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Of course, my memories are so focused around me and how I interacted with my parents, rather than other facets - still, they're what I have.
A simple one: steaks, burgers, etc. Mom liked hers rare - very rare - almost still cool. Dad tended to order medium or well done, I think the latter. I loved mine rare - pink-rare, as rare as Mom. However, after some of the food-health scares, I switched to medium well because the pink made me too nervous. And I hardly ever eat beef any more, though sometimes I do, or buffalo.
There was an Ace Hardware Store in Newberg that we sometimes went to to buy stuff. I loved going there - not for the hardware, which I found boring, but because they had a penny gum machine and I could usually beg a bit of money for gum.
Have I mentioned the mailbox? When I was still living at home, Dad wanted an easier way to give directions to the house, which people tended to drive past. So he painted the mailbox yellow - lemon yellow only not quite that bright, I don't know the color name. That worked nicely...until several of our neighbors painted THEIR mailboxes yellow. I'm not sure why - perhaps they thought it was a general visibility thing? It certainly ruined the mailbox directions. So Dad painted it in orange and green stripes, a color pattern that he figured (accurately!) that no one would copy. Of course, it's since been replaced by a new, plain, black mailbox with no odd colors to it. But I think I have pictures, somewhere in everything I'm going to eventually scan, of the orange-and-green box. I think I remember seeing it.
We had a model train for a while. I don't remember what became of it. I don't remember if it was gotten because of my obsession about trains, fed my obsession about trains, or neither. I liked it. I think Dad enjoyed it too, but my memories of it are vague. I have seen it in at least one picture, but not clearly focused on. Eventually I'm sure I'll get back to that roll and scan it....
The Oregon lottery was advertising this year, start a new holiday tradition, give Scratch-Its for Christmas. Actually, that's an old holiday tradition in our family - Dad started doing it sometime while I was still living at home, I think when I was in middle or high school. It was fun and exciting and neat. Of course, I half-expected to win real money at it. I'm not sure I ever did - unless one of those tickets was the $2 or $5 winner I once had (I forget).
Dad got a Go board. I tried to learn it, but it was hard and I wasn't very good at it. I got frustrated. I think he enjoyed the math and the challenge of it, but I'm not sure how much he actually got to play, versus just reading the theory. I'd say that perhaps he played online, except that with dial-up, I doubt he bothered.
Water. Water was always a concern, until the new well put in - was it in 2005? 2006? Somewhere in there! At any rate, the old well was 3 gallons a minute refresh rate (if that - Dad wasn't sure it hadn't dropped in the past decade or so). And there was pretty much always silt in it - the well was older, so the sides weren't lined and had fallen partly in. Raising the pump helped, but not completely. So bath-water (and the big water tanks for the dog and cats) were often tan. Or outright brown. I'm spoiled by those standards - very spoiled. We could take a bath twice a week, and one set of bath-water had to suffice for all three of us. Generally I was last, but not always - if someone was very dirty or anything like that, they switched to the end of the rotation. Still, it seems so odd now to remember that bath, run when we were all home, one after another going in to get clean in one set of water. Like another world.
Once I was filling the dog's water, which could take a half-hour at a slow flow (which was what you wanted to do), so I came inside. And forgot about it. I remembered later that night and ran outside to shut it off and could just about have cried for all the precious water running away down into the chicken run...maybe I even did cry. I went straight to Mom and Dad and told them I'd screwed up and how, and oh was the water brown. I don't remember them being angry, though - I remember them appreciating that I'd told them, and also being glad that I'd remembered so it hadn't run overnight, at least.
For many years, we fed the dog Moist & Meaty - I can't remember if that was exclusive, or mixed with dry kibble. Well, it came in these boxes that were just perfect for holding folders, magazines, and other similarly-sized things. So when I went off to college, a bunch of my stuff ended up packed in those boxes (and even, later, shipped back and forth in them - post office must have loved that). I was embarrassed to take my things to college in dog food boxes. (Of course, no one really paid attention, except one person who joked about it. Their interpretation of 'moist and meaty' had nothing to do with dog food in spite of the dog on the box. I don't remember who it was but I will wager it was not anyone I made friends with, probably!) I still have things packed in those boxes. (They've been there since college. I should probably open them and see what they are.)
