-->i grew up in Mt. Prospect, IL, a suburb about 20 miles northwest of Chicago. I grew up with out a television, well let me rephrase that, we had a t.v., it had no antenna, got a very fuzzy version of the spanish channel and was kept in our somewhat damp basement. We had a VCR and watched movies, but never t.v.
-->I also grew up without a dryer. year round we hung our clothes outside, and yes, this includes the -50 degree weather chicago has to offer. In the winter it would take close to a week for our clothes to become dry.
-->We had many pets growing up. this includes numerous turtles, some of which met the end of their lives rather dramatically. my dog, dr. pepper thought one might make a tasty snack. a softshell turtle died of tape worms. one disappeared from our yard. we had many hamsters, guinea pigs, birds, snakes, iguanas, fish, a tarantula, and of course my cat spike. spike was a calico cat that we got when she was a kitten. she lived until i was a sophomore in college (15 years) i am pretty sure is was the best cat around and very sweet. and very stupid.
-->my family rarely went out to eat. we would eat out maybe twice a year. other than that all of our meals were homemade and eaten together at a table. i have come to appreciate this greatly considering my mom would work 12 hour shifts and come home to make dinner. my dad is known for his pizza making skills and makes a mean pizza. his job was to clean up after dinner and do the dishes (we also had no dishwasher) once, however, he made my sister and i a meal. we were both seated at the table waiting to eat and he came out with a big pot.
"what is it?" i asked
"open it" he said
i pulled the lid off the pot and was greeted with a pile of cut boiled carrots.
"what else is there?" my sister wanted to know
"what do you mean, isn't this enough, you guys love carrots"
i turned to my sister "there is probably some leftovers we could eat"
"how about if we put butter on the carrots, would you eat them then?" my dad asked
i give him credit, as it must be very difficult to raise two very stubborn daughters but needless to say, the carrots went untouched.
-->we would go clothes shopping maybe twice a year. this activity could only happen after all of our old clothes were laid out and we explained (to our father) why we thought we needed new clothes. I think the most pairs of jeans i have ever owned at a given time is 2.
5 comments:
Haley, thank you for sharing the intimate details of your upbringing. You have an amazing family. You honor it well by celebrating it in this way. I was thinking of you all day yesterday. I will call you later. Love, Kim
So your clothes would first freeze into ice, then thaw into wet, then dry?
I like how unwasteful your family is. It's good.
Really Hal would balance those wet clothes on a line in a lump in the basement where it would take a while to dry. I think we went out to eat more than 2x a yeat but not much. Really living with you and Rhea and Hal was the best thing in the whole wide world.
Your mom's comment made me think...what if every family spent one full year living together under the same roof again after many years of the kids being real-world grown ups?
Sounds like a good reality TV program...actually what would be more entertaining is for a family like mine to do that...where the parents are divorced.
Jesus, thank god you grew up without television.
That story about the carrots is awesome.
It all sounds very fun and kind of romantic.
Post a Comment