I spent Thursday with Kaiya and Mylee. Here are three grown-up things that came out of 5-year-old Kaiya’s mouth that day that made me smile….

First, I agreed to take Kaiya to her gymnastics class that evening and drop the two girls back at home afterwards. I had never been to her class, so her mom was trying to explain to me how to get there. Our conversation went something like this:

“It’s just off of University. Drive past Arapahoe and then turn into the parking lot.”

“Which direction are you driving down University?”

“Drive north. It’s on the other side of Arapahoe.”

“The other side coming from your house or my house?”

Finally, Kaiya could take no more.

“Why don’t you just use your smart phone?” she asked, somewhat wearily.

Second, as we were driving to the zoo, I asked both girls what they want for their upcoming birthdays. Kaiya said she wants mermaid fins.

“Mermaid fins?” I said. “Where did you see them?”

“On YouTube,” she answered.

“Where can I buy them?” I asked.

“You don’t buy them, Nana,” she said. “You register, and then six lucky children win free mermaid fins.” I swear she sounded just like a commercial announcer.

Finally, after a morning at the zoo, we were trudging back towards the entrance. It was hot and we were tired and hungry. As we walked by Monkey Island, there was a big bird standing in the water.

“Look,” I said authoritatively. “A stork!”

Kaiya was quiet for a few moments. Then she said, without a trace of sarcasm, “Hmmm, it looks like a pelican to me.”

Pelican

Stork

Of course, it was. And I’m the grown-up. But they look alike! Am I wrong?

By the way, Mylee ate four (that is not a typo) hot dogs for lunch. I will be entering her in a hot dog eating contest shortly.

Have a great weekend.

I think it’s pretty unusual for children – at least children living in a metropolitan area – to walk home from school these days. Just too many crazies out there.

But I would bet many of the Baby Boomers reading this blog walked home from school. Perhaps some rode a school bus, but particularly in smaller communities, getting to and from anywhere was generally on foot. Bill always tells our grandkids he walked two miles to and from school each day and it was uphill both ways! He adds that he had to get there early to get the potbelly stove going. Seeings as he went to school on the south side of Chicago, they are appropriately suspicious on all accounts.

But the part where he tells them he stopped each day on his way home from school at a little grocery store to pick up a bottle of Pepsi Cola and a package of Hostess Cupcakes is true. Many of us had similar experiences.

For my siblings and me, our stop was at a little grocery store called Potter’s, just a couple of blocks from our school. I recall that there were several little grocery stores like Potter’s around Columbus. Potter’s just happened to be the one closest to us. And I’m not talking little as in Sprouts as compared to Safeway. I’m talking little – a couple of shelves for groceries and a couple of coolers for meats and cheeses. In Columbus, our little stores also had butcher shops.

There were a few exceptionally good things about Potter’s. One, it was close to school and somewhat on our way home. Two, it had a HUGE candy case full of penny candy. And three, our Aunt Cork worked there. Our happiness at the third fact is closely related to our happiness at the second fact. Aunt Cork was always generous at doling out the penny candy.

Remember penny candy? When it really cost a penny?

You had pixie stix…..

And what about those horrendous wax lips…….

I loved Slo Poke suckers……

And, oddly, I also loved the wax bottles. You would bite off the tip and drink the one-hundredth of an ounce of sugar water that was in there, and then chew the wax (which was disgusting)…..

And how can any of us possibly forget candy cigarettes…….

It’s absolutely bizarre to think about how we would put them in our mouth and then pretend to smoke them, blowing out air in a manner that we felt was highly sophisticated. Talk about an ingenious marketing scheme!

There is a really good old-fashioned candy store in Estes Park that we make sure we visit any time we are in the vicinity. Bill loves the bullseye candy. I usually buy him bullseyes, Bit O’ Honey, Squirrel Nut Zippers, and Snaps. Instead of a penny, I’m lucky if I can get out of the store for under $20, and that’s with just a small bag. Still, the candy cases are beautiful and remind me of the showcase full of candy at Potter’s.

I guess small grocery stores like Potter’s were the precursors for stores such as 7-11 and Circle K. Those stores are a bit more antiseptic and less interesting. The little stores had just about anything you might need, but much less of it. No big coolers full of soft drinks – or “pop” as we called it, but a showcase full of candy, a few fresh vegetables, a cooler that held cheese and lunch meat, counters with canned goods and Wonder Bread, and a little butcher shop.  One of my childhood friends and I would stop by Potter’s when we were out riding our bikes and buy a string of frankfurters. Remember when wieners were sold by the pound and were strung together? We would tear a couple apart and eat them right there, sans the bun, cold and delicious. At least we thought so.

The days of little grocery stores is over for the most part. I guess you have the bodegas in New York City, and even Denver has some small markets featuring Indian food or Pakistani food or African food. But no little general grocery stores like Potter’s.

