I Witnessed the First Moonwalk!

I still remember the day I heard Michael Jackson sing Billie Jean for the first time. My Dad and I were on our way to Wild Mountain (a ski resort) for an excellent day of skiing when his song came on the radio. What was this strange new song and why did it sound like he was hiccupping during it? What did it mean when he said, “The CHAD is not my son”? It was very weird and very intriguing! I admit that I didn’t particularly care for it then, and it still is one of my least favorite songs of his, but that changed when I saw his live performance of it. 

The year was 1983 and it was the Motown Records 25^th Anniversary special. Michael Jackson, who was well known as the lead singer in the band The Jackson Five, came on stage to sing Billie Jean for the first time in public. He wore black pants, leather penny loafers, a black sequined jacket, white sequined socks, shorter black dress pants and a single white rhinestone glove. To begin his performance, Jackson snapped a fedora to his head and struck a pose—his right hand on his hat and his left leg bent. It was already the coolest thing I’d seen all night!  Then he started to dance while he sang and it was so different than anything I’d ever seen before. During the song, Michael glided backwards to perform the moonwalk, before he spun on his heels and landed up on his toes! In the video of that first performance you can hear an audible gasp as the crowd witnessed the first Moonwalk on a stage! It was the beginning of a legend in the making. Everyone was talking about it the next day. He was already a superstar since the age of 5 but he literally soared to the galaxy after this single performance! 

Eventually, I found out that he made videos for MTV and I was obsessed! We didn’t have cable when I was growing up, no matter how much I begged my parents to get it, so how in the world was I supposed to watch MJ on TV if we didn’t have MTV? The answer: My cousin, Dana! I would go over to her house and we would watch Billie Jean, Beat it and Thriller and try to learn the dance moves! It was so cool! It was the first time I had ever seen music videos and they changed my life. I spent hours learning and perfecting the moonwalk and other dance moves I had seen from MJ. I can also do a mean slap-my-knee move from MJ’s Beat It video! Thriller is a 14-minute horror-themed music video and it was voted as the most influential video of all time! No wonder we spent so much time trying to learn it! It has been copied over the years by many famous people and in many movies. My favorite copy is 13 Going on 30! So cute!

Michael Jackson was a babe! He was very talented in singing, dance and style. I know there was a lot of controversy regarding him in later years, but I prefer to see the best in him and not to believe all the hearsay. I am reminded of his songs such as Heal the World and We are the World and his desire to make the world a better place one person at a time. I loved his beautiful performance at the Super Bowl with people in the stands holding up pieces of paper that, from a distance, made it look like a bunch of children of different races, holding hands. I like to remember the version of We are the World he created with Lionel Ritchie and many of the famous musicians of the time. They recorded this song with the hope that they could raise money for Africa. “Since its release, "We Are the World" has raised over $63 million (equivalent to $138 million today) for humanitarian causes.” Source/ Wikipedia. What a beautiful legacy and there is so much more! If you want to read more about him, check out Wikipedia for yourself!

He was iconic.

He was a legend.

He was a global figure for four decades.

He was the greatest entertainer of all time.

He was the King of Pop.

He invented the Moonwalk.

And I was his biggest fan!

Hot Dish or Casserole?

I grew up in the Midwest in a fairly small town. I now live about 5 miles from my childhood home in an area we called "the boonies" back then. It was pure forest, trees and farmland with very little civilization in my mind. I never knew that the world was so large and that there was such a diversity of people and ideas and opinions out there. As far as I knew everyone talked like me, sounded like me and thought just like me.

When I went out West for college, I was told right away that I had an accent! An accent, ME? I did not have an accent, they had an accent! I was told that I said bEg instead of bAAg for the word bag (they sounded like they were gagging!) and pEn instead of pIn (like a pin to hold a baby's diaper!) for the word pen. Even as they said those words to me, trying to correct me, they sounded weird. It was crazy! So I decided that I agree that I have an accent when I am out in the West, but when I am in the Midwest and other people come to visit, they are the ones with the accent!

I was then told that I called things the wrong names. How was that possible? All the sudden the POP that I'd been drinking for years was called SODA, who knew? I didn't realize that this was such an issue for some people since the full word for them according to the cans is SODA POP. And that the one dish dinners my Mom had lovingly made me all these years were called Casseroles and not Hot Dishes! I had no idea that some people took this so seriously!

There are a few Hot Dishes that truly are Hot Dishes and they are the ones that truly come from the Midwest, namely Tater Tot Hot Dish, Wild Rice Hot Dish and Pizza Hot Dish, all the others I will gladly call casseroles. I grew up on all three of these, along with the typical hearty meat and potatoes meals. All I can say is that you can take the girl out of the Midwest but you can't take the Midwest out of the girl! Here are a few of the truly Midwest dishes that I grew up on:

Tater Tot Hot Dish

1 lb. ground beef

1 can cream of chicken soup or cheddar cheese soup

Tater Tots

Lawry’s Seasoning salt

Garlic salt

Fry beef and put in a cake pan and season with Lawry’s Seasoning salt. Spread soup on top and arrange Tater Tots tightly on top. Sprinkle with garlic salt. Bake at 350 degrees for 30 minutes or better. Can broil for a couple minutes to brown tots, watch carefully.

Wild Rice Hot Dish

1 lb. hamburger, browned

1 c. cooked wild rice, I like to use cans or packets

1 c. celery, finely chopped

1 sm. onion, very finely chopped (optional) or use onion powder

1 can cream of chicken soup

1 can milk or water

4 tsp. soy sauce

Brown hamburger with onion and celery. Combine soup, water, and soy sauce. Mix in hamburger mixture and rice and bake for 1/2 hour at 350 degrees. Serve with chow mein noodles.