When Dad would drive, sometimes Mom would worry that he was going too fast, or was too close to someone in front of us. She'd clutch the grab bar, or put her hand out to rest against the glove compartment as if to brace. He'd slow down. I don't remember any words that went with it. The funny thing is - when Scott was driving me around for the week after I heard, when I wasn't up to driving myself - I found myself doing the same thing with him, and he'd slow down. (Not the grab bar, but the hand out in front of me.) I don't know if I've done it in the past and only noticed it now, or if it floated up due to the general stress and worry.
Mom had a friend, Pat or Pam, who was usually late to everything. She lived in King City for a while. I don't know her last name or what's become of her after all these years, but when I was younger she gave me a plush stuffed rabbit that, along with a plush smurf I picked out at a store and begged for (yes, I know) and my teddy bear, slept with me for many years. The rabbit was very soft and pretty when I got it, but of course, being slept with, it quickly got matted. We kept it clean but it could never be made fluffy again. I still have all three of those stuffed animals, although the bear in particular needs some repair work and has lost one eye.
I assume we took our vets to Carlton vet while in Carlton, but I don't know. When we moved to Newberg, we took them to the Newberg Vet clinic - I don't know if it has that name now - there are several vets in town now. This one is out on 99W outside the east end of town. At any rate, that vet was replaced and we switched - I don't know why. I took some kittens once to another vet in town that recommended something, I think an over-the-counter wormer, that caused my parents to say not to take more cats there either. We tried Companion Pet Clinic in King City for a while and they were very nice, but we took Sweety in to get an ingrown claw removed and they took the claw off - on the wrong foot! So he lost two claws, one from each side, in the end. I think I also remember hearing they'd sent two cats home with the wrong owners, but I don't know if that was true or if I'm remembering someone saying "it's the sort of place where you expect that you'll hear..." or something of the sort. At any rate it was many years ago, and if they're still there, they are probably just fine. I'm not sure when my parents went back to Carlton but, to judge from the records, it was at least 8 or 10 years ago. That's where Babe and Basta had been going. They're going to Wilsonville now (I asked Carlton for a recommendation - so far so good - I didn't want to have to go vet shopping and try to judge if they were competent!). I have to stop by Carlton some time in the next three weeks, though, to get Basta's arthritis medicine. I used the last dose Dad had today. And Wilsonville doesn't carry it (it has to be ordered in large quantity, and the amount that Basta needs is very very tiny - so getting it in just doesn't make sense, especially since I can pick up 9 months' supply at one time).
Swimming. Oh how I loved to go to the swimming pool and would beg for it and be gleeful when we did go. First in McMinnville (perhaps while we lived in Carlton?) and then Newberg. I still could find the Newberg pool if I wanted to - if they haven't moved it - without looking it up online. And maybe I will, to see if it's still there and photograph it. There was a little park next to it with various play structures; that was also fun. And somewhere in that vicinity was the house where my brownie troop met, the one year I was in brownies. I don't remember it well at all, just that it existed, though.
I think it was Mom who first took me to Incahoots, but I'm not sure. It's a flower and gift shop down in McMinnville - still there, I saw it the other day - which I enjoyed wandering through in my late teen years. I bought a lot of candles there. (I have a candle hoard of such proportions that I still have some of those candles. Easily identified - they are odd sizes, miniature tapers. Very cool, not often something I use now.)
The kerosene heaters. Getting more kerosene - that was in Mac too, at least the times I remember. Filling them up - I didn't care for that, really. I burned my foot on one of those heaters in college, being a right idiot. I was home for Christmas and was swinging my feet back and forth while I lay on my stomach and read in front of it. And, yes, I swung my foot right into it - red-hot metal. Good thing is I was already prepared to swing back by the natural motion, and my reflexes were good. I only got a second-degree burn out of that. On the bottom of my foot, in the little triangle back of the ball of the foot. Owwie. But I was lucky. I grabbed a metal bowl, got cold water in it, and stuck my foot in. I didn't know what else to do, but I thought that would make it hurt less. Turns out, based on what I know now, it was probably one of the best things I could have done. I was home alone; I called Dad at work. I think Mom got home before he did, but I'm not sure, actually. I forget who took me in to get it looked at. But it all worked out okay - no scarring, even. I can't find the spot now. I think it was my right foot.
