1969.
The year when everything changed.
A person can say that about ever year of there life.
Every year we grow, we change, those around you change.
I may say 'The year when everything changed' again and again.
Simply, because it is true.
Nothing stays the same.
If I close my eyes for 5 minutes and open them again worlds have been destroyed and new ones have grown. That is how I felt that year. I think I closed my eyes too many times. If I just kept them open maybe it wouldn't happen so often. Maybe I could see what it was that made it all change.
Everyone has to sleep sometime. That's when they get ya.
Who ever the hell 'they' are?
Sometimes I think there are some nasty little demons running the place. Lord help me Jesus, sometimes I do. Jesus, sometimes I think your Daddy just looks away too often. How else to you explain all the bad things that happen.
As a child things change quicker than most other times in your life, you are learning and growing and such a fast rat it seems lifetimes have passed since the same time last year. You have yet to get stuck in any rotten. Days go slow as you try to rush to your future. While those who are there spend their ending time trying to make the days slow as they rush by.
Die young and leave a good looking corpse.
That's what they say. Seemed to come in to practice into the 60's.
Sometimes in the commune people would disappear forever. Too many drugs or getting involved with the wrong people or just getting on the wrong side of the wrong cop or FBI agent. Sometimes I saw them in their finest clothes before the box was closed. They looked very different. Their parents would come in cut their hair, change their clothes, shave their faces, make them look like the children they knew. Some were sent off to the land of the beyond with the way they lived in the end. Some parents didn't claim them. Some of their families wrote them off long time before. Looking back I don't know which I hated more, the ones who could not except their child and respect them in the last moment or those who had their wakes years before and never thought any more of them. To have ones parents hate who you are or rather you were never here.
There I was just this little kid. Able to form sentence to go with my thoughts. There is no better place then with hippies when you are 3 and 4 years old. The colours are brighter, the laughter more often, and you are accepted as a human being with thoughts and ideas. People around me, for the most part, loved and took care of me. They took me with them where they went.
They sat me in front of the television to watch men in space suits walk on the moon. They were ecstatic at the prospect we made it to the moon. My reaction was different. So different. They said they could not believe we made it.
"What is the fuss? " I said. I really didn't understand it.
They tried to explain their hopes and dreams. They tried to explain watching science fiction movies. They tried to explain a lot.
I just replied " We can beam all over the place, why is this a big deal?"
A year before they had pulled some money together for a television and I was glued to it every night. I loved the bright colours.
Oh. you didn't think I had a bedtime, did you?
People didn't get up early there, as a rule, they sure didn't want me to once I could get out of my crib. I stayed up late. The television distracted me enough for them to have , well they didn't really thought I knew what was going on or watching. Let's just say by the time people wanted to have 'the talk' with me I could explain far more to them. I just saw it as almost clinical. Something adults did, like smoking or drinking. I was never allowed to drink or smoke anything I didn't see this as anything different. There were so many fun shows that seemed just geared for kids back then. The television interested me more.
I went to a lot of protest over the years. Love, peace, understanding and end of the war. The last reason to protest. That was the one that got more and more dangerous as time went on. As the police and national guard got more violent so did people in the protest. The last one they took me to, several of my mothers and fathers got hurt. I almost got hit too.
They, the uniformed men, were screaming at my family "What kind of dumb ass brings a kid to some place like this?! That kid could get hurt!"
Before my family could reply they were already being hit with clubs, including the one holding me. I started screaming. But they didn't stop hitting. They just screamed at them more and more as they hit. I was passed from father and mother as they were being hit. The men in the uniforms wanted to take me.
They screamed to each other for someone to get me "We have to save that kid from this freaks!"
My fathers and mother were afraid. They moved quickly. I was even passed to people I did not know.
I was home with in an hour. It was actually a woman who lived down the street that brought me. She hid me under her poncho then pretended she was my mother until we got home, hiding my face every time we passed by anyone in uniform. My heart was racing. I was so afraid. I didn't want to live with those men in uniforms. They would beat me too with the clubs.
No-one was home when we got there. They were still at the protest being hit or dragged or arrested or just blocking the men from getting me.
The women who brought me home grew impatient. There were places to go and people to do. She sat me on the front steps for about an hour.
She told me "Be a good girl and someone would be there soon. Just stay there. O.K."
She told me to hide behind the pillar if someone in a uniform came so they could not see me. Then she left. She waved happily as she walked away trusting in the universe that I would be safe.
Afternoon turned into night. I was scared I was crying. No-one had come. I was hungry. No-one came. I had to go to the bathroom. No=one came. I banged on the door and I screamed and wailed. No-one came. I ran to the back door and banged again. No-one came. I sat on the back step and cried for about 5 minutes.
I went back to the front steps. To the little porch. I curled in a ball, so small, I wet and soiled myself as I cried and cried. I finally fell asleep. Hunger subsided. I was no longer wet. Sleep of a child make the bad go away temporally.