Pizza Hot Dish 

1 lb. hamburger

1 pkg. Sloppy Joe mix (Richard tries to substitute this for Manwich, but that is just wrong!)

15 oz. can tomato sauce

1 tsp. oregano

2 tubes crescent rolls

1 pkg. cheddar cheese, grated

1 pkg. mozzarella cheese, grated

Brown hamburger, then add Sloppy Joe mix, tomato sauce and oregano. Place 1 package rolls in 9 x 13 pan to cover bottom. Put hamburger mixture on top, then sprinkle with cheeses. Place remaining rolls on top. Bake at 350 degrees for 30 minutes.

Italian Sausage Soup

This is a recipe given to me by a good friend, Vickie White. I have made it many times for my family and for church functions and it seems to be very popular. I think it's a good idea for my children to have the recipes I made for them, as they get older!

1 - 1.24-pound package Italian sausage,( I used mild) no casings
2 carrots, diced
1 onion, chopped
1 green bell pepper, chopped
3 cloves garlic, minced
2 - 32-ounce boxes low-sodium chicken broth
1 - 15-ounce can tomato sauce
2 medium zucchini, cut in half lengthwise and thinly sliced
1 teaspoon dried crushed rosemary,
1 - 20-ounce package refrigerated three-cheese tortellini
Garnish: chopped fresh parsley optional

In a large Dutch oven, combine sausage, carrots, onion, bell pepper, and garlic; cook over medium heat until sausage is browned and crumbles. Drain well!!!!! (I drain it and then put a paper towel in there to soak up the rest then throw it away.)

Stir in chicken broth and tomato sauce; bring to a boil, reduce heat, and simmer 5 minutes. Add zucchini and rosemary; simmer 20 minutes. Add tortellini; simmer 5 minutes, or until tender. Serve immediately. Garnish with chopped fresh parsley, if desired. Makes 10 to 12 servings.

I hope my children remember the dinner times we spent together as a family and the love and care I put into making them the things they loved to eat!

We Didn't Have to Walk Uphill Both Ways in the Snow Like my Parents Did

Back in Laura Ingalls Wilder days, they travelled by horse and buggy. When reading the love story between Laura and Almanzo, it seemed so romantic to tuck themselves into the horse drawn sleigh with blankets and furs and ride over the meadow and through the woods on a date! When I was about 14, my mom and I went horseback riding for the first (and only) time. We rode in a line on a skinny trail, with her in front of me, in a group; her horse kept stopping to eat the grass and leaves. We were laughing and trying to get the horse to hurry along to keep up with the rest of the group. Then her horse stopped abruptly while mine kept going and ran into hers right as it lifted its tail and made a huge, green, grass poop that ran all down the side of my horse! It smelled terrible and made for a very long rest-of-the-trail ride. It makes me wonder how romantic it was for Laura and Almanzo to have to sit and wait for the horse to do his business and then ride along behind him the rest of the way?

Times have changed drastically for the Ingalls over the years, thankfully. My first mode of transportation was a yellow Rabbit. Still pretty small, but faster and smelled a lot better. I was taught, by my Dad, to drive a stick shift. It was hard at first, but so much fun! One time I stalled the car as I was attempted to cross Hwy 10 and just about gave my Mom a heart attack! I loved that little car and it was great to always be able to find it in a parking lot! Do you notice these days that most cars are tan, silver, black, or red? Not all of them are, but it is the majority. Sad that there aren't the fun vibrant colors anymore.

The next car I drove was a station wagon. Props to my parents for letting their 16-17 year old daughter drive around in a station wagon all the time! Maybe they thought the nerdiness of it would repel the teenage guys, but I assure you, that was not the case! It would have been better for my Mom to make me keep the Dorothy Hamill haircut! Haha I was a pretty good girl and they were very trusting, I guess.Also, just as a side note: I never paid more than 99 cents a gallon for gas!

I've had nicer and more expensive cars since then but I loved the freedom of having a car at that age and I totally loved driving a stick-shift car! It sure beat riding around in a horse and buggy or a sleigh, too!

What Was My Mother Thinking?

When I was still in Elementary school, my mom thought I should get the Dorothy Hamill haircut. It was the new thing and everyone was embracing the style.  I had no idea who she was, but came to learn that she was a famous figure skater. Everyone thought my hair was so cute and I felt so glamorous. I look back at pictures of me and I am so embarrassed! I actually hate that hairstyle and am mortified to show the pictures to anyone! I laugh that it was ever popular.

This was the last time I let my mom choose my hairstyle, but in hindsight, my choices weren’t any better! Isn’t it funny how we think we look so great at the time and years later, we look back and laugh at our hair, clothes, and eyewear? I remember laughing at my grandparents’ great big, black framed glasses and thinking they were ridiculous and now they are very popular again. Lots of colors and styles, the crazier the better!

Actually, my mom is a very talented hairdresser! She could do whatever I wanted, but I was a teenager and had a mind of my own at this point. I had her color my hair bleach blonde the summer before middle school and have been “blonde” ever since. I don’t really know what color my natural hair is to be truthful. I used to ask her to give me a “poodle perm”, meaning, as curly as it could get. The style in much of my school years was frizzy with half my bangs curled under and the rest teased to great heights on top. I was never super extreme in this but I could definitely get some height! I remember laughing at pictures of people from the 60’s and 70’s who had long, straight hair with no bangs and a part down the center and thinking how ridiculous it looked! Funny thing is, that is pretty much what my hair looks like now and I love it!

