Of Pixy Stix and Pop Rocks

People bring a lot of leftover food into work and put it in the kitchen for anyone to eat. It usually doesn’t take too long for something to go – to the swift go the spoils! Once in a while, someone brings in something that sits…and sits…and sits. I often wonder about items like that. Did someone try it and then tell everyone else it tastes terrible? Did somebody see somebody else take a bite and retch? If so, how come no one warned me?

This week I went into the kitchen on Tuesday and there was a pile of Pixy Stix on the table. Pixy Stix? That’s exactly what I thought when I saw them. It looked like Pixy Stix, but I wasn’t quite sure. I picked one up and, even without my now-required reading glasses, I saw that it was indeed Pixy Stix. My first thought was, “They still make these things?” I really didn’t know they still made them after all these years. After all, they were a big thing when I was a kid. There wasn’t much better than pouring some flavored powdered sugar into your mouth, so dry that you almost couldn’t swallow. It was awesome! At least it was when I was a kid.

I didn’t eat any of the Pixy Stix last week. As an adult, the thought of pouring powdered sugar into my mouth really didn’t interest me whatsoever. However, it did get me thinking of some other so-called food items that were great as a kid. I don’t know why, but one item that always comes back to my mind is Zarex. Thick syrup that you mixed with water, Zarex was a staple at my house, especially in the summer. You could make a pitcher full or just a glass full, mix it with some ice and drink it down. And sometimes when no one else was around we’d just take a swig of the Zarex syrup – talk about a sugar rush! The funny thing about that is that just thinking about drinking Zarex straight up makes me kind of shiver. Oh, and if Mom found out we did that, we weren’t allowed to make any ourselves, which meant that we got her version that was more like water with a little flavor instead of sweet, thick syrup with a little water. Kool Aid was no match for Zarex. It also appears that Zarex is being manufactured again.

How about Pop Rocks? When those first came out, every kid wanted them and every parent wanted to ban them. One of us would put half the bag in our mouth, close our mouth and everyone else would stand around that person listening to them pop, trying not to laugh too loud so we could hear them. Then came the Urban Legend that if you ate Pop Rocks with soda, your stomach would explode. Or maybe it was a marketing ploy. It either shows how stupid we were to go ahead and try eating Pop Rocks with soda or how smart we were to not believe it, but me and my friends are all alive today after doing it. Now that I think of it, maybe that’s why some of us have larger stomachs than we’d like.

Another item that comes to mind is Marathon Bars, which were chocolate covered caramel that was kind of twisted. Supposedly they took a long time to eat. I just remember the funny ads on TV – “I’m Quick Carl and I do everything fast”, except eat a Marathon bar. I probably ate one at some time, but it didn’t leave much of a memory.  Would I eat any of these now? Absolutely not. And now that I’m reading this over, it brings something else to mind. How the heck do we have any teeth left?

Another Super Bowl Sunday

There was a time when Super Bowl Sunday was a huge event in my life. It was something me and my friends looked forward to every year, especially once the playoffs started. It didn’t matter who was playing, we were watching. Here in Massachusetts, we’ve been fortunate to see three Super Bowl wins for the home team (and one painful loss) in the last ten years. But there were a lot of years that they weren’t even close.

My best friend growing up, Tony, was a Dallas Cowboys fan, while I was an Oakland Raiders and Pittsburgh Steelers fan. Back then, the Patriots were about the worst team in the league so we rooted for other teams. To say that Tony and I had some minor disagreements over football would be an understatement. Back in the 70’s and into the early 80’s, Dallas, Pittsburgh and Oakland were in the Super Bowl almost every year. Dallas and Pittsburgh even faced each other twice in the Big Game, with Pittsburgh winning both games (sorry Tony). The Super Bowl back then wasn’t the spectacle it is now, but its popularity was starting to grow, and it didn’t matter to us, we watched the game because we loved football. It was just with a lot less people, sometimes just me and Tony.