But I have one question. Where-oh-where do people buy their Black Jack gum these days?

Did you have a place where you stopped after school to get a snack?

Following is a guest post courtesy Rebecca Borman….

When I listen to the car radio I often hear a song by Melissa Lambert called “Automatic.”  In it, she opines “Hey, what ever happened to waiting your turn, doing it all by hand…It all just seems so good the way we had it, back before everything became automatic.”  I really like the song, and I sing along lustily whenever I hear it.  But, I have to admit that I don’t agree with what she says in it.  And here’s why:

A few days ago I had occasion to open a bottle of wine, using my spiffy cordless wine opener.  The cork came out of the bottle just fine.  But, when I pushed the button to release the cork…nothing happened.  Well, when I looked into the device I could see the cork spinning around, but it wasn’t going anywhere.  It certainly wasn’t detaching itself from the device.  I tried it repeatedly, but to no avail.  I thought that this gift, which was probably a bit expensive, would have to be thrown out.  But eventually I remembered the internet.  So, I Googled “cordless wine opener co”… and before I could finish, the subject line was completed for me…”cork won’t release.”  Obviously I wasn’t the first person with this problem.  In about 30 seconds, I got to a site on which someone explained how to fix the problem.  I tried it, and it worked.  It was a very easy solution but one that I wouldn’t have thought of trying in a million years.

This incident started me thinking about how much technology has changed my life—absolutely for the better.  Sometimes, it seems like magic.  I can find solutions to problems on-line.  I can heat up leftovers or make popcorn in mere seconds.  I can pick up my phone and instantly connect with anyone on my contact list.  If it’s too much to text, I can email or call.  I can watch movies on Netflix anywhere in my house on my beloved IPad.  This is all good stuff.

Of course, I recognize that technology can be put to evil use…and has been.  But, so can books, baseball bats, and pets.  It’s all in the hands of the user.

I’m of the belief that my generation is more able to appreciate this technology boom than any other group.  Those in my parents’ generation were behind the curve from the beginning.  Many of them worked hard to adapt, and they succeeded.  But, it seems like it has been a challenge for them continually to play catch-up with change after change.  On the other hand, my children’s generation is so used to the technology and to the speed with which it improves that they think nothing of it.   They can’t possibly appreciate how much it has changed the world because it’s been around their whole lives.

But people like me, born in the 40s and 50s, know the before and after.  When I lived in Germany, I didn’t own a telephone.  I spoke to my parents perhaps once or twice a year.  I found out about big things like weddings after the fact, either in one of those infrequent phone calls or by mail.  Even when I moved back to the US, it was expensive to make long-distance phone calls, and letters didn’t get written all that often.   I would spend a week or two with my family each year and I loved being part of their daily lives—knowing what naughtiness their children perpetrated or what they made for dinner.  Then I’d go back to my own home and miss intensely that close connection.

Now, it’s a rare day that I don’t text, email, or talk on the phone with one of my sisters.  Facetime lets us see each other drinking our morning coffee in our robes.  We get to watch our children and grandchildren kick a soccer goal, execute a dance step, or smile for the first time.

So, unlike Melissa Lambert, I don’t long for the times before everything became “automatic.”  I like automatic.

Note:  In fairness to Melissa, she explains that the song is “about slowing down, taking a breath and remembering what it’s like to live life a little more simply.”  I’m okay with that.

Here are some things that have made me happy over the past week or so…..

Dagny, Magnolia, and Kaiya water painted a group picture.

Alastair helped his papa cut down a couple of trees in our back yard.

Mylee sits in Papa’s sports car. “It’s so comfortable I want to stay in here forever,” she said.

Dagny gets ready to compete at her swim meet.

Some volleyball in our back yard on Father’s Day.

Kaiya meets her cousin Kenzie.

Mackenzie got a new stuffed animal while visiting Estes Park this week. Snuffles keeps watch while Kenz sleeps.

Mackenzie, Kaiya, and Carter sun themselves after getting wet in the splash pool.

The other day, Addie told her papa and me that she had hired Magnolia and Dagny to do some of her chores. She paid them out of her allowance. They did her laundry and straightened up her room. Their wage? Twenty-seven cents apiece. Total, not per hour.

“What?” her papa and I said simultaneously. “Why, that’s highway robbery.”

Addie smiled with absolutely no remorse in her face. What the market will bear, I guess.

A short time later, her papa came in from outside where he had been doing some yard work.

“I struck a better deal than what you gave your sisters,” he told Addie.”I just agreed to mow our neighbor’s lawn next week since she will be out of town.”

His payment? A loaf of homemade rye bread.

What the market will bear.

Have a good weekend.

My blog title today should – and probably does – make you cringe. Imagine that we – all of the baby boomer generation – actually heard (and took to heart) that statement from the time we were small children.

