Preschool

(finger painting ... it's about more than fingers)

My 4-year-old granddaughter started preschool this week. Amazing. Some of my first memories are of preschool.

I remember a big red "barn" where the outdoor toys were kept. If I hurried outside at recess time, I could get the tricycle before anybody else grabbed it.

I remember the swings, where I could have happily spent an entire day. My teacher told my mom I was amazingly good at "pumping" for my age. This was my first and last athletic accomplishment.

I remember finger painting, with the squishy paint covering my hands. It smelled great. The best part of finger painting was, there was no wrong way to do it. You could work really hard to make a painting that looked like something. Or you could just enjoy the smell, the feel, the fun of smearing gooey paint over the slick paper, making rainbows that blended into houses that smeared up against clouds that looked like nothing in the real world but felt like a brave, brand new world you had created all by your little 4-year-old self.

That's all I remember. But it's enough. It was a good start.

~~~

Now you're cooking

(time for dinner ... or maybe not)

I remember, not that long ago, when dinners were cooked in the oven, not the microwave.

"dinners were cooked? like, people made their own food? how old ARE you, anyway?"

Never you mind. It was not that long ago, believe it or not. In fact, I was just reminded of the good ol' cooking days because my microwave is on the fritz.

"on the fritz? what the heck does that mean?"

It means, if I want to reheat the leftovers from last night's home cooked meal, I have to push the START button a bazillion times before anything starts to happen.

"whoa, wait a minute. what are leftovers?"

Oh my gosh, don't you young people ever eat leftovers?

"ya, if we're dumpster divers. eww."

What about home cooked meals? Are those a thing of the past?

"why cook at home when you can get an in-and-out burger in 5 minutes?"

What if you want comfort food, like chicken and dumplings?

"cracker barrel."

Mom's spaghetti?

"buca di beppo."

Pot roast?

"what's that?"

Never mind ... sigh ... I think I'll go push the START button a bazillion times and see what happens. Catch you later.

"don't save any leftovers for us. we're full."

~~~

How I Spent My Summer Vacation - Part One

(summertime ... and the livin' is easy)

It's almost summer in Texas. I can tell because it's almost 100 degrees, at almost 7:00 at night, and it won't go below 75 degrees for almost 5 more months, at which point I will almost be ready for cooler temperatures.

Summer is no big deal to me now. I worked today. I'll work tomorrow. But back in the good old days, when the dinosaurs roamed the earth foraging for children much meatier than I, summer was truly a magical season.

First, we turned in our books.
I loved doing this, probably because I was an extremely strange child who would today be labeled Obsessive Compulsive But Possibly Above Average In Verbal Skills Which May Negate The Need For Therapy If She Is Lucky. The teacher instructed us to open to the first page of each textbook, where there was a little chart listing the children who had used that book and the condition in which they left it. I made sure to mark one degree up from the pathetic child before me, even if it meant taping torn pages and erasing stray pencil marks. This, believe it or not, was great fun.

Then, we had our Flag Day ceremony.
The last day of school was always Flag Day, which involved some kind of ceremony that I honestly do not remember. All I know is, it was the last day of school.

Then, it was VACATION TIME!!!!!
Yippee! Three whole months in which I could do nothing at all.

Or ...

(to be continued)

~~~

Happy Easter, Dale Girls

(easter highlights from the dusty archives of my mind)

1957: Baby Monica is one month old. Parents stubbornly refuse to exchange her for a kitten. Karen and I hold out hope.

1960: Baby Melissa is two months old. No kitten in sight. Easter Sunday means pricking eggs and blowing the goo out, which is great fun, though I can't remember what comes next or why we would do that instead of hard boiling them. Oh well.

1963: I decide that I am an atheist because let's face it, those stories about rainbows and whales and giants getting killed by slingshots are pretty lame. Unfortunately, Dad is the organist and choir director so for the most part I smile and nod my way through Sunday School. Fortunately, nobody asks my opinion. Plus our teacher brings donuts on Easter. So I'm not about to rock the boat.

1964: The "Big Girls" (Karen and me) are now in the children's choir at church. Suddenly, in spite of my theological ambiguity I have a nearly fanatical appreciation for starchy taffeta dresses, frilly hats and shiny patent leather shoes with matching purses.

1968: Dad gives up the choir directing job, and he and mom somehow manage to find an even LAMER church to attend. The new church has a sunrise service on Easter, which is a particularly brilliant idea when you live in Connecticut where the average temperature at the crack of dawn in early spring is, like, 25 degrees. We all stand and shiver and wonder if there will be donuts.

1969: The new church hires a good-looking youth pastor, who leads Sunday evening discussion groups which I find totally fascinating, especially the way his hair waves across his forehead without ever falling into his big brown eyes. Maybe there's something to be said for those Bible stories after all.

Happy Easter, everybody.

Hope you get donuts.