Restaurants - lots of places my parents enjoyed, I didn't. Or didn't go to. And most of them don't stick in my mind. Ack! There was a restaurant in Dundee or Lafayette they really liked. I see the building when I drive by, but it's been at least two more restaurants since that one was there; I have no idea what the name was, or what they served. Alfie's was another - or the same one? - but I don't remember what they served. There was Rose's for cake (which is where they got our wedding cake, and our anniversary cake). There was Nonna Emilia's for Italian. It's still in the same building, out in Beaverton, and I'm deeply tempted to make a date with Scott to go there some day. I loved going there as a kid. The food was good, but that wasn't the real draw. Before dinner, they would let you sit in a waiting room until a table cleared. There were drinks (soda, for me, of course) and people sat and chatted. To keep the kids busy, there were video games to play. And then in the main dining room, one or two days a week, the good days, there was an accordion player who would take requests, walking around and playing. I learned the names of the foods I liked and I definitely liked the place - but I'm surprised my parents took me so often. It was dim, what in retrospect I would say would be a romantic place, and yet they took a young me (and older, sometimes, of course) there. I loved it, and I felt like I was being treated as an adult. I wonder if the food will taste as good to me now.
Dad and I were talking, not long before his death, about recycling and other environmental causes. He was noting that some forms of recycling are more expensive, not just in money but in energy and environmental impact, than simply throwing the stuff out. He'd done his research, determined which ones made economic sense, which ones made environmental sense, and which ones didn't. I don't remember which was which...not that we went over a detailed list, but I don't even remember most of the examples. (Though I do remember, and think it makes sense, that recycling metals such as steel was one that made economic sense.)
When I stopped by the library last week, to see if he had any books out, the woman there said she was sorry to hear of his passing, that she knew him and recognized him by name, that he came in every week and was always real nice, a very pleasant person.
When I would have to go to the dentist - and I had fillings all through my mouth as a kid, I was lazy about brushing and inherited my Dad's bad teeth - after I got a filling and was all numb, Mom would take me to Dairy Queen for ice cream, since I could eat it while numb and it was soothing. Great way to deal with the cavities, though, isn't it? I find that so funny in retrospect. At the time I loved it, though. Of course I did. :) Ice cream cones - banana splits - eating in - yummy.
Books. Bookstores. From my parents, my love of reading. Both read a great deal, and Mom encouraged my love of words. In fourth grade when she homeschooled me, she got me a book of poetry forms with exercises, knowing I was interested in poetry. (I proceeded to write in the book, since she hadn't asked me not to then - though we hadn't started with it formally either - she was disappointed, as she'd meant to photocopy the pages so they could be used again. Oops! But I enjoyed it anyway, even if I felt a bit guilty for disappointing her at the time, but I'm so glad for the experience, even if I did write in the book.) She tried to get me to read The Once and Future King, but I didn't, and I never have - I couldn't get very far into it, because I'd first read Mary Stewart's version of Arthur's story and I found other versions of the same tale thereafter dissonant.
Many authors and books I've enjoyed, I've first met through my parents. The Matt Helm stories, by an author I forget. Mrs. Pollifax stories, by Dorothy Gilman. Agatha Christie (though I liked Miss Marple and Mom preferred the Poirot stories). H. Beam Piper, Little Fuzzy and Fuzzy Sapiens. Robert Heinlein. I particularly like Stranger in a Strange Land and The Moon is a Harsh Mistress - or maybe like is wrong; they're powerful, though I find pieces of the first disturbing, and the ending of the second upsetting. (Oh, and The Door Into Summer, which I have not read in some while.) Dad liked Heinlein, though he had no illusions about him - as Dad put it, he wrote some juveniles, and then he wrote some adult novels, and then he wrote some seniles (which had substantial 'dirty old man fantasy' components). I never did care much for the Lazarus Long stories, but I think my parents enjoyed at least some of them. They did have the book of quotes from Lazarus Long (which may be my favorite way of distilling him - several of those books are in the 'seniles' category, I think). I'm fairly sure, but not 100% sure, that my introduction to Spider Robinson's Callahans stories came from my parents. It's highly probable, as I know they enjoyed them, and by the time I was in high school I'd definitely read them. Puns! Science fiction! More puns! :D
Mom liked Louis L'Amour westerns. I never got into them, but she loved to read them, had a fairly large collection. Dad was often reading non-fiction, but he also liked other books - science fiction, fantasy, mystery, mainstream - any of it.