  

This was the age of Madonna, Cyndi Lauper and Michael Jackson and we all followed their trends. I wore Forenza sweaters (with a long pearl necklace), United Colors of Bennetton clothing, Swatch watches, mini skirt sets (where the top and bottom matched) and leggings. We used to tuck our jeans in from the knee to ankle and safety pin them that way and wear ballet shoes with them. Not ballet-style flats, but real ballet shoes. Skinny jeans didn’t come around until 20+ years later! One day I tried to leave the house wearing a shirt and real long johns (the thermal ones with a flap in the front) as pants and I only made it as far as the door before I was asked to turn around and change!

  Forenza Sweater

Prom was the height of fashion back then and it was popular to have a huge dress. They were so huge that you had to wear a hoop under it like Scarlett O’Hara in order just to walk in it. We looked like wedding cake toppers with great, big off-the-shoulder puffy sleeves, a gathered layer on top of the skirt and often bows, ruffles and lots of lace. They were very beautiful and made us look like Disney princesses, but that sure was a lot of dress! We went bowling after Prom my senior year and it was pretty challenging in a dress that large, but oh, so fun! My date wore a white long-tailed tuxedo with a white top hat (that I thought looked ridiculous!) and ended up sliding on the bowling alley on his stomach and got his tuxedo filthy! Good times!

This is a very similar look to what we wore!

My mom found out that I needed glasses when I was in third grade. My eyes were already pretty bad, she just didn’t realize how bad they were until we were driving home from the eye doctor after I had just received my new glasses and I was noticing that Billboards had words and pictures on them and that trees had tons of individual leaves! I also could see the wrinkles on my knuckles and my fingernails for the first time. I kept lifting my glasses up and then putting them back down to compare what I could see with and without them. My poor Mom felt terrible to realize how bad my vision truly was! I tried to hide it for as long as I could and cheat at the grade school eye tests because I didn’t want to be called a “four eyes” at school. My first pair of glasses were really thick and very large and they only got worse over time (until I had Lasik surgery in my 30’s). I’ve been known to jokingly say that even my cheeks could see better because my glasses were so big!

 Like this!

We had some pretty crazy trends in hair, fashion and eyewear and we make fun of them now, but who knows? Maybe five, ten or fifteen years down the road, we may be going back to them. All I know is that my Mom let me develop my own personal style and sometimes had to put her foot down too! After all, isn’t that what Moms are for?

I was in the Guinness Book of World Records!

     On Monday October 15, 1979, I joined a group of 1800+ tap dancers and danced my way down Hennepin Avenue to the song, "I'm a Yankee Doodle Dandy" to help celebrate the opening of the Hennepin Center for the Arts. “Sounds like a herd of buffalo,” said an observer. “Nah, it sounds more like a herd of buffalo wearing tap shoes,” said the observer’s friend. We all wore red, white and blue dance costumes and tapped our way into the Guinness Book of World Records for the most people tap dancing to a single piece of music at one time. I was so amazed at how many tap dancers there were all in one place and I remember it being really loud and so much fun! Here's the video if you want to see it! It's kid of long but you can skip ahead to the dancing part!
                                       https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=PY712_hK6CE
     Going totally off topic--for those that know me, it’s not unusual--it is dance-related, however. When I was in High School, I tried out for and made the All-Stars Just for Kix Dance Team that met in San Diego and danced in the Holiday Bowl halftime show! This was a huge deal because I was one of only five girls in my state to make this team and I had never been away from home by myself before. We learned the dance in the week we were there and performed in a Hawaiian bathing suit and sarong with a beach ball for part of it and it was a blast! One thing they weren’t thinking about in choreographing our dance was that the field would be all tore up from the football players. There were a couple moves that put us on the ground so we ended up getting kind of muddy! Halfway through the dance, we were supposed to throw the beach ball into the crowd and I was so bummed that I didn’t get to keep it. Some girls kept them anyway, but it was fun watching all those balls bouncing around up in the stands. I bought a video of the performance, but one of my parents accidentally videotaped one of my brother's football games over a part of it.
     Anyway, these are the two times in my life where I was almost famous!

I Didn't Die in the Back of a Station Wagon!

     Family vacations were always fun. Our family owned a station wagon, the kind where the far back seat actually faced backward. Yes, you heard me, it was backward! The window rolled down and we loved to wave and stick our tongues out to the people in the cars behind us. We never wore seatbelts and half the time barely stayed seated!
     The far back seat was the best because it didn’t have the “hump” on the floor that the middle back seat had. No one wanted to sit in the middle back seat because the two people on the sides wouldn’t let you put your feet on their side so you had to keep your feet up on the hump the whole time. This was a major source of contention in the car when I was growing up, especially since I was the smallest of the three kids. I wasn’t the youngest, just the smallest, so it was totally unfair!
     You could also put all the seats down so you could lay down in the back and that is exactly what we did. No seat belts or car seats just a big open area and we kids jumping around back there. Those were good times! All of us could lay down in the back seat at the same time and read books or take naps. The car rides were a lot more fun and would seem to go much faster not being confined to a seat and a seatbelt. Car seats were used but often just as a place for the baby to sit but they were not buckled in for safety.

This is not me or my siblings!