~~~

The Hit Parade

(are they adorable or WHAT??)

Back in the days when the cave drawings were just beginning to dry, popular music was going through a revolution.

popular music? like hip hop?

Not exactly. In those days, if you said "hip hop" to a friend, they would say "mother may I?". No, I'm talking about the early, early days of rock and roll.

you mean you were alive back then? how old ARE you, anyway?

Never you mind. But yes, I was there. I remember watching The Beatles on Ed Sullivan. They were so cute, and their music was so unique.

yeah, like elevator music

And their hair was so long! We all thought it was scandalous.

oh my lord. you ARE old. so you rushed to itunes to download their songs?

Well, no. We didn't have iTunes back then.

you rushed to the store to buy their cd's?

Nope. No CDs either.

so how did you listen to their music then?

We bought records. You know, 78's or 45's or 33's.

huh?

Round. Black. Hard plastic. Put them on a turntable and lower the needle. But you had to be careful to lower it gently, or the record would scratch and then it would skip in the same spot over and over, like our Amahl And The Night Visitors record that had the three kings singing "We must not lose sight of our, not lose sight of our, not lose sight of our -

right! okay! records. got it. um, i need to go floss my teeth now. but thanks for the music history lesson.

No problem. I think I'll go check the value of my Beatles collection on eBay. Maybe one of these days I'll be able to retire after all.

~~~

The Dale Girls somehow survive Elementary School

(winthrop school was this scary. ask anyone.
or better yet, just ask me.)

I'll admit it. I was a puny, shy, overly sensitive child. Which probably explains why I am a puny, shy, overly sensitive adult.

Some people would blame their parents. I blame Winthrop Elementary School.

Winthrop was a huge, hulking brick cube with two stories of classrooms arranged around large central hallways. It was full of terrifying things.

First, there were the teachers. They were all over 100 years old. Every one of them. Well, except for Miss Swanson, the lovely blond student teacher who graced my 4th-grade life for six months and who never stopped smiling and who, I'm sure, would have been delighted to adopt me if only I could have summoned the courage to ask.

Then, there were the fire drills. I was terrified that there would be a fire drill while I was in the bathroom, and I would have to walk out onto the schoolyard all by myself and try to find my class. Terrified.

Not to mention the air raid drills, where we would cower under our desks wondering if it was really a drill or if the teacher just didn't have the heart to tell us the bombs were coming.

And gym class!! In the dank basement with the boys throwing huge rubber balls at our feet in a dastardly game called dodge ball!

And the lunch room!! Good God, the lunch room!! With the principal standing guard to make sure none of us uttered a word! And the other children scowling as I surreptitiously took yet another smelly cream-cheese-and-olive sandwich out of my Huckleberry Hound lunch box and hid it behind the radiator!

Oh the terror!

Oh the nightmares!

Did I mention that I tended to be a little over-sensitive? Still. It's a miracle I survived.

~~~

Say "Cheese"

(just point, click, turn the knob, unload the film,
and take it to the store!
nothing to it)

Today, boys and girls, let's talk about photography in the good old days. Even though cave drawings were still quite popular when I was younger, we had cameras as well.

"oh yeah? digital?"

No. They used film.

"film? like movie film?"

No, camera film. It looked like this:
"what was it for?"

Well, the film recorded the pictures.

"so how did you get the pictures onto your computer?"

We didn't. There were no computers, remember?

"oh ya. i forgot just how old you are."

To get the pictures, you had to take the film to the drug store.

"oh sure. that makes sense."

The drug stores all had photo labs, where they would print out the pictures. It took about a week.

"a WEEK? you are so funny."

You wouldn't really know if your pictures were any good until you got them back.

"you'd wait a WEEK without even previewing your pictures ahead of time?"

Yup. And if you used the cheap paper, they would all fade away after a few years.