I was woken up by my mother.
"Where the hell were you?!" she screamed as she shook me up.
I looked around it was still dark but light was creeping in. I started crying again. Some of my mothers and fathers were with her, some were not. Later I found out why, they were arrest for obstructing justice. They were obstructing the uniforms from stealing me away was the reality.
I have to say I have never trusted a person in a uniform since that day, especially those in military or police uniforms.
"We saw the chick who brought you here, she said she told you to stay on the front step! Where the hell were you!?" She is still shaking me, but now I am off the ground.
A new mother in the house, a big woman, took me from her with a stern look to my mother.
"Look at you. You are soiled and wet. You are propably hungry and tired. Let's fix that." She said in a calm voice. She started to bring me into the house.
I looked back at my mother and the others, they looked exsausted. "I was right here! I was crying and you didn't come for me!" Defiance, pain was in my voice and heart. They all had abandoned me. She had some nerve to get mad at me.
"We came here." she screamed back. "You weren't here! We searched the whole neighborhood, We searched the city. No-one saw you anywhere but here. Where the hell were you!?"
"Come on, little one" the big mother said "it's all over now, we are all tired and we were all worried. Tempers are high and you need a bath."
She was the one who brought me to the bathroom and cleaned me up, got me clean p.j.s, gave me some bread and milk and put me to bed. She explained to me that they thought the uniformed men had found me and taken me away. They feared they would never see me again.
Looking back, I can only think the one time I left the front steps to bang on the back door, that must have been the time they came looking for me.
I closed my eyes. Love turned to worry. I closed my eyes worry turned to anger.
Big mother put me to bed with her. She hugged me all night. I felt safe again. I felt it was only temporary. I closed my eyes again. Maybe if I don't open them nothing else will change, it will all go back to the way it was before.
A piece of me stopped trusting that day. I piece of me turned hard and cynical in the land of hippie optimism.
Showing posts with label children. Show all posts
Showing posts with label children. Show all posts
Sunday, 8 February 2009
Sunday, 18 January 2009
Blog stopper
I have been away for a while.
Life is more hectic.
Life gets that way.
Technology tends to aggravate.
And the depression over loosing David to "other endeavors". I am sure I will watch those other endeavors. Sure, I will still watch the good Doctor.
Seriously, I had been listening to a lot of public radio this month.
For the most part I like to think I keep it light and airy. Then I will write a story or two or three that aren't. Fiction is so much better than real life as far as depressing things go.
Back to the radio...
As a mother I was struck by the latest newest war in the middle east that we did not have any troops in.
Many times I wanted to comment on it. the things I felt were right out outrages. IE bombing UN shelters, schools, hospitals and graveyards.
Anyway, if you read this and the news on the Internet or listen to public radio you know what was happening.
So I couldn't find anything clever or happy to say.
But I found this photo. It was taken after heads of nations agreed to stop. It was the most uplifting thing I could say on the subject.
Thursday, 25 December 2008
An Urban American Christmas
The cookies and milk were on the coffee table.
She had earlier baked them with her children. Chocolate Chip. It is their preferred Christmas or any time cookie. Each one had a bonus Hersey kiss in the middle. The children kiss each kiss before putting them in the cookie. It was their way of kissing Santa for the presents he left.
Three cookies. Three sticks of carrots. Three stocking hung on the wall with care.
Three empty stockings. Hung right there by the corner by the $25 special Christmas tree. Fake. The glade plug in behind it smelled of pine. She had got the tree on clearance after Christmas two years ago. That year she told the children Christmas was on December 27th. It gave her time to get a discount tree and toys. But they are a little older now and the schools clue them in to the right day.
She sits on the floor. She reaches for her long necked beer. Slowly. The six pack was her Christmas present. She bought it for herself shortly after a co-worker wished everyone get the presents they were hoping for.
The scene: The office Christmas meeting where no-one is paying attention to business. They all got a scratch ticket, candy cane and some candy in a small fuzzy stockings. This was what was left of Christmas bonus in corporate America. She is old enough to remember when it was not this way. She is smart enough to know that top 10 people in the company get hefty Christmas bonuses. She is wise enough not dwell on it. The woman. She barley knows her. She knows she has a husband with a good job. She knows she doesn't understand anyone else's life situation out side of her own. Then she says the words, as if every woman there had a husband, or one who cared to find out what she wanted and had been planing for weeks. Reality was most the women there were single mothers.
She got a pass.
It's Christmas Eve. 'Happy Christmas, you short sight bitch' she thought.
She doesn't often give careless short sight people words that stab to her core a pass. People without the understand or not. But she considered it her Christmas present from her. The 'Office Bitch' didn't put her in her place.