     We took a trip to New Jersey in the station wagon when I was a kid and we stayed in an oceanside beach house which was pretty cool. We kids all stretched out in the back, comfortable and reading good books; life was never better. This was the first time I was introduced to an adult book. Up until that time, I mostly read Judy Blume books, Sweet Valley High and Little House on the Prairie series-type books. It was a V.C. Andrews book called Flowers in the Attic and it was really intense for my age. I read several of her other books and, finally, decided they weren’t for me. It was also the first time I had ever seen the ocean. For my whole life, I have been fascinated and terrified of the ocean with its monstrous waves, ships, submarines, and all the ocean animals, such as whales, dolphins, sharks, octopus and more. I remember being both thrilled and scared to go into the ocean and never really went in past my knees. My sister and I were more interested in looking for boys. My brother, John, on the other hand, was in it up to his head, and would bob along with the waves that would crash over him.
     One car trip we took was most notable because my brother, John threw up on the floor in the middle back seat just a short time before we made it home. That was awful! You just couldn’t get away from the smell.
     We took a trip to Paul Bunyan Land in Brainerd when I was a kid. There is a picture of me looking up at him, he was HUGE! I think there are a couple of pictures of us with Babe the Blue Ox as well. That was quite memorable because he was so large and I was so small.

     I know that I will not remember all the trips I went on as a youth but going to Wisconsin Dells was one I would never forget! We stayed at the Yogi Bear Jellystone Park campground and it was cool because it had a bunch of statues from the Yogi Bear cartoon (on a side note, I ended up marrying a man that can quote and imitate Yogi Bear and Snagglepuss perfectly! Ask him to do it sometime!) This campground had a pool! We visited The Wonder spot, a “mysterious cabin where people can’t stand up straight, water runs uphill and chairs balance on two legs”. They describe the place as a Gravity vortex “where the laws of natural gravity seem to be repealed”. It’s sad to know that this place is no more and a highway took its place. We also had day passes for the Noah’s Ark Waterpark and I had never seen anything more glorious in my life! I always was a water-loving girl and it had everything I needed to have fun forever. I was so sad when we had to leave.

     I’m sure there were other trips we took when I was a kid, but I won’t bore you with any more of them. The important part is that we did things together as a family to build a strong bond together even though we were a his, mine, and ours family; we got there in a trusty old station wagon either seated forward or backward, probably laying down and never once did we wear seatbelts! And we didn’t die!

Special "K" Bars - This recipe changed my life!

     This is the first recipe I can ever remember making. I was in Home Ec class in Junior High School. I still have the original copy of it in my file box. It’s an 8 x 11” piece of paper yellowed with time, stained and fairly fragile. I remember we made these and it changed my life. I don’t think I had ever had any dessert so perfect in my young life! I was so proud of myself that I could actually bake! Up to this point, I thought that was something only moms could do.
Special “K” Bars

Heat in saucepan ½ cup sugar and ½ cup white syrup (light corn syrup). Remove from heat before it boils. Add 2/3 cup of peanut butter and blend. Pour this mixture over 3 cups of Special “K” breakfast food. Mix and pat in greased pan (8 in. square). Frosting – Heat ½ cup chocolate chips and ½ cup butterscotch chip in top of double boiler (one pan on top of the other with boiling water in the lower one). When melted, spread over top of bars. Cool.

     These days, a double boiler is unnecessary since we have microwaves and they melt chocolate so much easier.
     I made these for years and I still love them very much, but now I make Scotcheroos. They are essentially the same thing but they are made with Rice Krispies instead of Special “K” cereal. Every one of my kids love these and they are highly requested at family events. I do remember using these to bribe Tanner on several occasions to do what I wanted of him! Here’s the recipe for comparison:
Scotcheroos

1 c. light Karo Syrup

1 c. sugar

1 c. peanut butter

6 c. Rice Krispies

10 oz. chocolate chips

10 oz. butterscotch chips

Bring sugar and syrup to a boil in a saucepan. Remove from heat when the sugar is dissolved and add peanut butter. Mix until smooth. Stir in Rice Krispies. Spread in a buttered 9 x 13 pan. Melt chips in microwave 90 seconds, then stir, and then 30 seconds stirring until smooth. Spread on bars and let cool. Do not refrigerate! 24 servings

     These are supposed to serve 24 people but the boys would cut the whole pan puzzle-style into seven pieces so that we’d each get one. Crazy kids!

     Eventually, I would just double this recipe and put it into a 10 x 15 jelly roll because they were so popular that they never lasted. I made a few jelly roll pans of these for Dallin’s 200+ friend birthday party and they disappeared right away!
     The only other dessert I can remember making at this age was brownies from a box mix for Family Night. My parents never let me forget (even to this day) that they were about ½ inch thick because I had “tasted” the brownie batter so much! This began my great love of brownie batter, it IS better than the actual brownies and almost better than Scotcheroos!

Pop Rocks + Coke = Death!!!

     There was a candy store down the road from my house, well, actually it was a dairy store but I only went there for the candy. When I was a kid, I thought the candy section was huge! I was so proud of myself when I was old enough that I could go there without my parents. My friends and I would go down there and buy as much as we could with every dime we had.

Here are my top 10 favorite from back in the day:
10. Pop bottles. You could drink the juice inside and then chew on the wax bottle. I am almost positive that would make me gag now!                                              

9. Candy Cigarettes. (I don’t know if I can call them part of my top 10 because I only tried them once, but there’s a funny memory behind them!) One day we were at the candy store and my brother, John, bought a pack of candy cigarettes. They looked just like real cigarettes to me since I never really saw cigarettes up close normally. The box even looked real to me. The cool thing was that you could blow on them and a puff of “smoke” would come out its little pink end. We thought we were so cool puffing on them. Until we got home. My parents were not very impressed.  In fact, they took them away from us and told us that we should never pretend to smoke. It would make it seem normal to us and then we would think it’s okay and then someday we would want to smoke. Okay, I look back and think that was fairly dramatic, but it did make a point with me and I never wanted them again since then.