"good lord. no wonder nobody ever smiled in those old pictures. hey, i gotta go. send me some pictures from your phone and i'll take em to the drug store! hahahaha"

Sure thing. Catch ya later.

~~~

Related posts:
Typing Test
Windows 0.0
Ring-A-Ding-Ding

Typing Test

(practice girls, practice! your future depends on it)

Back when I was in high school, as the earth's crust began to cool, girls were encouraged to take a typing class. After all, typing was a skill that you could always fall back on if, say, your wild idea about applying to medical school fell through. Being a doctor is a nice dream, but the smart girls knew that typing skills were the secret to success.

Typing was hard work. If you made a mistake, you had to rip up the paper and start over. You could also simply back up and type X's through the word. But Mrs. Carlyle, our typing teacher, frowned on this.

"Executive secretaries do not X out their mistakes, girls!" said Mrs. Carlyle with a frown. "Follow directions, please. If you practice, some day you may earn several THOUSAND dollars a year. Think about it - you could buy a MixMaster AND a vacuum cleaner with your very own money! Imagine how delighted your husband will be."

We all rolled our eyes and vowed to apply to medical school if it killed us.

But - being creative and extremely bored children, my sisters and I often played with our mother's typewriter at home.

• We closed our eyes and typed away, then howled hysterically at the nonsense we had written.
• We put on music and typed to the rhythm.
  
• We hit 6 keys at once and then tried to untangle the little metal bars without breaking them.

(sorry mom)

Sometimes we even practiced actual typing. Here is a little sample of our typing, which I came across the other day:

(the first sentence looks like a text message I once sent by mistake)

These days, nobody uses typewriters. Thank God. But I wanted to submit some greeting card ideas to a certain company last week, and their submission guidelines require each idea to be typed onto an index card.

Typed?? Onto an index card?? How was I supposed to do that?

I tried to feed index cards into my printer, jamming it time and time again.

I wracked my brain, trying to think of somebody who might have a typewriter. (the library? the local newspaper? an antique store?)

Finally, I had the brilliant idea of typing each idea onto an oversized Avery address label, then sticking the labels onto index cards.

I never did follow directions very well. But I get the job done.

~~~

The Dale Girls on SUMMER VACATION!!!

(this is not my family. we were never this quiet. plus, no boys were allowed.)

When I was growing up, our household always had lots of exclamation points. Especially during the month of June. The four Dale girls looked forward to SUMMER VACATION!! with enthusiasm that bordered on hysteria, literally counting the days until the college POOL!!! opened and we could FINALLY!!!! GO SWIMMING!!!!!!!!!!!

A bit of explanation about the college pool ...

We grew up on a college campus, where Daddy taught music, and we were quite comfortable taking advantage of all the facilities. We would breeze into the library, standing on tip-toe to check out books while casually addressing the librarian's raised eyebrows with a simple explanation: "We're faculty."

We bought our school supplies in the college book store.

We knew the combination to Daddy's campus mailbox, and thought nothing of retrieving whatever might be in there.

We explored the arboretum, getting lost in the woods on purpose and eventually wandering out in time for dinner.

We never sat in on classes, but only because our attendance was required at Winthrop Elementary School during the day. I'm sure we would have felt quite comfortable barging into English Literature 204, completely oblivious to stares and whispers from the students who actually belonged there.

We were very nonchalant about the whole campus experience - except, as I said, the POOL!!!!

We would scamper into the dressing room, shower as quickly as possible, and wait by the locked pool door, in grave danger of hyperventilating, until FINALLY we heard the LIFEGUARD COMING!!! She would UNLOCK the DOOR and BAM!! we would hurtle through it, racing each other to be the first to BREAK THE WATER!!!! YAAAA!!!!!!!!

The campus community may not have always appreciated our enthusiastic and uninhibited scampering. But I'm glad I had a childhood where I was allowed to feel like a special little person, in a special little place.

