My Dad retired last year after nearly forty years in the hospitality industry as a hotel manager. I spent lots of time in hotels as a kid. We lived in some of them temporarily, and when we weren’t living in them we were using the pools or eating in the restaurants. Dad managed Holiday Inns the most through my growing-up years, and I have tons of awesome memories from his time working for that chain. In fact, when it was time to make a cake for his retirement party I used the vintage Holiday Inn sign as inspiration. (It was pretty cool: you can see that cake HERE.) His first…
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What Goes Up Must Come Down. That’s What Scares Me.
I have a confession to make. I am terrified of skiing. I have been afraid of it for as long as I remember. In fact, I vaguely remember being invited by my uncle and cousins (avid skiers) to go along with them when I was a youngster, and the thought of it paralyzed me so I stayed home. It’s a weird fear to have, I admit it. It doesn’t seem anything like “I’m afraid of spiders” (I’m not) or “I’m afraid of zombies” (Uh, yep!): those are commonly expressed fears. NORMAL fears. I’ve always been afraid of heights, and even though I conquer that fear for about an hour each…
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Bubble Gum Ice Cream Stream of Consciousness
A couple of weeks ago, Jim and I drove to Wisconsin to visit J at his college. The three of us went to the quaint downtown area of his new town, ate lunch at a diner, and then headed back up the street where we had seen a vintage-looking ice cream parlor. When we checked out the flavor choices that were available in the freezer, I was overjoyed to discover Bubble Gum and, just like that, my decision was made. Bubble Gum ice cream takes me back to my childhood instantly. It’s the flavor I remember ordering every single time my maternal Grandpa took us out for ice cream. It’s…
- Childhood Memories, Confessions, Do I Really Want My Readers To Know This?, I'm Apparently Old., Something That Could Change Your Life
TV Or Not TV? That Is The Question.
It is not an understatement to say that television has been a major presence in my life. I’m convinced that the reason why my skin is so fair is because as a little kid I was much happier sitting in front of the TV than I was outside in the fresh air and sunshine. It’s also probably part of the reason why I was reading at a third grade level in Kindergarten, because “Sesame Street” and “The Electric Company”. It’s also probably why I never could perform a proper cartwheel. During the 1970s my TV habit grew, and this was BEFORE CABLE, kids. We had the rabbit ear antenna attached…
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Lilacs
For the better part of the 70s, my family lived in a duplex in the south suburbs of Chicago. I remember lots of moments from the carefree years spent there: I had a very happy childhood and thinking back on those days always makes me smile. I don’t know if the neighborhood was “full of kids”, though I had several good friends who lived practically within arms’ reach. One of my best friends at the time lived a few doors down, one lived in the other half of our duplex, and two others lived in the two duplexes behind us, across an expansive lawn that ran behind the houses like…
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Pee Pee Chicken
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Cousins
I have a smaller family than most people I know. I have one sister–as you know–and our parents each only have one sibling. Between our uncle on mom’s side and our aunt on dad’s side, we have six cousins. When we were kids, we all lived in the Chicago area and we saw a lot of the four cousins on our mom’s side. Some of my favorite childhood memories include those four boys. When we were at Grandma and Grandpa’s house together, we rode bikes and messed around in the yard, and we also played with the cases full of Matchbox and Hot Wheels cars that were kept there for…
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Disney Magical Moments
I went to see “Disney On Ice” with my sister over the weekend. The advantage of attending a show like that without bringing children along–besides the lack of pressure to buy overpriced souvenirs and being among the first people out of the parking lot when it’s over because you don’t have to worry about getting anybody into a carseat–is that it’s the perfect environment for people-watching and taking in the magical moments of total strangers. We saw countless little girls dressed as Disney princesses, all sparkly from head to toe and brimming with excitement over, well, everything. Two sisters, about four and six years old, were leaning on the guardrail…
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Made For TV On The Radio
When I was in high school, I spent countless hours talking about music (and music videos on MTV, because the channel still played them at that time) with friends. We were obsessed with music. I’ve written a lot of posts about my favorites (Berlin, Duran Duran, and of course, Adam Ant), but a song popped into my head the other day that made me laugh, because the memory of it is something I can’t believe I hadn’t yet used for blog fodder. I’m pretty sure it was because of my friend Cyndi having had a brother in college back in 1984, but my little group of friends suddenly started listening…
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Jingle All The Way
Though I was born Jewish, I have celebrated Christmas in addition to Hanukkah at different times in my life. I should mention that by the words “celebrating Christmas”, I mean “celebrating the secular parts of the holiday”. When we were kids, my sister and I got stockings every year*. We would’ve had a Christmas tree too, had our mom been able to talk our dad into it, but he wouldn’t even go for a Hanukkah bush** and so we had to settle for Aunt Jemima. Our uncle married our aunt (duh), who was not Jewish (still isn’t), so we used to make the trek to their house for the Christmas…