                                             (No picture of these because they are bad!!!!)

8. Bazooka gum and Chiclets Tiny Size. I put these together because they are both gum. Bazooka gum was cool because there was a comic inside and they were almost always different.  Chiclets Tiny Size were fun because you would pour a bunch in your mouth and they would all make a piece of gum together. The flavor never lasted very long for either of these.

                        

7. Tart n Tinys. My little sister really loved them. She and I were at the park by our house one day and she showed me how much she really liked them--she had stuck one up her nose! I threw her in her seat on the back of Mom’s bike and pedaled home as fast as I could! I’m not sure how they got it out but I’m so glad they did. We still tease her about that even to this day.

6. Tootsie Pops. It was considered good luck if you found one that had an Indian with a star on the wrapper. I’m not sure why that made them special since it really wasn’t that uncommon. My favorite flavor was grape!

5. Candy Buttons. I look back now and wonder why because half the time the paper would stick to the candy and you would just have to eat it that way. Good stuff, though!

4. Large Jawbreakers. These were not the average jawbreaker, they were huge, like the size of a fist. There was no way to fit one in your mouth and still, we had to try it anyway. The best you could do is lick on it until you were sick of it. I don’t ever remember finishing one, mostly because they were very bumpy and you could get a sore tongue very quickly.

                                                    

3. Pop Rocks. Pop Rocks + Coke = Death! At least that’s what we all heard when we were kids and nobody dared to try it! I laugh at how young and naïve we were and innocent, too. Pop Rocks were so fun because they fizzled in your mouth for a long time, but they also made your tongue turn blue or red or green!

2. Lik-m-Aid. There was nothing better than that white candy stick! Easily my favorite candy from my childhood, but it can’t be number 1 because I wasn’t in love with the packets of powder that came with it. They were very sour to me. I always thought they should make a package with a few of the Lik-A-Stix and skip the rest. Most perfect candy ever made. Often, I would just pour the powdered stuff in my mouth to get rid of it and then just eat the stick plain. Good times! I guess they call it Fun Dip now but, it will always be Lik-m-Aid to me!

1. Candy Necklace. What’s better than an elastic string of candy around your neck, ready to eat at any moment? I always liked to eat them in twos and the colors had to be the same! Once those ran out, I could eat the rest. It never bothered me that the wet, spitty string would snap me in the neck or that it would get sticky from it. Do you remember when you finally outgrew it fitting around your neck and instead it felt like a noose? That’s when you had to wear it as a bracelet. Don’t be fooled by these new candy necklaces that they put out these days where the colors are sprayed on the candies! The real candy necklaces were different colors all the way through because they were actually different flavors! The best ones, in my humble opinion as an expert in candy necklace consumption, were the Smarties brand.

Honorable Mentions:
Pez – what’s more fun than a piece of candy coming out of a toy animal's neck?
Zotz – these were awesome because they were fizzy inside
Ice Cubes – they were actually cubes of chocolate (my Mom loved these)
Razzles – candy that turned to gum (talked about and eaten in the movie "13 Going on 30")
Luden’s Wild Cherry Cough Drops – these were not candy but I ate them like they were!

Sopa de Relva (Portuguese Sausage Kale and Potato Soup)

This is a soup my husband had in Portugal, back in the 80's, when he served a mission for our church. He teasingly called it Sopa de Relva, or Grass Soup, because of the kale in it! I made it for him a while ago and it was so delicious and simple! It's nice to bring back good memories!

Ingredients

1 Tbsp. olive oil, for sautéing

1 fully-cooked, Polska Kielbasa sausage - slice 3/4 of the sausage into thin rounds – dice the rest

1 cup finely chopped yellow onion (1 medium)

1 Tbsp. minced garlic

4 cups Swanson’s chicken broth, low salt

2 pounds russet potatoes, peeled, sliced and cut into 1-inch chunks

½ tsp kosher salt

1 small bunch of kale, washed, thick center ribs removed, and slivered

Instructions

Brown the sausage rounds for 1 minute or two in a heavy pot over medium heat. Transfer to a small plate and set aside. Add diced sausage to the pot and cook, stirring, for about 3 minutes, until they start to brown a bit. Transfer to small bowl and set aside.

Add 1 tablespoon olive oil to the pot, along with the chopped garlic and onions. Sauté over medium-low heat for 4-5 minutes until onions soften and start to get transparent. (Don't let them brown)

Add broth, potatoes and salt to the pot. Bring to a boil. Lower heat to a steady simmer and cook for 15 minutes, until the potatoes are tender. Using a potato masher, mash half the potatoes right in the pot, so you have a creamy broth with some chunks of potato remaining.

Add the cooked, chopped sausage and the kale. Cook for 3-4 minutes, until the kale wilts and the soup is heated through. Serves 6

Daredevil Activities

     Down the road from my Grandma's house was the coolest playground! There was a great big metal rocket ship that was three stories high and you could climb all the way up to the top on the inside. There were metal slides that came out of the sides of it and lots of poles to slide down on the outside too. My cousins and I would go there whenever we had the chance and we would play hide-and-seek in there. The metal would get very hot and it only took you once or twice to figure out that you had to be careful. I think every kid back then learned the hard way not to slide down the slide with your bare legs touching it. It didn't matter how hot it got because it was definitely the coolest playground ever! In my middle school years, I discovered another of these rocket ship playgrounds not too far from my church, so I guess it wasn't the only one around.