I grew up listening to an eclectic set of music - what was popular in my group but also what my parents enjoyed, and I learned to. The soundtrack to Hair. The Kingston Trio, Johnny Cash, classical music, whoever did "Little Boxes" whose name eludes me at the moment. Whoever did the song about the teddy bears' picnic, which I loved as a child.
Watching eclectic TV and movies, too. You wouldn't think it now - as a child I loved TV and music and popular culture. I loved Knight Rider and had a crush on the main actor. :) We all enjoyed MacGuyver and the A-Team - my parents like M*A*S*H while I was sort of - it was okay, but that was it. Dad used to watch 60 Minutes pretty religiously and I came to respect those guys at the time, as I think he did. I saw Cabaret (both on video and live). And The Gods Must Be Crazy, Fiddler on the Roof, E.T. of course we saw, Back to the Future and all of its sequels I think. We went to the movies a lot, sometimes at the drive-in (which is still there - it now has a couple indoor theaters, which it didn't used to) and at the indoor theater (which is no longer there - I don't remember why it shut down, but we stopped going before that - they had problems with rowdy kids and getting popcorn pegged at you throughout a movie you can't entirely hear isn't that great). I never got to go to the Cameo, which was then adults-only even for non-R-rated films, but I remember driving past it a lot. (It's still there, but I don't think it's adult-only any more.) The old TV with the buttons to change the channel - all 12 of them - and you pulled or pushed the knob to turn it on and off. I liked to lie on the floor near it and watch up close, in part because I started watching before I got my glasses, and I could see it easier there. So I often got asked to change the channel when it needed it.
The window where the side door is now, opened out into the dog run. We kept a box of Milk Bones by it and could pop the window open, tell Mickey or later Sam to sit, and then give over the biscuit with a "Good boy!" when they did so. There was some other treat, shaped like a round cross-section of bone, with a pressed-meat-food 'marrow' in it, that they really loved too. I liked to pop the centers out of those with my finger, just to do it, but I don't remember why it was fun or what I did with them - probably fed them to the dog anyway, I hope.
So many vague memories of going out for dinner, movies, or both, and coming back after dark, the trees flowing past like shadows in the night sky, and me lying down in the back seat (I think this memory I'm drawing on now is in the Maverick, we didn't have a back seat like that later, I don't think) and my eyes drifting shut, dozing off and listening to my parents talk, or listening to rain on the car, or the wind, or to the sound of the motor. Sometimes I would wake when we got home and pretend not to so they would carry me in. Sometimes I would genuinely not wake, and in the morning I'd just come around in my bed, neatly tucked in. When I was a baby, my parents used the car to put me to sleep. I would cry and cry, but take me out for a drive and I'd fall asleep. Sometimes, when they stopped, I would wake again and resume crying - then they'd pull out and drive some more, until I slept again, more deeply.
Mom and I and perfume. Mom couldn't stand most perfumes, especially applied strongly - the scents were too strong for her and bothered her. Even the detergents aisle did. I was curious about scents but I found they bugged me as well. Partially my sensitivities, partially learning the smells as bothersome because Mom found them so, I suspect. We went to some arts/crafts fair, I think in Newberg, one year when I was still young and I got some wax-based carnation perfume that Mom either didn't mind or liked, and which I loved. I used it. I don't remember using it up - I think it was ultimately lost. I've never found a carnation scent since that matches it, though I only started looking recently. On the other hand, I've found some other scents I like (from Black Phoenix Alchemy Lab) that are not "classically perfume" and are also not overwhelming. I wonder whether Mom would have liked either of my favorites. I never dared to bring them by - I didn't want to force her to be exposed to something that might bug her - so I'll never know. I did wear each of my two favorites, after her death, over for Dad to smell. I think he liked Dragon's Eye okay at best - it's a fairly piercing lilac, which I loved on first sniff and am now not as fond of (oops) - I still like it, but I'm not obsessed. But he liked Wicked, the spicy-sweet one, very much, I think. It's now my favorite (and was before he had that reaction), and Scott likes it as well. I'm oddly glad I got to share them with Dad - it shouldn't make any difference, but it does, to know that at least he got to not merely hear me babble about them, but know what they were, and that he liked my favorite of them. (Which I've just put on a bit of, since typing of it made me want to wear it.)
And it's after 10 and I'm sleepy, so I think I'll wrap this up here for now.
