Finding Nemo

As we continue to dig out from Nemo here in the Northeast, I’m looking outside at a nice sunny day and the temperature in the 40’s. It always amazes me to see what a difference a couple of days can make. We had snow from early Friday morning until the middle of the day on Saturday, with plenty of wind to go along with it. When I finally got out and about, there was over two feet of snow, lots of fallen trees and tree limbs, and roads that were half as wide as they should be.

When the flakes finally stopped falling, my son, my wife and I went out to clear the driveway and dig out the cars, which you could barely even see. The snow was up to my mid-thighs in some places where it drifted and we had to go out the cellar door that’s covered by a deck because the front and side doors had so much snow against them we couldn’t open them. Fortunately, I have a snow blower. Unfortunately, since the snow was so deep it sputtered and choked and almost didn’t make it. It took us a little over two hours to get the driveway cleaned and the cars unburied. By the time we headed in, our faces were so frozen it was hard to complete simple sentences.

I’m not complaining. Last week just happened to be the 35^th anniversary of the notorious Blizzard of 1978, and though we didn’t get that much more snow than Nemo dumped on us, that particular storm was much worse. In the aftermath of the Blizzard of 1978, it took six of us parts of two days to shovel the driveway and clean off the cars. We did have a huge driveway, probably big enough to fit ten cars easily, but we had no snow blower. We went out after breakfast and started shoveling, went in for lunch, and then went back out and shoveled until it was getting dark. For two days! Comparatively speaking, two hours with a snow blower doesn’t seem so bad, even if we were pretty cold.

I remember so many times as a kid when we were outside sledding or having snowball fights and we refused to go inside the house despite being numb from the cold. I think we knew that once we went in, we weren’t coming out again (unless we were playing ice hockey and just went home for lunch – that was different). We’d go in, take off all our wet, snowy clothes and sit in front of the fireplace. I swear that for the first ten minutes I couldn’t even feel the heat from the fire. I could have put my frozen feet right into the fire and not felt the flames, but the smell of flesh mixed with dirty socks might have been lethal to all of us. Mom would make us some hot chocolate and we’d sit there for a while and thaw out. That’s why once you were in, you were in for good. 

It was all about choices at that point. You could sit in front of the cozy fire in some warm, dry clothes, or you could put on your still wet jacket, gloves and hat and go back outside into the cold. Though there were some instances we did go back outside, the decision to just stay put was fairly easy. Warm vs. cold; dry vs. wet. On those days, Swiss Miss Instant Cocoa (with mini marshmallows!) was like drinking liquid Godiva chocolate. There was nothing better. We sipped it slowly, not only because it was hot, but also because we just wanted to make it last.

Though the days of sipping hot chocolate in front of a roaring fire are long gone, snow storms in New England are not. We don’t get as many as we used to, or so it seems, but every once in a while we get whacked upside the head by a blizzard. For me, there’s no sledding, snowball fights or playing in the snow anymore, just a strong desire to be inside where it’s warm and dry.

Snack Time

Another post in a series on Famous Family Sayings

My son brings back memories of when I was a teen when I see him eating a meal and an hour later being hungry again. There were times I felt like a bottomless pit when it came to food. I just couldn’t get enough. When you’re young, not only can you do extra meals, it’s almost required.

It wasn’t that we weren’t fed at my house when I was growing up. Somehow we always had plenty of food, at least as far as I can remember. It might not have been exactly what we wanted, but we never went without food on the table. In between meals, we had to ask Mom if we could have something to eat, and when we did the answer we got was usually the same: “You can have a piece of fruit, a piece of bread with butter, some saltines, or a glass of milk.” Not that there’s anything wrong with any of those choices, but I always hoping Mom would say something like, “You can have a handful of cookies, some brownies, a big piece of cake, or a big bowl of ice cream.” That never happened.

We had cookies or brownies for a snack after school sometimes, and we did have ice cream or cake for dessert after dinner sometimes, but those weren’t things we were allowed to have in that time between the after school snack and dinner, or on a Saturday or Sunday afternoon. No, during those times when I was a growing boy and my stomach would rumble a half hour after eating, I could have “a piece of fruit, a piece of bread with butter, some saltines, or a glass of milk.” My older brothers also taught me to sprinkle some sugar on the bread and butter to liven it up a bit, and though the thought of eating that now gives me the shivers, it was great back then. I can imagine what nutritionists today would say about that – butter AND sugar together on a piece of white bread. Mom might get arrested for child abuse.

However, for years we got the same mantra, “You can have a piece of fruit, a piece of bread with butter, some saltines, or a glass of milk.” Throw a little peanut butter on some saltines, pair it with a glass of milk, and you have a great snack. I liked fruit, but when you’re a kid and you want some cookies or a brownie, a banana pales in comparison. Let’s face it, 99 out of 100 kids would choose cookies, brownies or cake and ice cream over apples, oranges and bananas any day. I don’t need to get a grant from the National Foundation for Eats to do a scientific study to figure that one out. None of my brothers or sisters - or me - ever said, “Yes, fruit! I love it! I’d take this over brownies any day!” That absolutely never happened. I can tell you, however, that we went through a lot of milk, bread, butter, peanut butter, saltines and fruit back then due to Mom's mantra on snacks. 