     In doing a little research, I found that these were 26 feet tall and were built in the 1960's. It was part of a bunch of Cold War playground equipment built to "foster children's curiosity and excitement about the space race". Eventually, these rocket ships were removed and replaced with plastic playground equipment because it was determined to have "very little play value" and had "hazardous conditions that present a great danger to young children". (I totally disagree!)

                                                                                        Wikipedia, Cold War Playground Equipment  

Coolest Rocket Ship Playground ever

     I also loved the teeter totter with it's rough wooden planks that made for some really great adventures. When we played pirate ship and someone had to "walk the plank" they would walk across one of these and fall into the "ocean"!

Memories of the teeter totter:

Getting my legs pinched up under it at the bottom

Hopping off at the bottom so the other rider fell down super fast

Trying to ride it when the other person was a lot heavier or lighter than you

Trying to walk from one end of it to the other by yourself

Slivers

     The metal slide was always a good time. These things were big and for a nice long ride down with a couple bumps along the way!
Memories of the Metal Slide:
It was HOT!
Several of us wanting to go down at the same time and being crowded and pushing each other on the ladder.
Trying to ride down two at a time or more
Trying to run up it.
Trying to run up it when kids were trying to ride down it at the same time
Covering the bottom with sand to go faster

Memories of the Merry Go Round:
Getting really, really dizzy
Several kids over the years throwing up because we kept it going so long
Running around with it a few times to get it started
Sitting on top of the bars, wrapping our legs around them and leaning all the way back while spinning
A kid running into it with his bike while it was moving and it got stuck under there

     

     Remember the playground equipment at McDonalds? I loved the Hamburglar! I guess it was all deemed unsafe at some point and replaced with plastic equipment.

     I got my first bike in 1st grade and I rode it everywhere, all the time. I don't remember ever having training wheels and I never had a helmet or pads of any kind. In elementary school, it was cool to ride your bike standing up or if you were to give a ride to a friend it was "giving them a buck". They would just sit on the back of your bike and hang on for dear life. My kids actually had pegs on their back tires for a buddy to stand on and hitch a ride. I have to say that it seems a little strange to see young kids on bikes with training wheels also wearing helmets these days. Safety is a huge issue now.

     In middle school, still with no helmets or pads, it was popular to ride our bikes with no hands. I'm not sure how anyone ever figured that out because I fell a few times before I actually picked that up, but once I did, there was no turning back. It was more comfortable than hunching over and it looked so much more cool! You get so good at it that you can actually go around curves and over bumpy surfaces. Kids these days are really missing out on the fun stuff.

     In high school, I eventually started driving and my bike became a thing of the past. I used to go to a dance club a couple nights a week and my friend Sue and I would do Chinese Fire Drills.  At the stop lights we would get out of the car and run around it then hop back in when the light turned green. Also, there was a road to her house in the country that had a big hill then a valley and back up again. At the bottom was a bridge with a creek (crick) on each side. It was very dark and I would turn off the car lights and race down it and back up. Probably one of the dumbest things I ever used to do as a teenager and the most risky, especially with a friend in the car. We both survived it and are still friends to this day so I guess it's all okay!

     I learned to swim by getting thrown into the lake at campouts. I never had swim lessons. Unless you count the time when I was a baby and I pooped my diaper in the pool and corn came floating out! My mom was so embarrassed that she got out and tried to run away but ended up falling on her butt on the deck. Anyway, I never had swim lessons, except for those times at the lake or at the beach.

     I tried to water ski once and they told me not to let go no matter what! So I got all ready and they pulled me up and then I fell forward and I hung on for dear life as they continued to drag me along the bottom of the lake because I was told to hang on NO MATTER WHAT! I think I drowned a little that day and I had two tons of sand that went down my bathing suit, and I decided that I would never try to water ski again! We kids would spend every minute of the day in the water if the parents would let us. They made us come out for lunch and dinner and then made us wait a half hour before returning to the water. It was so fun jumping off the dock and swimming out to the raft. I remember hours of fun out there with my cousins and never a life jacket was seen or used.

     I only wore a life jacket when I was on a boat in the middle of the lake. I never wore one just to swim. I find it funny to see kids at a local pool with a life jacket on. How do they learn to swim that way? The craziest thing I've seen in the last couple years was a kid wearing a life jacket at the Splash Pad near our house. What does his mother think it will do for him? I think safety precautions are getting a little crazy!