A simple one: steaks, burgers, etc. Mom liked hers rare - very rare - almost still cool. Dad tended to order medium or well done, I think the latter. I loved mine rare - pink-rare, as rare as Mom. However, after some of the food-health scares, I switched to medium well because the pink made me too nervous. And I hardly ever eat beef any more, though sometimes I do, or buffalo.
There was an Ace Hardware Store in Newberg that we sometimes went to to buy stuff. I loved going there - not for the hardware, which I found boring, but because they had a penny gum machine and I could usually beg a bit of money for gum.
Have I mentioned the mailbox? When I was still living at home, Dad wanted an easier way to give directions to the house, which people tended to drive past. So he painted the mailbox yellow - lemon yellow only not quite that bright, I don't know the color name. That worked nicely...until several of our neighbors painted THEIR mailboxes yellow. I'm not sure why - perhaps they thought it was a general visibility thing? It certainly ruined the mailbox directions. So Dad painted it in orange and green stripes, a color pattern that he figured (accurately!) that no one would copy. Of course, it's since been replaced by a new, plain, black mailbox with no odd colors to it. But I think I have pictures, somewhere in everything I'm going to eventually scan, of the orange-and-green box. I think I remember seeing it.
We had a model train for a while. I don't remember what became of it. I don't remember if it was gotten because of my obsession about trains, fed my obsession about trains, or neither. I liked it. I think Dad enjoyed it too, but my memories of it are vague. I have seen it in at least one picture, but not clearly focused on. Eventually I'm sure I'll get back to that roll and scan it....
The Oregon lottery was advertising this year, start a new holiday tradition, give Scratch-Its for Christmas. Actually, that's an old holiday tradition in our family - Dad started doing it sometime while I was still living at home, I think when I was in middle or high school. It was fun and exciting and neat. Of course, I half-expected to win real money at it. I'm not sure I ever did - unless one of those tickets was the $2 or $5 winner I once had (I forget).
Dad got a Go board. I tried to learn it, but it was hard and I wasn't very good at it. I got frustrated. I think he enjoyed the math and the challenge of it, but I'm not sure how much he actually got to play, versus just reading the theory. I'd say that perhaps he played online, except that with dial-up, I doubt he bothered.
Water. Water was always a concern, until the new well put in - was it in 2005? 2006? Somewhere in there! At any rate, the old well was 3 gallons a minute refresh rate (if that - Dad wasn't sure it hadn't dropped in the past decade or so). And there was pretty much always silt in it - the well was older, so the sides weren't lined and had fallen partly in. Raising the pump helped, but not completely. So bath-water (and the big water tanks for the dog and cats) were often tan. Or outright brown. I'm spoiled by those standards - very spoiled. We could take a bath twice a week, and one set of bath-water had to suffice for all three of us. Generally I was last, but not always - if someone was very dirty or anything like that, they switched to the end of the rotation. Still, it seems so odd now to remember that bath, run when we were all home, one after another going in to get clean in one set of water. Like another world.
Once I was filling the dog's water, which could take a half-hour at a slow flow (which was what you wanted to do), so I came inside. And forgot about it. I remembered later that night and ran outside to shut it off and could just about have cried for all the precious water running away down into the chicken run...maybe I even did cry. I went straight to Mom and Dad and told them I'd screwed up and how, and oh was the water brown. I don't remember them being angry, though - I remember them appreciating that I'd told them, and also being glad that I'd remembered so it hadn't run overnight, at least.
For many years, we fed the dog Moist & Meaty - I can't remember if that was exclusive, or mixed with dry kibble. Well, it came in these boxes that were just perfect for holding folders, magazines, and other similarly-sized things. So when I went off to college, a bunch of my stuff ended up packed in those boxes (and even, later, shipped back and forth in them - post office must have loved that). I was embarrassed to take my things to college in dog food boxes. (Of course, no one really paid attention, except one person who joked about it. Their interpretation of 'moist and meaty' had nothing to do with dog food in spite of the dog on the box. I don't remember who it was but I will wager it was not anyone I made friends with, probably!) I still have things packed in those boxes. (They've been there since college. I should probably open them and see what they are.)
When Dad would drive, sometimes Mom would worry that he was going too fast, or was too close to someone in front of us. She'd clutch the grab bar, or put her hand out to rest against the glove compartment as if to brace. He'd slow down. I don't remember any words that went with it. The funny thing is - when Scott was driving me around for the week after I heard, when I wasn't up to driving myself - I found myself doing the same thing with him, and he'd slow down. (Not the grab bar, but the hand out in front of me.) I don't know if I've done it in the past and only noticed it now, or if it floated up due to the general stress and worry.