They say that the sense of smell is a powerful trigger for memories of the past. And it's interesting ... to this day, some of my favorite scents are the dust from an old chalkboard, the musty aroma of a dark library, and the clean smell of chlorine that rises from a swimming pool sleek with undisturbed water, waiting for bare little legs and flailing arms and a happy shriek.

~~~

Windows 0.0

We have already discussed television and telephones in the good old days. Why don't we look back at the evolution of computers?

"oh boy. here she goes again."

You probably think there were no computers when I was young. But you're wrong!

"so you had computers when you were a kid? cool."

Well, no. Not when I was a kid. But by the time I was in college, the computer revolution was underway.

"god you're old"

Hey now. My college music department had a Moog synthesizer. It was the size of a 4-door Chevrolet. And my husband's roommate bought one of the first Hewlett-Packard personal calculators. He paid $400 for it.

"what? come on now"

Really. Before that, kids had to use slide rules for complicated equations.

"what if you didn't have a slide rule?"

Then you would do the math by hand. Multiplication, division, algebra -

"whoa, whoa, you're giving me a headache. what if you had to do like a square root? there's no way you can do that without a calculator."

Sure you can. There are formulas -

"spare me. how on earth did you send email?"

Oh, there was no email.

"gulp"

If you wanted to send someone a note, you wrote it on a slip of paper and passed it to them after class.

"you're kidding."

Nope. There were no computer games. No blogs. And no google. If you wanted to search for information, you had to go to the library.

"the what?"

Never mind.

"listen, i gotta go. but keep up the funny stories. you crack me up."

Do you want to hear about the video games we used to play? There was a tennis game that was lots of fun.

"no time, sorry. post it on facebook and i'll check it out later."

Ok, no problem. Remind me to tell you about the first laptops. They weighed 16 pounds and cost over $7,000.

"very funny. go take your meds."

Later, dude.

Dancing lessons, life lessons

Today, children are hustled from dance class to piano lessons to soccer practice to karate. That's the three year olds. And that's only on Thursdays. The other six days are busier.

But back in the days when a three year old was considered a baby and only the rich kids took dance AND piano, the little Dale girls spent every summer in little pink or black leotards and tights with the feet cut out. Instead of piano lessons, we took Modern Dance classes on the college campus where Daddy worked.

With dreamy music playing in the background, we glided like gazelles, twirled like the wind, and drifted to the floor like melting chocolate. There was no right or wrong way to do any of it, which was good news for me because my arms and legs grew at an alarming rate for the first ten years of my life and my body took quite a while to catch up. I'm sure an observer peering through the window would have wondered what a spastic scarecrow was doing in there among the graceful gazelles.

But I didn't care. I loved it.

Those summer dance classes taught me some important lessons:

- Dance in your bare feet, any time you get the chance.

- If your leotards are pink, do not wear flowered underwear.

- Do what you love, even if you're the scarecrow.

......

Related post:
Piano lessons, life lessons

Fun With Dick And Jane

I have fond memories of my first-grade teacher, Mrs. Edgerton. She was at least 100 years old, as I recall, but she was wonderful. Very creative. She used to cut words out of the newspaper and put them in an envelope. If we were good, we could pick out a word and try to read it.

Can you imagine the excitement?

Seriously. I thought it was great fun to pick out a crumpled piece of newspaper and sound out words like "Monday" or "coffee."

Today's first-graders don't know what they are missing. They think they are cool, using LeapFrog Learning Pads and reading in French and doing algebra in their spare time. Of course, if their teachers cut words out of the newspaper they would end up sounding out terrifying things like "recession" and "homeless." Parents would be calling the school to complain. If they still had phone service. Or a home.

Anyway, back to my fascinating childhood. Our first grade book was "Fun With Dick and Jane," a classic piece of literature that is now listed in the Antiquarian/Collectible section of eBay, which is appropriate but a bit depressing nonetheless. There was an entire collection of Dick and Jane books, each of which used four words in various combinations to tell a story.

See Jane run.
Run Jane, run.
Run fast Jane.
Fast, Jane, fast.
See Jane run fast.
See? Jane run fast.
Fast! Run fast, Jane.
Run, Jane. Fast. See? Jane run fast. Fast? Fast, fast. See? Jane! Run!!

There were some amazing twists and turns in the plots, as you can tell. Not to mention the surprise endings. (Will Jane run? We couldn't wait to find out.) And once Spot came into the picture, watch out! There was no end to the hilarity and hi-jinks. (Sit, Spot! Run, Jane! See Spot sit!)

Who needs a LeapFrog Learning Pad? By the time we were all in high school, we were reading just fine. Sit, Jane. Sit.

Why my childhood was not up to code: Part 2

My first installment of Why My Childhood Was Not Up To Code dealt with our family car, which would not have met any current safety standards whatsoever. Just coming to a gentle stop at a stop sign would have catapulted the crash dummies through the windshield. We avoided injury mostly because we were small, flexible and packed in so tightly there wasn't much room for catapulting.

Anyway, installment # 2 will deal with one of the leading causes of childhood injuries back in the Good Ol' Days ... gym class.