Children today

I was a Boy Crazy Middle Schooler

     Moving out of elementary school was a huge deal. I would be able to ride the bus to Junior High because it was farther away. Junior High consisted of 7th - 9th graders back then. I tried out for the cheerleading team and made it. There were only eight of us on the team so I felt pretty lucky. We were the Vikings and I loved my cheerleading uniform, it was purple and white and the pom poms snapped together to be able to hold them with one hand. I look back now and laugh because I didn't know one thing about football or basketball yet I cheered for both teams. We girls would just sit on the sidelines talking about boys or looking for boys or doing each others' hair until the coach told us it was time to cheer and what cheer to do. At halftime, we had an actual routine that we performed, I'm sure the only people paying attention were our parents! I really enjoyed cheerleading even though it seemed silly to be cheering on a bunch of guys when they didn't cheer us on when we performed. I would later have this attitude in High School and switch to doing dance team because of it.
     I was a great student, that came very easy for me. I was a part of the National Honor Society and was Student of the Month several times. There was a time when I was not so good. My friend Shannon and I got in a fight over something in the hallway by the lockers. She was really mad and started to pull my hair. We both fought (like girls, I'm sure) by slapping each other and knocking each other into the lockers. A male friend of mine pulled her away from me by her hair and told me to get out of there. I ran and Shannon ended up getting suspended. I'm such a goodie two shoes! I can't remember what the fight was about, but I wouldn't be surprised if it was over a boy. It was the first time, though, that I learned I could fight back when someone was being mean. I also learned that I had friends that would stick up for me and help me when I needed them. I always had more guy friends than I ever did girl friends.
     I rode my bike everywhere! I would be gone for hours at a time and never reported where I was going. I would ride with my friends or by myself anywhere I wanted to go and any time I wanted to also. I would go visit friends, boys and girls, and go to their houses and my parents had no clue where I was. They just trusted me and trusted that I was safe wherever I was. Times have truly changed in that regard. Parents really hover over their children and have to know where they are and who they are with every minute of the day. I blame cell phones for this, it makes everyone too accessible. Anyway, I bet there were very few streets in the three cities around me that I hadn't rode my bike on at some point in my middle school years. My friends and I would go boy hunting and see if we could find any to flirt with. Boys were a huge part of my life from here on out and I loved to flirt with all of them!
     Curfew? What is that? I never had one. My parents just expected me to head home when it started getting dark, but they weren't very strict about it and never made me feel bad for being a little late. Some of my friends had the post light at the end of their driveway and, when that was turned on, it meant that it was time to get home.
     Grounded? What is that? My parents never grounded me. I was a good kid and didn't do anything to get in trouble with them in the first place but, I also loved being at home and, especially down in my room listening to music. They didn't think that grounding was very effective because it being home is something I enjoyed anyway. In my adult parenting years I never grounded my children because I didn't want our home to be seen as a punishment either.
     Time out? I didn't have that either! I'm not exactly sure what my parents did to punish us if they needed to but, it wasn't time out. I did get mouth washing of soap once for saying a swear word. I will never forget that one! I don't believe I have ever said another swear word since then either. I had learned my lesson. When my children got older, I used regular vinegar instead. Vinegar is actually edible - it just tastes bad on its own and it was very effective in helping the kids use good language. No one likes a potty mouth!
     For my birthday, my Dad had bought me a jacket and a new purse. I had them in my locker during the school day and when I returned to my locker after school, they were both gone. I couldn't understand where they were and didn't realize that someone had broken into my locker and stole them. Nothing like this had ever happened to me before. The school security eventually found my jacket and purse shredded and the empty wallet at the park across the street from the school. I just couldn't believe someone would do something like this, how could someone be so mean?
     We used to wrap the legs of our jeans tightly around our calves and pin them like that, then pull legwarmers over that and wear ballet shoes to school. Real dancing ballet shoes not ballet flats that are popular now. Also, mini skirts became very popular and wearing long johns instead of pants. I tried getting out of the house dressed like this once but I didn't make it past the front door!
     In 7th grade I met a friend in gym class named Margaret. Those first days at a new school can be pretty rough trying to make friends, but she and I just clicked. A few days later, she invited me to her house after school. She showed me a metal Band-Aid box full of cigarettes and asked me if I wanted to smoke with her. No way! That was gross! I never did like the smell of them and putting them to my mouth just seemed repulsive. It was the only time I was ever offered a cigarette in my whole life and I was never offered anything else either, like alcohol, drugs, or anything like that. There definitely were the groups of kids who did those things, but they kept it to themselves and didn't really offer it to anyone outside their group. Needless to say, she and I didn't stay friends, I became a cheerleader and she became a stoner.
     I loved boys! I loved having friends that were boys, I loved having boyfriends, I loved flirting with boys, and I thought about and daydreamed about boys all the time! It was always easier for me to be friends with boys because girls were just so emotional and moody. Boys were always cool! I have a journal from this time period that I kept and pretty much every single post is about boys in general or some boy in particular. I drew in some of the pages with my first and middle name and their last name just to see how it would sound! I know, I was a little crazy, but boys were fun!

The Art of Being Bored

     I had a babysitter (now they would call her a daycare lady) that I went to after school on the days my Mom worked. She had a son my age and a few other kids that she watched. We often played in the basement because my babysitter felt like the TV was a waste of time for kids. She had a linoleum floor downstairs and it was cold! We rolled up some tinfoil we found to make a puck and used two short boards for the sticks to play "hockey". Sometimes I'd make the son play dolls and dress up with me. Other times, when the weather was nice, the babysitter would make us go outside. We would play for a while but there were no bikes or scooters or electric cars to entertain us back then. We would sit under the shade of the lilac bushes, bored out of our minds and hot from the sun. We would look at the clouds and use our imagination to see animals or other shapes in them. We would find clover flowers and suck the nectar out of them and rub dandelions on our necks to see if we were in love!

     We would play yard games with each other, such as Red Rover, Freeze Tag, Duck, Duck Gray Duck and Statues. Statues was my favorite! Here's how we played it:

     The Curator (the person who is "it") spins each player around and around and when they let go, the player must stop in the position of a statue. The Curator then stands somewhere in the yard away from the other players, or Statues. When the Curator has his back turned, the statues run toward the Curator and attempt to touch him. But, when the Curator turns around to face the Statues, they must freeze in their statue position for as long as the curator is looking at them. Though the Curator can approach and investigate the Statues, he must be careful; when his back is turned to any Statues, they may move toward him. If a Statue is caught moving while the Curator faces it, the Statue must return to the starting line (or be eliminated).The goal is to touch the Curator while his back is turned, but don’t get caught mid-run. The first Statue to tag the Curator becomes the new Curator and the game starts again. It's somewhat similar to Red Light, Green Light.