Mom had a friend, Pat or Pam, who was usually late to everything. She lived in King City for a while. I don't know her last name or what's become of her after all these years, but when I was younger she gave me a plush stuffed rabbit that, along with a plush smurf I picked out at a store and begged for (yes, I know) and my teddy bear, slept with me for many years. The rabbit was very soft and pretty when I got it, but of course, being slept with, it quickly got matted. We kept it clean but it could never be made fluffy again. I still have all three of those stuffed animals, although the bear in particular needs some repair work and has lost one eye.
I assume we took our vets to Carlton vet while in Carlton, but I don't know. When we moved to Newberg, we took them to the Newberg Vet clinic - I don't know if it has that name now - there are several vets in town now. This one is out on 99W outside the east end of town. At any rate, that vet was replaced and we switched - I don't know why. I took some kittens once to another vet in town that recommended something, I think an over-the-counter wormer, that caused my parents to say not to take more cats there either. We tried Companion Pet Clinic in King City for a while and they were very nice, but we took Sweety in to get an ingrown claw removed and they took the claw off - on the wrong foot! So he lost two claws, one from each side, in the end. I think I also remember hearing they'd sent two cats home with the wrong owners, but I don't know if that was true or if I'm remembering someone saying "it's the sort of place where you expect that you'll hear..." or something of the sort. At any rate it was many years ago, and if they're still there, they are probably just fine. I'm not sure when my parents went back to Carlton but, to judge from the records, it was at least 8 or 10 years ago. That's where Babe and Basta had been going. They're going to Wilsonville now (I asked Carlton for a recommendation - so far so good - I didn't want to have to go vet shopping and try to judge if they were competent!). I have to stop by Carlton some time in the next three weeks, though, to get Basta's arthritis medicine. I used the last dose Dad had today. And Wilsonville doesn't carry it (it has to be ordered in large quantity, and the amount that Basta needs is very very tiny - so getting it in just doesn't make sense, especially since I can pick up 9 months' supply at one time).
Swimming. Oh how I loved to go to the swimming pool and would beg for it and be gleeful when we did go. First in McMinnville (perhaps while we lived in Carlton?) and then Newberg. I still could find the Newberg pool if I wanted to - if they haven't moved it - without looking it up online. And maybe I will, to see if it's still there and photograph it. There was a little park next to it with various play structures; that was also fun. And somewhere in that vicinity was the house where my brownie troop met, the one year I was in brownies. I don't remember it well at all, just that it existed, though.
I think it was Mom who first took me to Incahoots, but I'm not sure. It's a flower and gift shop down in McMinnville - still there, I saw it the other day - which I enjoyed wandering through in my late teen years. I bought a lot of candles there. (I have a candle hoard of such proportions that I still have some of those candles. Easily identified - they are odd sizes, miniature tapers. Very cool, not often something I use now.)
The kerosene heaters. Getting more kerosene - that was in Mac too, at least the times I remember. Filling them up - I didn't care for that, really. I burned my foot on one of those heaters in college, being a right idiot. I was home for Christmas and was swinging my feet back and forth while I lay on my stomach and read in front of it. And, yes, I swung my foot right into it - red-hot metal. Good thing is I was already prepared to swing back by the natural motion, and my reflexes were good. I only got a second-degree burn out of that. On the bottom of my foot, in the little triangle back of the ball of the foot. Owwie. But I was lucky. I grabbed a metal bowl, got cold water in it, and stuck my foot in. I didn't know what else to do, but I thought that would make it hurt less. Turns out, based on what I know now, it was probably one of the best things I could have done. I was home alone; I called Dad at work. I think Mom got home before he did, but I'm not sure, actually. I forget who took me in to get it looked at. But it all worked out okay - no scarring, even. I can't find the spot now. I think it was my right foot.