Some children have fond memories of merrily hopping, skipping, bouncing balls and learning new skills in gym class. Not me. I have dark nightmares and sudden flashbacks.

I remember a terrifying game called "Dodge Ball" that involved the big mean boys standing in a circle, hurtling huge hard rubber balls at the small spindly children like me and knocking us to the ground. I would have been happy to stay on the ground, but no - the rules required me to get back up, pick up the ball that was twice as big as me, stagger around for a few seconds, then wrench my whole body to one side in an attempt to throw it at the big mean boys, who were now standing in the middle of the circle laughing hysterically.

Then there was the hopelessly confusing game called "Basketball" where the rules went on and on. You couldn't stand still for more than 3 seconds or that blasted whistle would blow, and once you started moving you had to dribble the ball at the same time, so I was forever trying to count to 3 while searching desperately for someone to throw the ball to so it would not become apparent that I had no idea how to dribble and in the end I would just throw the ball straight up in the air and that whistle would shriek and I would pray that the teacher wouldn't make me stand outside the line and throw the ball in because there was counting involved with that too and honest to God who needs that kind of pressure when you're only 8 years old?

Things got worse in high school. Those memories are deeply repressed. If I close my eyes and force myself to remember, I get fuzzy images of school-issued green bathing suits, mandatory showers, and softballs whizzing past my head.These may or may not be real memories. I try not to think about it.

Today, gym classes are much more child-friendly. The rules are designed to encourage self-esteem and keep the school's insurance costs as low as possible. Balls may not be thrown. Children may not be knocked over. Teams, whistles and keeping score are out. Here in Texas, children are not even allowed to play tag during recess. Seriously.

Where were these rules when I needed them?

Ring-a-ding-ding

Strange but true:
Tales from way back when I was alive

Hey, remember how I told you about the good old days of television?

"ya. we didn't believe a word you said"

It was all true. Would I lie to you? Things were different back then.

"no kidding"

Like for instance, nobody had cell phones.

"nobody? how did you call each other, then?"

We used regular phones. You know, the kind that plugs into the wall. There weren't any cordless phones either. All the phones looked like this:




















"dude. where are the buttons?"

No buttons. You turned the dial instead.

"that must have taken forever"

Not really. You only used an area code if you were calling out of state, which nobody ever did unless it was a real emergency, because it cost extra. So most of the time you only needed to dial 7 numbers.

"unless you were calling 911, of course"

Oh, there was no 911. If you needed the police or the fire department, you had to call the local number.

"ok, so your house is burning and you'd have to go online and look up the number for the fire department?"

Not quite. There were no computers either, remember?

"oh my lord. so you'd, like, stand there and burn or what?"

Well, you'd have to go to a neighbor's house, or look for a pay phone.

"i don't even want to ask"

There used to be pay phones at all the gas stations, and other random and usually unsafe locations. They looked like this:
























"nice. it looks like you could get a disease from that thing. so what if you wanted to text somebody? how did that work?"

Oh, there was no texting.

"gasp"

No ring tones. No camera phones. No video phones. No phone games. No phone Internet. No phone GPS. All you could do with your phone, was make a phone call.

"you are so funny. i almost took you seriously for a minute there.
no camera phones! good one."

Yep, ha ha. I am such a kidder. No constant, instant, unavoidable 24-hour communication! Can you imagine? Who on earth would call THAT the "good old days"??

Uphill both ways

Strange But True:
Tales from the days when dinosaurs roamed the earth

Did you know, my faithful and undoubtedly-younger-than-me readers, that there was a time when NOBODY had color television sets?

"you mean all of them were black? how boring"

No, I mean the picture was black and white. And there were only 3 or 4 channels. Usually at least 2 of them were all fuzzy.

"you're making this up, right?"

No, I swear. And get this - there were NO remote controls.

"oh come on. how did you change the channels, then?"

You had to get up and twist the knob. Oh, and they only showed movies once a year. If you had a favorite, you'd have to wait a whole year for it to come on again.

"very funny. what, was Blockbuster too far to drive?"

There was no Blockbuster.

"gasp"

We watched The Wizard of Oz once a year. And Peter Pan. And Amahl and the Night Visitors.

"and those were your favorites?"

Oh yes.

"good lord."

The rules were pretty strict back then, too. No swearing. No political controversy. And the married couples on TV shows had to sleep in twin beds.

"if they weren't married, could they sleep together?"

No, my little Twisted Products Of The Current State Of Depravity. There was none of that going on. Everyone was happily married, with perfect polite children and mothers who cooked dinner in dresses and pearls and husbands who relaxed at night wearing a suit and tie.

"no wonder your generation is so uptight"

We had some great shows, though. There was My Favorite Martian, with this funny guy who had antennae, and Mr. Ed, who was a talking horse - oh, and Shari Lewis, who did a whole show with this cute little sock puppet!

"ok, now i just don't believe you at all. i'm gonna go watch a movie that i downloaded onto my phone yesterday"

Sure. No problem. You know how I am, always making things up. heh heh ... I almost had you fooled, though, didn't I?