She left work without a word. No Christmas partings, no good cheer. Her supervisor was happy for her holiday gift, to keep her sharp tongue and any reminders that her life didn't work like that to her self.
She drove to the store of spirits and got her self some. The others who came to drown their sorrows between the party goers seemed more full of cheer than her.
On the ride home she listen to one of the same 10 CDs she had listened to since November 1st. That was the same day half the radio stations started playing Christmas music.
She wishes the t.v. would brake during this season of joy. She kissed her young children as she put on the latest Christmas special. She never put the claymation and sugary sweet holiday programs down.
She smiled and sang along when they sung the Christmas song they were practicing for their schools Christmas pageants. She could not go to a one of them. They understood. Mother worked hard, but was there for them when they really needed them. Anyhow their friend's mothers would tell them how great they were.
Kids adapt in ways adults don't often comprehend. When the other children's mother say "what a shame.", "Those poor kids" and "She could have taken one day off to show her kids THEY were important." The children shrug it off. There was the first year when little Susie kicked a few mothers in the shins and called them bitches. When Mother was called from work and heard what had happened she replied to the mothers who were outraged "Sounds like you are bitches. Want some ice cream Susie?"
But here, in her car, old, beat up, falling apart, this was her zone. In her zone Christmas didn't exist.
She used to love Christmas. Everyone used to who doesn't like it now she believes. But there are no presents for her. She can not get her children "that one great gift they want to get" and if she see one more commercial where a man buys his woman some fucking unrealistic piece of jewelry or a car she will throw the t.v. out the window. 'Do they really need to be told what to spend $30,000 or more on when they have that much to spend on their women?" For this was more than she made in a year. She wonders if the more money you have the less your ability to know the person you are suppose to love. She decides she will never loss that ability when she has that much money.
A month ago: She withdraws her Christmas fund. She had all the hopes to get the children a games system and 3 games for Christmas.
Winter's wind came early. The house got real cold. About then the oil ran out. She thought about the game system and the three games when she handed most of the money over to the oil guy with a smile and a thank you. She shut the door and began to cry.
She called her ex. She begged him for some of that child support he owed her. He spent a half an hour calling her a selfish bitch. You see he moved on and he had to buy presents for his girlfriend and new baby. She got called a gold digger and was told to get a lawyer if she ever wanted to see any of it. Then he laughed and explained how he knew how to hide it all anyway. All his money was untraceable. He was an electrician. He worked under the table. He had told her he never wanted to see 'those little leaches again' and 'they are probably not mine either.' . Around then she hung up. Tears were her constant companion this time of year. They were making her look old real quick.
"Divorce is never easy on the children."
To many people told her that over the last 3 years. 3rd Christmas since she felt as if she was alone. Her and her kids against the world. Oh she had friends. No-one she could count on when the chip were down. She learned to pretend while knowing the reality of the situation. It was a duality she believed other's did effortlessly. Or maybe they just didn't know.
The children adjust quickly. Most of their friends were from divorced family and those who weren't divorced yet were not conventional by any stretch of the imagination. She liked them most of all.
It was her who did not adjust quickly. She became a survivor. She would sing the song by Destiny's Child over and over again. It became a manual for her life. But it really didn't tell her how to go beyond that. She is realizing surviving is not living. She started searching other songs for divine wisdom. She has yet to find the right one. She just found one who told her to drink her money and start a fight. This is also not working out as well as hoped. Though, it dose make her feel better for a while.
"NANA NANA NA NA NANA NANA NA. So what, I'm still a rock star..." She sings while sipping her beer.
She knows she needs to stay away from Janis, Country music and the Blues. Some music was made for the self pity just broken up stage. She was past that. She was just not ready for any pop silly love songs yet. They still made her want to puke.
She puts in Fun House in the stereo and starts dancing to 'So What'. Sings off key and starts her second beer.
She stares at the 3 stockings and the tree without anything underneath.
Slowly she goes to the closet and takes out some bags and wrapping supplies.
3 small presents get wrapped . One for each one of them.
At work they had a toy drive. She had wanted to ask where they were giving out the toys every time she saw one her children would like. Her poverty stricken friends told her she should bring her children to the toys for tots Santa. It seems they always get great gifts for the kids there. They do. She has seen them every year. The kids don't know. They are happy with the toys. She felt it was begging. Begging for something that was a luxury. She was taught not to beg as a child. Don't even do anything close to begging. Don't ask, don't take when they feel sorry for you. Have pride.
She did have that. She had her pride. She was hoping she was teaching her children the same. She wonders if it was an outdated notion. Should she continue to deny her children for a pride her mother and grandmother taught her. No one seems to have it any more. You are not expected to. Then you are expected to act overly grateful. Pride in poverty was better.
She wraps 3 more boxes. She places them under the tree.