Restaurants - lots of places my parents enjoyed, I didn't. Or didn't go to. And most of them don't stick in my mind. Ack! There was a restaurant in Dundee or Lafayette they really liked. I see the building when I drive by, but it's been at least two more restaurants since that one was there; I have no idea what the name was, or what they served. Alfie's was another - or the same one? - but I don't remember what they served. There was Rose's for cake (which is where they got our wedding cake, and our anniversary cake). There was Nonna Emilia's for Italian. It's still in the same building, out in Beaverton, and I'm deeply tempted to make a date with Scott to go there some day. I loved going there as a kid. The food was good, but that wasn't the real draw. Before dinner, they would let you sit in a waiting room until a table cleared. There were drinks (soda, for me, of course) and people sat and chatted. To keep the kids busy, there were video games to play. And then in the main dining room, one or two days a week, the good days, there was an accordion player who would take requests, walking around and playing. I learned the names of the foods I liked and I definitely liked the place - but I'm surprised my parents took me so often. It was dim, what in retrospect I would say would be a romantic place, and yet they took a young me (and older, sometimes, of course) there. I loved it, and I felt like I was being treated as an adult. I wonder if the food will taste as good to me now.
Dad and I were talking, not long before his death, about recycling and other environmental causes. He was noting that some forms of recycling are more expensive, not just in money but in energy and environmental impact, than simply throwing the stuff out. He'd done his research, determined which ones made economic sense, which ones made environmental sense, and which ones didn't. I don't remember which was which...not that we went over a detailed list, but I don't even remember most of the examples. (Though I do remember, and think it makes sense, that recycling metals such as steel was one that made economic sense.)
When I stopped by the library last week, to see if he had any books out, the woman there said she was sorry to hear of his passing, that she knew him and recognized him by name, that he came in every week and was always real nice, a very pleasant person.
When I would have to go to the dentist - and I had fillings all through my mouth as a kid, I was lazy about brushing and inherited my Dad's bad teeth - after I got a filling and was all numb, Mom would take me to Dairy Queen for ice cream, since I could eat it while numb and it was soothing. Great way to deal with the cavities, though, isn't it? I find that so funny in retrospect. At the time I loved it, though. Of course I did. :) Ice cream cones - banana splits - eating in - yummy.
Books. Bookstores. From my parents, my love of reading. Both read a great deal, and Mom encouraged my love of words. In fourth grade when she homeschooled me, she got me a book of poetry forms with exercises, knowing I was interested in poetry. (I proceeded to write in the book, since she hadn't asked me not to then - though we hadn't started with it formally either - she was disappointed, as she'd meant to photocopy the pages so they could be used again. Oops! But I enjoyed it anyway, even if I felt a bit guilty for disappointing her at the time, but I'm so glad for the experience, even if I did write in the book.) She tried to get me to read The Once and Future King, but I didn't, and I never have - I couldn't get very far into it, because I'd first read Mary Stewart's version of Arthur's story and I found other versions of the same tale thereafter dissonant.
Many authors and books I've enjoyed, I've first met through my parents. The Matt Helm stories, by an author I forget. Mrs. Pollifax stories, by Dorothy Gilman. Agatha Christie (though I liked Miss Marple and Mom preferred the Poirot stories). H. Beam Piper, Little Fuzzy and Fuzzy Sapiens. Robert Heinlein. I particularly like Stranger in a Strange Land and The Moon is a Harsh Mistress - or maybe like is wrong; they're powerful, though I find pieces of the first disturbing, and the ending of the second upsetting. (Oh, and The Door Into Summer, which I have not read in some while.) Dad liked Heinlein, though he had no illusions about him - as Dad put it, he wrote some juveniles, and then he wrote some adult novels, and then he wrote some seniles (which had substantial 'dirty old man fantasy' components). I never did care much for the Lazarus Long stories, but I think my parents enjoyed at least some of them. They did have the book of quotes from Lazarus Long (which may be my favorite way of distilling him - several of those books are in the 'seniles' category, I think). I'm fairly sure, but not 100% sure, that my introduction to Spider Robinson's Callahans stories came from my parents. It's highly probable, as I know they enjoyed them, and by the time I was in high school I'd definitely read them. Puns! Science fiction! More puns! :D
Mom liked Louis L'Amour westerns. I never got into them, but she loved to read them, had a fairly large collection. Dad was often reading non-fiction, but he also liked other books - science fiction, fantasy, mystery, mainstream - any of it.
I grew up listening to an eclectic set of music - what was popular in my group but also what my parents enjoyed, and I learned to. The soundtrack to Hair. The Kingston Trio, Johnny Cash, classical music, whoever did "Little Boxes" whose name eludes me at the moment. Whoever did the song about the teddy bears' picnic, which I loved as a child.