I don’t know the girl in the photo. It was what came up when I googled “free image of child in 1950s glasses” or something like that. But it could have been me had I not been a conceited little snit. Except that the hair would be a pixie cut with crooked bangs.

When I was in the third grade, it was discovered that I needed glasses. My eyesight was bad, and became steadily worse over my elementary and early high school years. My mother immediately and dutifully purchased me a pair of glasses – just as pink and cat-eyed as those of the girl in the photo; I’m pretty sure they are the exact same ones! – which, unlike the decidedly smarter but less conceited girl in the photo, I never EVER wore. I didn’t wear them for reading. I didn’t wear them to see the blackboard. I didn’t wear my glasses. Period.

Why? Because “boys don’t make passes at girls who wear glasses.”

In those days, contact lenses weren’t prescribed as readily, and certainly not until one was much older than third grade. I was finally allowed to wear contact lenses somewhere near my senior year of high school. Until that time, I literally lived my life in a blurry haze. I was not just slightly near-sighted. I was extremely near-sighted.

I got very good at living the blurry life. I could recognize people from their hazy shapes. I somehow got through school with passing grades, probably from sitting in the front row whenever possible. I lived a suitably normal life. A life without glasses. Somehow I convinced myself that a permanent squint was more attractive than glasses. Pretty sure that wasn’t true.

What’s hard to imagine is that my mother allowed me to go without wearing glasses. But my memory is short. It’s possible that I would put them on as I approached my house, though she was not one who could be easily fooled, so I sort of doubt that. My better guess is that she simply didn’t recognize just how near-sighted I was, and, well, “boys don’t make passes……”

I was liberated by contact lenses, and wore them until I was about 45 or 50 years old when I finally had Lasik surgery. Talk about liberation. Being able to see without glasses or contact lenses was heaven.

Nowadays, things are decidedly different. For one thing, eyeglasses are really cute. They simply were not attractive in the 1960s and 1970s. First the 1960 cat-eyes. Then the 1970s huge frames. Yoiks. These days glasses can be, and are, a fashion statement. Thank heavens because as my eyesight again diminishes despite the Laskik,  I now wear glasses almost all of the time. Not that I care a whit about being cute these days.

And thank heavens in particular that I see children wearing glasses, and looking so darn cute doing so. I have a friend with a little girl who has had glasses for several years, and she looks absolutely darling in them. See?

Thanks for posing for my blog Addison Kay!

Surprisingly, thus far none of our grandkids needs glasses. I’m sure some will some day some how. Until then, I will be emphasizing to them the importance of being kind, being smart, being respectful, and being self-confident. Because these days boys decidedly DO make passes at girls who wear glasses.

Although they better leave my granddaughters alone until I say so, glasses or no.

The most poetical thing in the world is not being sick. G.K. Chesterton

Bill doesn’t let a little thing like Parkinson’s stop him. Never has. Never will.

And this week we had some great news. The “cocktail” of medications of which he partakes is doing its job – in fact, overachieving. At Bill’s semiannual checkup, he measured absolutely symptom-free. No symptoms. None. In fact, he was told that if he was standing in line next to a neurologist, that doctor who specializes in movement disorders such as Parkinson’s Disease would not be able to tell that Bill has PD.

We can’t look into the future (thank goodness), but every day that Bill has no symptoms is a gift from God.

I also have one funny Bill story that made me smile.

The other day I picked a bouquet of iris from my yard, deciding I wanted to enjoy them before they went away for the year. I did, in fact, enjoy their beauty and heady (very heady) aroma for several days. I had them sitting in the middle of my kitchen table. At some point, the flowers got in the way of Bill and I having a conversation, so I moved them over to the bookshelf next to the kitchen wall. There they sat for several days.

Aren’t they pretty?

When their ability to please me was over, I picked up the vase to throw away the flowers, and noticed that the purple flowers had left a very large, very purple stain on my yellow kitchen wall. I tried to clean it myself, but all I was able to do was smear the stain around, leaving it even more unsightly. Bill was at the baseball game that evening, so I simply left it and went upstairs to bed, figuring it was going to require a paint job. Unfortunately, I didn’t take a photo of the stain.

When he got home, I mentioned the stain to him. Before I knew it, he was downstairs. I could hear him bustling around, but fell asleep before he was finished.

The next morning I came downstairs and noticed the stain, while not completely gone, was so very faint that it can barely be seen. When Bill got up, I asked him what he used to clean the stubborn spot.

“Everything,” he said. Everything? What does that mean?

“The brass cleaner didn’t really do too much, “he went on, “but the oven cleaner worked pretty well.”

I thought he was kidding. No. Turns out he tried:

Oven cleaner

Brass cleaner

Oxy-Magic

Zep Heavy Duty Cleaner

Gojo

Kaboom shower and tub cleaner

The man was busy. He truly is the Energizer Bunny.