That happens to me, too. I fear that I may develop dementia one day and all that will remain in my head will be stupid commercial jingles. Though I guess by then I won't mind much...
My Auntie Mil was my mother’s sister. She was 13 years older than my mother. She treated us children like her grandchildren. She took me and my brother Chuck to Cinema Detroit, a grand downtown cinema. The huge theater was converted to a Cinemascope Movie theater back in the early 1960s. As a treat to us youngsters, we went to see “It’s a Mad, Mad, Mad, Mad World’ released in 1963 featuring many comedy artists of the day including Jimmy Durante and the Three Stooges.
The soundtrack was in high fidelity stereo and the film was projected by three projectors on a concave screen that was as big as a tennis court. To say that this made an impression on me would be an understatement. After all these years I remember the theme song although it wasn’t an Academy-winning song in any way. It was presented in a Hi-Fi Stereo reminiscent of a circus ensemble with the extra-wide scenery that caught my imagination.
Whenever I think of an absurd memory or when experiencing comedic reality in the back of my mind I’m hearing "It's a Mad Mad Mad Mad World" (1963) - Music by Ernest Gold - Lyrics by Mack David. The movie’s character that I feel most in common with Spencer Tracy. He of course gets sucked into the movie’s punch line at its end and pays the penalty of being so gullible.
I just LOVED the paragraph about the can opener, especially the section that followed: "This probably saved a great many sailors from stabbing themselves on the hand..." What a flight of rational imagination!
I'm guilty of the same sort of process, myself! For example, I really don't appreciate tailgaters, especially on country roads with long expanses of safe passing zones, signaled by dashed lines. I've manufactured a mental image of them as being the "Mother, May I?" sort. That comes from the game we used to play in the back yard: "little brothers" - or sisters - would ask permission to make a a specific set of steps toward the "parent." The child playing the parent had a lot of control there - the first child to reach "Mother" would generally be the one in "political favor" at the moment.
Since I had a younger brother myself, I saw "birth order" as a defining element in tailgaters' formative mental processing. As an eldest child, I grew up thinking that if something needs to be done, "Just do it!" My younger sibling, though, had to negotiate talking me into what he preferred. He had a set of Lincoln Logs, with which we'd build log houses, and a collection of plastic cowboys and Indians. We'd replicate some of the Western TV shows with some fairly standard plots on the floor rug in his room. I enjoyed that, but he preferred playing "House" with the open-roofed house for a plastic family that had moveable limbs. Fixing the figures to sit at the table and such seemed rather boring to me, so he had to bargain with me, saying: "Sister, can we play house today?" to draw my attention away from the cowboys and Indians. I suppose he grew up under the impression that he had to ask permission before he made a move. Did my brother tailgate as a driver? I wonder???
When the "Tailgater" crests the hill with me, and there is several miles of passing zone free of traffic ahead of us, I slow down gradually, and if needed, I roll down my window and begin rhythmically pointing to the dashed lines. Eventually, the tailgater gets frustrated and steams past me.
After the last such episode, with a good three miles visibility available for my dedicated shadow to pass in, it dawned on me that perhaps it might not be a younger sibling. I had a boss in California for years whose own grandfather had been in the Gold Rush. The miner sired her father when he was in his sixties. In turn, my bosses' father didn't get around to fatherhood until he was nearly seventy years old. She was an only child. She had a definite "Father, may I?" complex. If an opportunity came up, for example, if another library in our corporate system was closing, she'd read the email "Books for donation! Take whatever you have the space to shelve!", she'd read the message as if it didn't exist. "We could house quite a few books and journals," I noted. "Fine. You do it!" she said, and left the entire process to me.
As I recalled that boss, I realized that sometimes parents themselves could deny their kids the privilege of stepping in and taking the initiative, especially if the parents were overly controlling. That blew my "younger sibling" theory straight out of the water!
Maybe the moral to this story is that we can enjoy making up "origin stories" - and sometimes they could turn out to be mostly true. But in other cases, "cause and effect" could have several different potential scenarios involved!
You had a laundry room? Pretty fancy. We had a back porch with a wringer washer, two metal tubs, and a lot of clothesline. Our canned goods were on shelves in the cellar with the distinct scent of a dirt floor that felt cool beneath our bare feet in the summertime.
Mary Lee was my aunt, and I was at the funeral with you in St. Peter. At the gravesite, I sat in the car with Mary Lee's great granddaughter, Cedar, who fell asleep on the way there from the cities. That summer I had also buried my mom, Margie, Mary Lee's sister whom you mentioned sang duets together. There's only so many funerals one can take in such a short period of time, so I was content to volunteer for toddler duty and listen to the hymns from across the field. Did you know Mary Lee and Marge were only 11 months apart in age? And that they died two months apart? Their spirit of duet-ing carried them all the way through to the end.