As time went on and the hype grew, so did the crowds both at the game and where we were watching the game. It got to be ridiculous in the late 80’s because there were so many people at the Super Bowl parties you couldn’t hear the game or each other talking. Sometimes, it was hard to even see the game – there were no big screen televisions at that time. It was getting to the point that it wasn’t even fun anymore. Then in the early 90’s, my wife and I moved to California and, not having many friends, we watched the game ourselves. As much as it felt weird, I actually enjoyed watching the game with just us. It was calm, quiet and refreshing.

You see, I still remember watching my first Super Bowl like it was yesterday, remembering that game more than some of the more recent games. An almost-8 year old boy, slightly bored on a Sunday afternoon, flipped on the TV and watched the only televised sporting event on the 7 or 8 stations we got in those days. I don’t remember where everyone else in my family was that day, but I watched alone as a guy named Joe made good on his guarantee and led his team to a stunning victory over the heavily favored opposition. It was 1969, Super Bowl III, and the New York Jets beat the Baltimore Colts 16-7. It was a much simpler time: we didn’t have 100+ channels on cable, no big screen TV, no surround sound systems; there weren’t 25 or 30 camera angles on every play, there weren’t constant graphics, there weren’t announcers from 50 or 100 countries. It was just me and a small 10-inch black and white TV, rooting for the Jets because their quarterback had the same name as me. I had been watching football, but Super Bowl III was the game that made me a true football fan.

Every year people reminisce about past Super Bowls, talking about the great plays, the great players and the great teams – and there were many of each of them. But when I think back, I always come back to Super Bowl III. Call me sentimental, but there are times I wish I could go back to that period of my life. To a time when everyday life went at a slower pace, when everything wasn’t as commercialized, when there was a feeling that anything was possible, when sports were still a game and not a business. To a time that I could sit alone in a room on Super Bowl Sunday and watch the game on a tiny TV and be the happiest guy in the world. Yes, I will always remember the Patriots’ victories in Super Bowls XXXVI, XXXVIII and XXXIX, but I will always cherish the memories of the Jets victory in Super Bowl III.

Life Lessons

Sometimes when I try to explain something to my kids, especially when they’ve made a mistake, they really don’t want to hear it. In all honesty, they just want to get as far away from me as they can. Or they just want me to shut up. As my son says at these times, “Dad, I don’t need a life lesson.” I remember the first time he said that to me. I was shocked, I was surprised, I was hurt. Yes, I was hurt.

Part of my job as a father is to help my kids not make the same stupid mistakes I did. Isn’t that what all Dads (and Moms) want for their kids, to live a better life than they did? And to not learn things the hard way. Because of this, there are times we just want to explain a little bit and make sure they make the connection between what they did or did not do and what came out of it. As my kids have gotten older I’ve learned that they’re actually very insightful. They already see the connection that I’m trying to show them, to explain to them. I’ve come to understand why they don’t want another life lesson. Not that it always stops me – sometimes you just need to say what you need to say. Just sayin’.

I remember one of the first times my dad gave me one of those true life lessons. I was probably about 12 years old and told one of my friends who had totally aggravated me to screw. No, that’s not a nice substitute for the F-Bomb; it’s really what I said. Now that may seem tame by today’s standards, but telling someone to screw, and a friend at that, in those days was pretty strong. When I turned to go into my house my Dad was standing there, not looking very happy. Apparently, he had seen and heard the whole situation. The first thing Dad did was make me apologize to my friend, which I thought was totally ridiculous after how he had been acting. Then came the life lesson. Three decades later, I don’t remember the exact words he used or even everything we talked about, but a couple of things have stuck with me. One thing I remember clearly was that my father didn’t yell at me once during the conversation. The other is that he reversed the situation and it was me being told to screw, and he asked me how I’d feel in that situation. I totally got what he was saying: you treat people as you’d like to be treated. It’s the “Golden Rule”.

