all (still don't). But a year later at 6, I started drinking coffee in Brazil and liked it --- well, I liked the sugar too much causing me to quit at 15 (5 spoons per cup) -- and restart/quit many times -- drinking it again with 2 'cubes' of sugar -- I have to be very strict and not let myself use a spoon and free flowing sugar.
We went through some rough financial times and my mom always served lima beans (still hate them). Luckily, my sister's cat loved them and would hunch under the table eating all our lima beans. But mom did have some hits over the years looking at 4 hungry kids to feed -- I still love maraschino cherries and creme cheese sandwiches, or walnuts and creme cheese (mom was down to feeding us her baking supplies). My wife just looks funny at me when I take condensed mushroom soup undiluted and make grilled soup sandwiches, hmmm. I can still happily gnaw on a chunk of unsweetened or semi-sweet bakers chocolate -- k, I raided for those as a kid.
My best memories seem to revolve around food. My dad loved to primitive camp and eat off the land. Camping in Florida for a week catching and eating escargo, crab, frog legs, flounder, grouper, sea perch, and ells was a really memorable trip -- yes we kids, at 11 down to 7, ate that stuff and loved it -- didn't know we were not supposed to like it. Ok, not that keen on ells actually but I still love frogs legs. Hiking and finding a whole field of fiddle heads -- we collected a garbage bag full and froze them, hmmm. Another time we found a 3' by 4' bed of perfectly ripe puffball mushrooms where most were hexagonal, garbage bag again
, and hmmm. Morels, chanterelle's, ink caps, oyster, we kids learned to eat and love them. My sister finds soccerball size puffballs most autumns here in Southern Ontario Canada -- we all gather round a slice filling the frying pan :-).Car trips are another memory, "yellow bug, punch, no punch back...". Returning from the beach in Santos to Sao Paulo through very thick fog up the *old* road with dozens of switch backs instead of the *new* highway (my dad likes exploring) with my mom hanging out the window helping see a few feet past the hood. Cross Canada 3 times and down the Eastern side of North America at least 3 times, 4 kids on a mattress in the back of a station wagon -- I think we played every traveling game possible -- no seatbelts in the cars in those days.
Btw, I hate spiders and scorpions though not terrified. Still empty my shoes or boots when camping -- old habits from the tropics never die, even in Canada's wilderness.
Without TV, you invent some really fun games like rubber band chess where you try to shoot specific pieces off the board from 10 feet away :-).
My dad's a certified pyro (chemist, model rockets, certified fireworks marshal), my mom is an accidental pyro (pots), and all us kids are certified pyro's :-). Magnifying glasses were confiscated many times, then I learned my glasses worked just as well. My brother at 4 years old set fire to the field next to our house in Brazil and it took the whole neighborhood 1/2 a day to put it out. Mom was a smoker so matches and lighters were always being confiscated from us 4. I still have a chunk of 'candle' wood in my childhood memory box -- a piece of pine so soaked in resin it lights very easily -- we were only allowed 1 banker's box each when we moved from Georgia -- special firewood was important to me :-). It sits with a hunk of sassafras root from Georgia -- I love root beer.
/Rowebot