That happens to me, too. I fear that I may develop dementia one day and all that will remain in my head will be stupid commercial jingles. Though I guess by then I won't mind much...
My Auntie Mil was my mother’s sister. She was 13 years older than my mother. She treated us children like her grandchildren. She took me and my brother Chuck to Cinema Detroit, a grand downtown cinema. The huge theater was converted to a Cinemascope Movie theater back in the early 1960s. As a treat to us youngsters, we went to see “It’s a Mad, Mad, Mad, Mad World’ released in 1963 featuring many comedy artists of the day including Jimmy Durante and the Three Stooges.
The soundtrack was in high fidelity stereo and the film was projected by three projectors on a concave screen that was as big as a tennis court. To say that this made an impression on me would be an understatement. After all these years I remember the theme song although it wasn’t an Academy-winning song in any way. It was presented in a Hi-Fi Stereo reminiscent of a circus ensemble with the extra-wide scenery that caught my imagination.
Whenever I think of an absurd memory or when experiencing comedic reality in the back of my mind I’m hearing "It's a Mad Mad Mad Mad World" (1963) - Music by Ernest Gold - Lyrics by Mack David. The movie’s character that I feel most in common with Spencer Tracy. He of course gets sucked into the movie’s punch line at its end and pays the penalty of being so gullible.
I just LOVED the paragraph about the can opener, especially the section that followed: "This probably saved a great many sailors from stabbing themselves on the hand..." What a flight of rational imagination!
I'm guilty of the same sort of process, myself! For example, I really don't appreciate tailgaters, especially on country roads with long expanses of safe passing zones, signaled by dashed lines. I've manufactured a mental image of them as being the "Mother, May I?" sort. That comes from the game we used to play in the back yard: "little brothers" - or sisters - would ask permission to make a a specific set of steps toward the "parent." The child playing the parent had a lot of control there - the first child to reach "Mother" would generally be the one in "political favor" at the moment.
Since I had a younger brother myself, I saw "birth order" as a defining element in tailgaters' formative mental processing. As an eldest child, I grew up thinking that if something needs to be done, "Just do it!" My younger sibling, though, had to negotiate talking me into what he preferred. He had a set of Lincoln Logs, with which we'd build log houses, and a collection of plastic cowboys and Indians. We'd replicate some of the Western TV shows with some fairly standard plots on the floor rug in his room. I enjoyed that, but he preferred playing "House" with the open-roofed house for a plastic family that had moveable limbs. Fixing the figures to sit at the table and such seemed rather boring to me, so he had to bargain with me, saying: "Sister, can we play house today?" to draw my attention away from the cowboys and Indians. I suppose he grew up under the impression that he had to ask permission before he made a move. Did my brother tailgate as a driver? I wonder???
When the "Tailgater" crests the hill with me, and there is several miles of passing zone free of traffic ahead of us, I slow down gradually, and if needed, I roll down my window and begin rhythmically pointing to the dashed lines. Eventually, the tailgater gets frustrated and steams past me.
After the last such episode, with a good three miles visibility available for my dedicated shadow to pass in, it dawned on me that perhaps it might not be a younger sibling. I had a boss in California for years whose own grandfather had been in the Gold Rush. The miner sired her father when he was in his sixties. In turn, my bosses' father didn't get around to fatherhood until he was nearly seventy years old. She was an only child. She had a definite "Father, may I?" complex. If an opportunity came up, for example, if another library in our corporate system was closing, she'd read the email "Books for donation! Take whatever you have the space to shelve!", she'd read the message as if it didn't exist. "We could house quite a few books and journals," I noted. "Fine. You do it!" she said, and left the entire process to me.
As I recalled that boss, I realized that sometimes parents themselves could deny their kids the privilege of stepping in and taking the initiative, especially if the parents were overly controlling. That blew my "younger sibling" theory straight out of the water!
Maybe the moral to this story is that we can enjoy making up "origin stories" - and sometimes they could turn out to be mostly true. But in other cases, "cause and effect" could have several different potential scenarios involved!
You had a laundry room? Pretty fancy. We had a back porch with a wringer washer, two metal tubs, and a lot of clothesline. Our canned goods were on shelves in the cellar with the distinct scent of a dirt floor that felt cool beneath our bare feet in the summertime.
It's always a joy to read your stories.
Mary Lee was my aunt, and I was at the funeral with you in St. Peter. At the gravesite, I sat in the car with Mary Lee's great granddaughter, Cedar, who fell asleep on the way there from the cities. That summer I had also buried my mom, Margie, Mary Lee's sister whom you mentioned sang duets together. There's only so many funerals one can take in such a short period of time, so I was content to volunteer for toddler duty and listen to the hymns from across the field. Did you know Mary Lee and Marge were only 11 months apart in age? And that they died two months apart? Their spirit of duet-ing carried them all the way through to the end.