I know there were plenty of other life lessons from my parents, some so important that I still remember them today. But here are some other things I also learned from my family:

·     Never let someone convince you that something will taste as good as something else, when you know that their having to convince you means something is wrong. Nine kids from my family can tell you that powdered milk does not taste just like regular milk, liver does not taste just like steak (even with ketchup) and carrots mashed up do not taste just like squash.

·     Always check the toilet paper roll before you sit down. Once you’ve done your duty, it’s too late. You’ll be at the mercy of others who may not have your best interests at heart.

·     If your older brothers do something to help “toughen you up” or teach you a lesson and tell you “Don’t tell Mom!”, then don’t tell Mom. Otherwise the next time will be much worse. Besides, later in life when people give you a hard time, you’ll laugh at their pitiful attempts to intimidate you.

·     If you’re a little wary of doing something but your older brothers are encouraging you to just do it, that “nothing bad is going to happen”, something bad is going to happen.

·     If your girlfriend has pet names for you, such as Snookie Wookums or Pookie Bear, never let her call you that in front of even one of your brothers and sisters. That is, unless you want to be called that by your whole family for a long time, even after she’s not your girlfriend anymore.

Your family can teach you a lot, things that will help you through life. The important thing is that you take these life lessons and pass them on. Your kids might act as though they don’t want to hear it, but some day they will thank you for sharing those gems with them. Well, maybe not, but at least when they’ve gone to college or moved out on their own they’ll check the toilet paper on the way in to the bathroom.

Found Money

I decided to do a load of laundry the other day, and as usual, I checked the pockets of the pants to make sure there was nothing in them. When I check pockets I find things like gum wrappers, miscellaneous pieces of paper, earrings, even used Q-tips. Sometimes I find some money, usually change, but once in a while I find a dollar or, hold the phone, a five dollar bill! Any money I find is mine. On this particular day, I found two quarters in one of my own pair of pants.

I know you’re probably thinking something like, “Big deal, 50 cents. That can’t buy you anything these days.” Well, maybe if you’re a glass-is-half-empty person, you’d be thinking like that. But if you’re a glass-is-half-full person, you might be thinking something like, “Bonus! I got something for nothing!” That’s kind of how I felt, even if it was my own pants. That was money I didn’t know I had. And you just never know when you’re going to need a little change. Here in Massachusetts if you buy something for $5.00, the tax on it will be $.31, and you’ll be glad you have those two quarters. Who wants a pocket full of change when you can use the few coins you have and only get a couple more back? Who wants to sound like the school janitor with his 57 keys jangling on his ring as he walks around the hallways? Not me.

When I was a kid, we walked to school from first grade up through eighth grade and we’d occasionally find some money while going to and from school. I don’t know why, luck I guess, but we usually found money on the way home. Sometimes it was nickel or a dime, and sometimes we’d find a quarter. Before you start thinking, “So what?” let me tell you what a quarter used to be like. A quarter back in the early 1970’s was a gold mine for a kid. How? A measly 25 cents would buy you not just a candy bar, but a can of soda as well. That’s right, 25 cents would buy you a Snickers Bar and a Pepsi; or a bag of M&M’s and a Mountain Dew; or a Snickers Bar and a bag of M&M’s with a nickel left over. That’s what one quarter would get you, so imagine what two quarters got you, or what the Holy Grail of found money, a whole dollar, would get you! If you found a dollar, everyone around you was suddenly your best friend.

When we found money we’d go to Walt’s Sunoco, a local gas station/car repair shop, because there were candy and soda machines inside. The owner also raced cars and had a hot rod there sometimes, which we could look at and look into, but not touch. We thought he was just about the coolest guy! When we went in to get our food and drink, he’d ask us how we were doing in school and tell us to keep studying. If he was in an especially good mood, he’d give us some stickers for our notebooks, usually STP or Raybestos. We didn’t know what those were, but they sure were cool stickers – and no one else at school had them. So out we’d go, candy bar in one hand and soda in the other, feeling like we were on top of the world. 