Watching eclectic TV and movies, too. You wouldn't think it now - as a child I loved TV and music and popular culture. I loved Knight Rider and had a crush on the main actor. :) We all enjoyed MacGuyver and the A-Team - my parents like M*A*S*H while I was sort of - it was okay, but that was it. Dad used to watch 60 Minutes pretty religiously and I came to respect those guys at the time, as I think he did. I saw Cabaret (both on video and live). And The Gods Must Be Crazy, Fiddler on the Roof, E.T. of course we saw, Back to the Future and all of its sequels I think. We went to the movies a lot, sometimes at the drive-in (which is still there - it now has a couple indoor theaters, which it didn't used to) and at the indoor theater (which is no longer there - I don't remember why it shut down, but we stopped going before that - they had problems with rowdy kids and getting popcorn pegged at you throughout a movie you can't entirely hear isn't that great). I never got to go to the Cameo, which was then adults-only even for non-R-rated films, but I remember driving past it a lot. (It's still there, but I don't think it's adult-only any more.) The old TV with the buttons to change the channel - all 12 of them - and you pulled or pushed the knob to turn it on and off. I liked to lie on the floor near it and watch up close, in part because I started watching before I got my glasses, and I could see it easier there. So I often got asked to change the channel when it needed it.
The window where the side door is now, opened out into the dog run. We kept a box of Milk Bones by it and could pop the window open, tell Mickey or later Sam to sit, and then give over the biscuit with a "Good boy!" when they did so. There was some other treat, shaped like a round cross-section of bone, with a pressed-meat-food 'marrow' in it, that they really loved too. I liked to pop the centers out of those with my finger, just to do it, but I don't remember why it was fun or what I did with them - probably fed them to the dog anyway, I hope.
So many vague memories of going out for dinner, movies, or both, and coming back after dark, the trees flowing past like shadows in the night sky, and me lying down in the back seat (I think this memory I'm drawing on now is in the Maverick, we didn't have a back seat like that later, I don't think) and my eyes drifting shut, dozing off and listening to my parents talk, or listening to rain on the car, or the wind, or to the sound of the motor. Sometimes I would wake when we got home and pretend not to so they would carry me in. Sometimes I would genuinely not wake, and in the morning I'd just come around in my bed, neatly tucked in. When I was a baby, my parents used the car to put me to sleep. I would cry and cry, but take me out for a drive and I'd fall asleep. Sometimes, when they stopped, I would wake again and resume crying - then they'd pull out and drive some more, until I slept again, more deeply.
Mom and I and perfume. Mom couldn't stand most perfumes, especially applied strongly - the scents were too strong for her and bothered her. Even the detergents aisle did. I was curious about scents but I found they bugged me as well. Partially my sensitivities, partially learning the smells as bothersome because Mom found them so, I suspect. We went to some arts/crafts fair, I think in Newberg, one year when I was still young and I got some wax-based carnation perfume that Mom either didn't mind or liked, and which I loved. I used it. I don't remember using it up - I think it was ultimately lost. I've never found a carnation scent since that matches it, though I only started looking recently. On the other hand, I've found some other scents I like (from Black Phoenix Alchemy Lab) that are not "classically perfume" and are also not overwhelming. I wonder whether Mom would have liked either of my favorites. I never dared to bring them by - I didn't want to force her to be exposed to something that might bug her - so I'll never know. I did wear each of my two favorites, after her death, over for Dad to smell. I think he liked Dragon's Eye okay at best - it's a fairly piercing lilac, which I loved on first sniff and am now not as fond of (oops) - I still like it, but I'm not obsessed. But he liked Wicked, the spicy-sweet one, very much, I think. It's now my favorite (and was before he had that reaction), and Scott likes it as well. I'm oddly glad I got to share them with Dad - it shouldn't make any difference, but it does, to know that at least he got to not merely hear me babble about them, but know what they were, and that he liked my favorite of them. (Which I've just put on a bit of, since typing of it made me want to wear it.)
And it's after 10 and I'm sleepy, so I think I'll wrap this up here for now.
Tags:
- books,
- cats,
- family,
- father,
- food,
- gaming,
- holidays,
- miscellaneous,
- mother,
- movies,
- music,
- reminiscing,
- scenty things
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I'm a candle addict still to this day and it sounds like as kids, we pretty much like the same things. Of course, I'm much much older than you, but kids are kids I guess.
I'll be looking forward to any other memories you have of your parents.
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