flashbacks
amanda wrote about her childhood recently and it got me thinking a lot about mine. i really don't think about my childhood much because for the most part there isn't much to think about.
but today i realized how ahead of the times my mom was. she belonged to a local food co-op where they ordered health food in bulk from god-knows-where. she'd order all sorts of things, but the only item i ever really liked that she'd get was fruit leathers. i wasn't allowed to eat sugar growing up, but fruit leathers were one of the few sweet items i WAS allowed to have. i thought it was total bullshit because like I WANTED FRUIT ROLL-UPS DAMMIT! but i still ate them. i thought my mom was just ghetto/cheap and had no idea how much more fruit leathers cost than fruit roll-ups. (i also sometimes munched on frozen carob chips when that was the only sweet thing left in the house...)
my dad and sister were (are) hypogylcemic. it was assumed that i'd be too. so when i went over friends' houses, my mom would call their moms and be like "DO NOT FEED HER TASTYCAKES! etc". it was so sad, because stephanie fennick always had boxes and boxes of tastycakes in her cabinets!
this was really the only thing that my mom did to me that made me rebel. there was a sign in my house (it might actually still be there) that said "all persons are forbid using tobacco in this house" yeah, sure, i could have rebelled against that, but like, CIGARETTES DON'T TASTE AS GOOD AS CANDY! they really wanted me to get good grades, but they also gave me MONEY when i did, so i wasn't about to rebel against that. i got straight As pretty much my entire childhood (actually, pretty much my entire school career) and what did i spend that money on??? do you even need to ask?? yes, it was CANDY, DUH!
the first place i was trusted to be at alone was church. i went to sunday school, where they took attendance, and then was supposed to stay for church. i'd be given 50 cents to put in the donation plate every week. but what happens when you cut church? you've got 50 cents in your pocket! and what's across the street? a pharmacy!! and next to the church? a playground! so, kirsten ylvisaker and i would skip church and buy candy with our combined money and sit in the playground and eat it. as we got older, more and more kids skipped church. but unlike me, they'd go to the playground to smoke cigarettes or make out. i'd just eat candy.
i guess this is how i became addicted to sugar.
in middle school, my parents started allowing me to walk home from church. this was another large feat because it was about a mile and a half and there weren't any sidewalks. i grew up in the type of town where SOMEONE would always stop and offer you a ride. it was never creepy, but whenever i was walking, it was because i CHOSE to walk. so, kirsten and i would walk back to my house (her house was too far away) and eat candy on the way and poke the dead deer we'd encounter in the road (well, she'd do that more than me... it always kind of bugged me out, actually). it was a walk i always enjoyed taking. even if it was on a busy street, it felt really good to be free of adult supervision, even if we weren't doing anything wrong. but there was one day that i still can't forget.
we were turning onto my street and saw a bunch of huge birds hanging around. vultures or something. i looked up to see one flying holding a big fluffy gray object. it took me a couple of seconds to realize it was MY CAT! sure, she was old and probably already dead, but HOLY CRAP!! A BIRD IS FLYING AWAY WITH MY CAT!! the image is burned into my head. i still wasn't 100% sure that was what it was, until i got home and that cat never showed up again. crazy.
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in a lot of ways, i feel like i led a pretty sheltered childhood, but i also feel like i have very few memories from it. so, i want to start recounting some of them in hopes of remembering more.
but today i realized how ahead of the times my mom was. she belonged to a local food co-op where they ordered health food in bulk from god-knows-where. she'd order all sorts of things, but the only item i ever really liked that she'd get was fruit leathers. i wasn't allowed to eat sugar growing up, but fruit leathers were one of the few sweet items i WAS allowed to have. i thought it was total bullshit because like I WANTED FRUIT ROLL-UPS DAMMIT! but i still ate them. i thought my mom was just ghetto/cheap and had no idea how much more fruit leathers cost than fruit roll-ups. (i also sometimes munched on frozen carob chips when that was the only sweet thing left in the house...)
my dad and sister were (are) hypogylcemic. it was assumed that i'd be too. so when i went over friends' houses, my mom would call their moms and be like "DO NOT FEED HER TASTYCAKES! etc". it was so sad, because stephanie fennick always had boxes and boxes of tastycakes in her cabinets!
this was really the only thing that my mom did to me that made me rebel. there was a sign in my house (it might actually still be there) that said "all persons are forbid using tobacco in this house" yeah, sure, i could have rebelled against that, but like, CIGARETTES DON'T TASTE AS GOOD AS CANDY! they really wanted me to get good grades, but they also gave me MONEY when i did, so i wasn't about to rebel against that. i got straight As pretty much my entire childhood (actually, pretty much my entire school career) and what did i spend that money on??? do you even need to ask?? yes, it was CANDY, DUH!
the first place i was trusted to be at alone was church. i went to sunday school, where they took attendance, and then was supposed to stay for church. i'd be given 50 cents to put in the donation plate every week. but what happens when you cut church? you've got 50 cents in your pocket! and what's across the street? a pharmacy!! and next to the church? a playground! so, kirsten ylvisaker and i would skip church and buy candy with our combined money and sit in the playground and eat it. as we got older, more and more kids skipped church. but unlike me, they'd go to the playground to smoke cigarettes or make out. i'd just eat candy.
i guess this is how i became addicted to sugar.
in middle school, my parents started allowing me to walk home from church. this was another large feat because it was about a mile and a half and there weren't any sidewalks. i grew up in the type of town where SOMEONE would always stop and offer you a ride. it was never creepy, but whenever i was walking, it was because i CHOSE to walk. so, kirsten and i would walk back to my house (her house was too far away) and eat candy on the way and poke the dead deer we'd encounter in the road (well, she'd do that more than me... it always kind of bugged me out, actually). it was a walk i always enjoyed taking. even if it was on a busy street, it felt really good to be free of adult supervision, even if we weren't doing anything wrong. but there was one day that i still can't forget.
we were turning onto my street and saw a bunch of huge birds hanging around. vultures or something. i looked up to see one flying holding a big fluffy gray object. it took me a couple of seconds to realize it was MY CAT! sure, she was old and probably already dead, but HOLY CRAP!! A BIRD IS FLYING AWAY WITH MY CAT!! the image is burned into my head. i still wasn't 100% sure that was what it was, until i got home and that cat never showed up again. crazy.
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in a lot of ways, i feel like i led a pretty sheltered childhood, but i also feel like i have very few memories from it. so, i want to start recounting some of them in hopes of remembering more.