We’d take our time going home, laughing and talking about what we’d do with our next big score, all the while scouring the ground for more cash. Anything that was round, shiny or both was pounced on, examined and then pocketed or tossed away. Nickels, dimes, quarters, it didn’t take much to make a young guy happy. Not when you were sharing candy and soda with your brother and best friends. Who says a quarter isn’t worth much?

The Joy of Sledding

This past week, we got our second blizzard in the last couple of weeks, about a foot of snow. We haven’t got this much snow this quickly in a long time. As I was outside cleaning off the cars and clearing the driveway with the snow blower, it reminded me of when I was a kid. It just seems like we got more snow back in the late 1960’s and 1970’s. Maybe its just selective memory, but I remember us having more snow back then.

We loved when it snowed when we were kids. After helping shovel the driveway and the walkway, we could do whatever we wanted. We’d make little snow forts and have snowball fights, sometimes just in our yard and sometimes with our friend across the street. I don’t ever remember anyone getting hurt, but I do remember people, including me, taking a snowball right to the face. After shaking off the realization that I was stupid enough to stick my head up at just the right (or in this case, wrong) time, I’d wipe my face off and make a couple of tightly packed snowballs to get my revenge. By tightly packed, I mean hard. And if someone was cackling a little too loud about their strike, I’d make a couple, take off the gloves and rub them up a little to make ice balls. You get hit with one of them and you’re gonna know you got hit!

Then my son came out (no, he wasn’t helping this time, but he did help last storm) and asked if he could go sledding with some friends. Sledding, that was something we did all winter and right in my backyard most of the time. We had a hill in my backyard that we thought was as big as Mount Everest; it was actually more of a molehill than a mountain. However, that didn’t stop us from having the time of our lives out there. We’d be out there for hours, taking our 15 – 20 second runs down our “hill”. That is not a typo; it took about 15 seconds to go from top to bottom. We usually used plastic saucers or these plastic sheets that rolled up with handles to hold onto. I have no idea what they were called, but you probably couldn’t buy them today due to liability concerns. We did use sleds sometimes, but the other devices made the hill packed, smooth and fast. Toboggans were too big for this hill.

We had our course mapped out and named after us and our friends. At the top, you had Steve’s Start, named after my younger brother. Steve’s Start led into Smitty’s Straightaway, which was just a part that went, you got it, straight. Then the course went either to the left or the right. If you went over to the left, you went into Carl’s corner, which we built up with snow to keep you from going into some thorns and bushes, and then went down into our back yard. If you went over to the right, you went off Joe’s Jump into Kevin’s Canyon then down into the backyard. Joe’s Jump was just a part that dropped about a foot, but we’d build up a small snow ramp right before it so that when you went over it, you felt like you were flying! When the snow got packed and hard there were quite a few sore rumps from hitting Kevin’s Canyon on those plastic devices.

After spending hours outside in the cold and the snow and being chilled to the bone, we’d go in and have some hot chocolate. Before there was Swiss Miss, Mom made it on the stove with milk and cocoa in a pan. If we were lucky, they’d even be a fire in the fireplace to dry us out and warm us up even more. I don’t know which was better, the hot chocolate or the fire. Ah, those were the days.  

Outdoor Hockey

I’m a life-long hockey fan so on New Year’s Day I watched the NHL Winter Classic. For those of you who don’t know what the Winter Classic is, it is a professional hockey game played outdoors, either in a football or baseball stadium. The games have been played in Buffalo, Chicago, Boston and this year’s game was in Pittsburgh. There’s been snow (in Buffalo, of course), cold (Chicago and Boston) and now rain. Maybe it was the rain, maybe it was the teams involved, but in my opinion this year’s game was the least entertaining of the four.

I usually don’t watch the pregame shows for sporting events as I find them a little a boring, but I have watched the pregame show for the Winter Classic in previous years. If nothing else, they always run a time lapse video of getting the rink ready to play. In a geeky way, I find it very interesting. They also interview players from each team about playing outside and most of them look back to their childhood, reminiscing about simpler times when it was still just a game. Their thoughts and memories brought back a lot of memories for me, too.

