Truthfully – half of this stuff I’d forgotten about myself. Listening to 60s & 70s music kicked my memory in the backside tonight.
1
During 8th grade, I created a comic strip for the monthly school newspaper. When I moved that February, the office asked me to create enough strips to finish out the semester. I don’t remember much about the comic except all the people in my drawings had impossibly long, skinny legs.
It wasn’t funny or insightful, or even interesting. Apparently someone liked it, though.
2
The average kid complains about food from the school cafeteria.
I only remember eating school-cafeteria meals maybe two or three times in my entire life.
The alternative was a paper bag with a sandwich – usually the cheapest available bologna or tuna, on day-old bread. If I was lucky, the bag included some kind of chips, and maybe a cookie. A few times there were veggie sticks or an apple. It was presumably due to finances. Either there were no free/reduced lunches back then or my parents couldn’t be bothered apply for them.
3
I hated milk as a kid. I still do. It’s a frequent and welcome addition to cooking – but never, ever drink the stuff.
4
The plant affinity goes back a ways. I was probably 9 or 10 years old, if that, when I planted zinnia seeds next to our driveway. The seeds came from money I earned from mowing lawns, the only job I was old enough to do. My mother was livid because I spent a few cents on flower seeds, regardless that it was money I’d earned. (Incidentally, she was even more incensed at the idea of cut flowers, no matter who they came from.) Our vegetable garden filled the majority of our yard – but flowers were verboten.
5
I’ve only flown twice (technically four times, since each was a round-trip), both times for business. One flight was to Dallas, the other to the San Francisco area. I did get to see and drive across the Golden Gate bridge, and to see a little of the redwood forest north of the bridge. I missed my flight home. (I flew out later that night.)
Totally worth it.
6
Coffee is the devil incarnate. When in college, I convinced myself if I was going to live in a business world, coffee was a social necessity, even more than alcohol. I finally found something on the extreme margins of what could be considered instant coffee, and forced it down. After a couple of despicable cups, I chucked what was left into the trash and never looked back.
Still love the smell of coffee, still hate the taste.
7
It’s not home without a piano.
The only way to fit a piano in our tiny abode would be to swap this little, crowded box for a TARDIS on the same footprint. (If you’re not familiar with Doctor Who, look it up. It’s bigger on the inside.) Playing piano was my antidepressant when I was growing up. No longer depressed — still miss the piano.
8
Much as it pains me to admit it, my love of photography is inherited. My dad was a camera buff when I was little. He had a darkroom and developed his own prints, which couldn’t have been cheap. There was very little to like about my dad, and I’ve mostly avoided anything I could that was remotely connected to him. But I do love my camera – in spite of him, not because of him.
9
I remember the social upheavals of the 1960s and 1970s. The news showed the Atlanta riots, the Vietnam war, and so much more. It WAS frightening. And yet in comparison to the insanity of today, it seems almost tame.
10
Recently I started watching old reruns of the 80s TV show Remington Steele. Still a campy, fun show.
Roughly the time it was on, I worked for the Remington Steele Detective Agency, albeit not under that name. I was employed by a private investigator where the name of the company was a man’s name — but the owner was a woman.
Ah, nostalgia. My brain pings with the weirdest stuff sometimes.