Fast forward to when I had kids. When they asked for something to eat in between meals what did I tell them? They could have whatever they want? No, I told them, “You can have a piece of fruit, a piece of bread with butter, some yogurt, or a glass of milk.” Okay, so it’s not exactly the same, but it’s close enough. As for myself, I still eat a lot of fruit today and I love to have a piece of bread with butter when we make our own bread and it’s still warm, fresh out of the bread maker.

They say that old habits never die, and I think that was meant in a negative way for bad habits. However, sometimes good habits don't die either, like having "a piece of fruit, a piece of bread with butter, some saltines, or a glass of milk" for a snack. And as you can see, Famous Family Sayings never die either.

Safe Driving

It’s kind of strange that my son is driving now, legally, as he got his driver’s license in December. The first couple of times he went somewhere on his own, it was both comforting and scary. Comforting because we didn’t have to take him and then go pick him up, but scary because neither my wife nor I were with him. I know that doesn’t seem logical, because it’s not. That’s what happens when your teenage children start driving. It’s not him I'm worried about; it’s all the other crazy drivers out there. So when he came home we were relieved, although we didn’t show it. Even though we’d been looking at the clock every few minutes, when he came through the door we gave him a nonchalant “Oh, you’re back already?”

My son is a very good driver and it’s not like he’s been going far. He went to one of his bandmate’s house for practice, to the school, and of course, he ran some errands. This is one of those happy occurrences when you’re teenager gets their driver’s license. One day he wanted some ice cream, so my wife told him if he wanted it, he had to go get it. We paid for it, but we didn’t have to leave the house. He was happy to get his ice cream and we were happy to not have to drive to the store.

Both my wife and I started our driving careers running errands, too. If I wanted to use the car, there was usually an errand I had to do for my parents.  A quick trip to the supermarket for some milk or bread was definitely worth it in order to be able to use the car for the evening. It didn’t matter that our car was kind of old and tired, it was transportation. It meant that I wasn’t going to just be hanging out at my house or one of my friends’ house, we were going to be out and about. Sometimes it even meant I was out on a date! That was infinitely better than being home.

Other than my one run in with the cops when I was trying to get home on time, I wasn’t a crazy driver. As a matter of fact, my friend Tony used to tell me I drove like an old lady. I used to get pretty ticked off about that, because I was a pretty good driver. No accidents, no police chases and no tickets. So if not taking crazy chances in my parents’ car and driving only slightly above the speed limit means I drove like an old lady, then I guess I drove like an old lady. However, this was coming from a guy who had his own car and who never saw a speed limit he obeyed, and who thought yellow lights meant stomp on the gas before it turns red and you have to stop.

There was one time we were cruising around and I really thought we were going to die. We were coming out of a side street onto the main road through town and, as usual, Tony didn’t want to wait. However, there were long lines of traffic coming both ways and the lane we were sitting in was led by a huge tractor trailer truck. Sitting in the death seat, I looked to the left and saw the truck was not slowing down, then looked to the right and saw no break in the traffic and no one slowing down to let us in. I did this a few times, the truck getting closer and closer, bearing down on us and blowing its air horn, and I thought, This is it. We’re going to die! I closed my eyes and braced myself for impact, waiting for the sounds of screeching tires and metal smashing into metal. Then I heard…nothing.

I opened my eyes and we were driving along, the car and our lives intact. I looked at Tony, and he laughed at me and asked me if I was okay, or if perhaps I needed to go change my pants. The answer was no to both of them. To this day I don’t know how we made it out of that one without a scratch. I never did feel totally comfortable driving with him after that, even though I never got in an accident riding with him.

As my son starts his driving career, I hope he drives like an old lady just like I did. He can take his time running our errands and going to his friends. Eventually, we’ll stop looking at the clock and thinking he’s been gone for a long time. All I care about is that he makes it home safely.

Happy New Year 2013

Happy New Year! It is hard to believe that another year has come and gone and 2013 is here. The last few months of 2012 were quite hectic, with school plays and concerts, holidays, and the “project from hell” that seemed like it would never end. However, all those things, along with a lot of family time and happiness, are behind us now. Oh, and the world did not end in December.

I was surprised to see that I hadn’t posted to “8 of Nine” since the beginning of November. I guess I just needed a break. So, after a short hiatus, I plan to get back to “8 of Nine” in 2013. I hope that you will come back and read my posts over the coming year. I enjoy writing them and I hope you will enjoy reading them just as much.

Here’s to 2013 – May it be a great year for all of us.