Growing up in Massachusetts in the late 60’s and 70’s, spurred on by Bobby Orr and the Big, Bad Bruins, the men in my family were huge hockey fans. We watched hockey, talked about hockey and played hockey. As soon as the ponds froze over, we were there playing hockey. During the week, a group of us would run home from school, grab our skates, sticks, gloves and a puck, and hustle to the closest pond to get in an hour or so of hockey before darkness set in and we reluctantly went home. As far as we were concerned, the game was on and the homework could wait.

The only thing better was the weekends. Me and my brothers had chores to do before we could go out on Saturdays (mine was to wash the kitchen or dining room floor), but then it was off to the ponds. We’d get there by 9:30 or 10:00, skate until about 1:00, go home for a short lunch and then skate until it was too dark to see a foot in front of you. Then, and only then, we’d begrudgingly trudge home, tired and hungry (again). We might have had a few bumps, bruises or nicks, and we were usually numb from the cold, but we were a happy bunch of kids! If we were lucky, the Bruins were on TV that night and we’d watch the game, imagining ourselves out there on the Garden ice.

One of my all-time, favorite memories of those times was when my friend Bruce decided to go to the pond with us. Now Bruce played street hockey with us, but he wasn’t much of an ice hockey player. So Bruce showed up with his stick with a plastic street hockey blade (using a baseball metaphor, Strike One) and since he didn’t have hockey skates yet, put on his figure skates (Strike Two) and went out on the pond. I think it was one of my older brothers who, noticing the plastic street hockey blade, told Bruce that his stick was going to break because it was so cold. Bruce, however, would hear nothing of it. We started the game and the first time someone passed the puck to Bruce, you guessed it, the plastic blade snapped right off his stick (Strike Three, yer out)! After a few minutes of uproarious laughter and some I-told-you-so’s, the game went on, with Bruce borrowing someone’s spare stick.

That was about the biggest problem we faced back then, broken sticks or dull blades. I can see why the pros had that little twinkle in their eyes when they talked about it. I probably have that twinkle right now, too.  

Happy New Year

The year 2010 is behind us, with 2011 stretched out before us, its actions and decisions as yet unwritten and memories not yet made. What will 2011 bring for me and for us? I have no clue, I’m not psychic. However, I do know this: someone I know will have a baby in 2011 and someone I know will die in 2011; someone I know will overcome a major issue in their life in 2011 and someone I know will have a major issue in their life in 2011; I will hurt someone I know in some way in 2011 and someone I know will hurt me in some way in 2011. You don’t need to be clairvoyant to know stuff like that will happen in any given year.

My 2010, like most of yours, had its ups and downs. However, as I look back over the year I feel the good far outweighs the bad. Sure, there were challenges, but I can honestly say that those challenges helped me to grow in some way. One area that I think I really grew in this year was in being more grateful and thankful. For everything and everybody in my life. So as 2010 ends and 2011 begins, I just want to say, “Thank you.”

To my wife, my daughter and my son, thank you for loving me just as I am and for encouraging me to write and to start this blog, which has brought back many good memories of growing up. A special thanks to my son, who created the picture and logo for the blog.

To my family, thanks for your support and encouragement regarding “8 of Nine”. I hope that some of the things I wrote about brought back pleasant memories for you, too.

To my friends, thank you for reading at least one of my postings and even becoming an actual follower. That is truly encouraging to me.

I’m not big on making New Year’s resolutions, even joking when I was younger that my resolution was to not make any New Year’s resolutions. If nothing else, I kept my resolution longer than two days. But how about this: we all just try to get along better with less arguing and fighting, we listen better so we can understand each other more and we treat others as we’d like to be treated. As Elvis Costello used to sing, “What’s so funny about peace, love and understanding?”

So, Happy New Year! Let’s make 2011 a great year. Thanks.