     It used to drive me crazy when my own children would come to me and tell me they were bored. I'd tell them that they don't even know what bored means and that I would give them a chore to do around the house if they were so bored! They were surrounded by toys, games, televisions, Game Boys, bikes, scooters, wagons and swing sets, they couldn't possibly be bored! This poem came to mind when writing this post:

Today is Very Boring: By Jack Prelutsky 

Today is very boring,

It s a very boring day

There is nothing much to look at,

There is nothing much to say,

There is a peacock on my sneakers,

There is a penguin on my head,

There is a dormouse on my doorstep,

I am going back to bed. 

Today is very boring,

It is boring through and through,

There is absolutely nothing

That I think I want to do,

I see giants riding rhinos,

And an ogre with a sword,

There is a dragon blowing smoke rings,

I am positively bored. 

Today is very boring,

I can hardly help but yawn,

There is a flying saucer landing

In the middle of my lawn,

A volcano just erupted

Less than half a mile away,

And I think I felt an earthquake,

It's a very boring day. 

I'm as Big as your Boobs! - Childhood

     I'm told I was a precocious child and very inquisitive. Once I found my voice, I used it all the time. I was always busy and kept my Mom on her toes, lots of energy and a huge imagination. She thinks that I have always had a creative side and likes to remind me of the time that I made a full working garage, with a garage door and everything, out of paper to park my toy cars. She also saved a purse I made out of paper, along with a bunch of other creative projects. I do know that my friend Amy and I made ballet shoes complete with the "ribbons" that go up your legs, completely out of paper! I'm grateful that my talents have expanded over the years to things that are actually functional!
     My parents got a divorce when I was still quite young. One day, I asked my mom, "Why are you and Daddy apart?" She said, "Because we got a divorce. We got a divorce because we weren't happy living together." I then said, "I guess you gotta try it first, just like buying clothes. You try them on and if you don't like it, you have to return it."

     Me (age 5): "Mom, I think you are beautiful - I don't care if your hair is messy and you have a crooked tooth!" I'm sure I did a lot for my Mom's self esteem over the years.
     Me: "Sometimes ladies with big tummies don't have babies in there, they are just fat!" I guess I was observant as well.
     Me: "Mom, I'm as big as your boobs!" (Meaning as high up as) This is not that hard to do considering my mom is only 4' 10 1/2"!
     On meeting my new stepdad's mother, I said, "You won't be my Grandma because my good dad, I mean, my old dad, I mean, my mom's ex husband's mom, is my Grandma." I sure know how to get my point across, don't I?
     I know that my mom wrote down a lot of things that I said as a child, but these are the ones I can remember and I don't want to embarrass myself with writing down any more. I'm told that I was a very talkative kid and didn't have much of a filter. My mom says that I took pride in always telling her the truth, even when she didn't want to hear it all!
     When I was 7 I had to have a double hernia surgery. I don't know why because I don't recall being in any pain before it, but it must have been necessary. I do have quite a few memories of this but several are brought back by the pictures I have. I got to tour the hospital the day before to help me feel more comfortable. After my surgery, I had a teddy bear with a similar bandage on it given to me by the doctor. I couldn't go to school for awhile and all of the kids in my class made me "Get Well Soon" cards. My friend Jenny came over and we laid on the couch together playing games. The one I remember most was Wooly Willy:

     You would use the little red magnetic pencil to move the metal shavings around to make different faces. Times were simpler then.
     I also found out recently that I had measles as a child. I was really sick and slept a lot. I never knew this until I found it written in one of my old baby books.
     When my Mom married my stepdad, we moved in with him. I was there on the weekdays and on the weekends I went to my Dad's house. It was always a little disconcerting to wake up in the morning and not be sure which bed I was in. It was hard to make friends with the kids at my Dad's house because I was only there on the weekends and they were always together. I mostly never unpacked my clothes and things from my suitcase and so I basically lived out of it for the first 16+ years of my life. I find that when I go on vacation now, I always remove everything from my suitcase and place it in the dresser drawers. My kids sometimes laugh at me about it, but it's just a way to make the space I'm in feel more like home. My husband does it too!
     At my Mom's house there was an enormous willow tree in the backyard and a creek (we pronounced it - crick). Three of the willow branches grew out far enough to touch the water if we sat on them and jumped. Those branches, in our minds, became horses, dragons or unicorns in all of our adventures. There were tons of branches and leaves so it often made good hiding places and we could climb all the way to the top (so long as Mom didn't see us)!
     My house was being remodeled when we moved there. One whole wall had mirrors on it with a pattern running through them. Kind of like this:

     They took them off and it became a normal wall. On the other side, they put huge mirror panels floor to ceiling and they are there to this day, like this:

     The shag carpet was replaced by plush carpet and the stairs were turned around so that the old top of the stairs became a pantry for food in the kitchen. We even had the avocado (green) colored refrigerator and stove!

     It was a very typical rambler in a very typical neighborhood with very similar houses all around. I lived a block away from my school so I was a walker and, eventually, I became a bus patrol. So important! I always loved to go on field trips because it was my only chance to ride the busses and it was so fun. My Mom never did pack me a normal lunch in a normal brown bag, but gave me a brown grocery bag with a few sandwiches and full size bags of chips, lots of candy and several cans of pop wrapped in tin foil to keep it cold. She always wanted to make sure I had enough to share with my friends or anyone who forgot to bring their lunch. She was thoughtful that way and has never changed.