She remembers her grandmother talking about how the Salvation Army gave her grandmother and her great aunts and great uncles all oranges when they were children. That was their Christmas present. Her and her siblings got an orange and they were happy for it. Ever since they always gave money in the kettles. Even this year , she gave up her change to the kettles and bells. A tradition she told her children "there is always someone worse off than you."
The news on the television talked of a little boy that died in a fire. 'That poor mother, she is worse off tonight.'
Her family doesn't believe in divorce. She never knew anyone divorced in her family before. Now she knows why. They cut them off, they cut them out. It was like she didn't existed anymore to them. She went to huge family Christmas Eve parties. Uncles, Aunts, Grandparents, cousins and odd love interests or friends that tagged along. As soon as she could not work it out with her ex that stopped. One of her aunts quietly took her aside the first year without him and said "It would be so nice if you and your children were not here. You really are bringing us down. You could have tried harder to work it out, dear. And we just don't believe in divorce." She grabbed her children, took them out of that house and never talked to any of them again. Not that any of them made the effort to talk to her. No Christmas cards. Nothing. She ceased to exist.
Third long neck. 'That was the moment in time. That was the minute I started surviving and stopped living.' It's good to put things in time lines. She was an orderly person. Everything in it's place. Even her life events.
She opened up a bag of cheap Christmas candy. She evenly divided it among the 3 stockings. She topped each one with a candy cane, she had got at work and put a orange in each one.
The cleaning up was quick. Her bottles clinked as they got rinsed out in the sink. She looked it all over. Sadness still lingered in her. Shutting off the light she sulks off to bed.
Children awoke her, they brought with them the morning light.
"Santa came, Santa came, Mommy!" They chanted as they bounced on the bed.
She got up, and fell onto the couch. "Go on children, open your presents."
They all went for the bigger box first. Wrapping flying everywhere , she wonders why she bothered. What took 30 minutes to wrap took 3 seconds to unwrap.
"Oh, Dora!"
"Hanna Montana!"
"Curious George!"
Ah good they all liked their pajamas. "Do you like them?"
A round of "yes" came from the children.
On to the small ones.
A small electronic game each.
It was not a PSP or game boy or even an mp3 player. She felt incredibly guilty. But they were happy. It was as if they didn't notice.
"Do you like them?"
"Oh, yes, Mom! Can we have the stockings?" They knew candy was always in the stockings.
"Not until after lunch, dears, you know the rules. I will put on Christmas shows while I make breakfast."
"Can we have our Christmas oranges now?!" They shouted.
"Of course! Enjoy the juicy orange goodness. Happy Christmas, babies! Special chocolate chip pancakes are for breakfast."
A round of cheers came from the living room.
She sleepily walks into the kitchen to make pancakes. She hears them singing to the t.v. show. "You better not cry, you better not pout...."
She had earlier baked them with her children. Chocolate Chip. It is their preferred Christmas or any time cookie. Each one had a bonus Hersey kiss in the middle. The children kiss each kiss before putting them in the cookie. It was their way of kissing Santa for the presents he left.
Three cookies. Three sticks of carrots. Three stocking hung on the wall with care.
Three empty stockings. Hung right there by the corner by the $25 special Christmas tree. Fake. The glade plug in behind it smelled of pine. She had got the tree on clearance after Christmas two years ago. That year she told the children Christmas was on December 27th. It gave her time to get a discount tree and toys. But they are a little older now and the schools clue them in to the right day.
She sits on the floor. She reaches for her long necked beer. Slowly. The six pack was her Christmas present. She bought it for herself shortly after a co-worker wished everyone get the presents they were hoping for.
The scene: The office Christmas meeting where no-one is paying attention to business. They all got a scratch ticket, candy cane and some candy in a small fuzzy stockings. This was what was left of Christmas bonus in corporate America. She is old enough to remember when it was not this way. She is smart enough to know that top 10 people in the company get hefty Christmas bonuses. She is wise enough not dwell on it. The woman. She barley knows her. She knows she has a husband with a good job. She knows she doesn't understand anyone else's life situation out side of her own. Then she says the words, as if every woman there had a husband, or one who cared to find out what she wanted and had been planing for weeks. Reality was most the women there were single mothers.
She got a pass.
It's Christmas Eve. 'Happy Christmas, you short sight bitch' she thought.
She doesn't often give careless short sight people words that stab to her core a pass. People without the understand or not. But she considered it her Christmas present from her. The 'Office Bitch' didn't put her in her place.
She left work without a word. No Christmas partings, no good cheer. Her supervisor was happy for her holiday gift, to keep her sharp tongue and any reminders that her life didn't work like that to her self.
She drove to the store of spirits and got her self some. The others who came to drown their sorrows between the party goers seemed more full of cheer than her.
On the ride home she listen to one of the same 10 CDs she had listened to since November 1st. That was the same day half the radio stations started playing Christmas music.
She wishes the t.v. would brake during this season of joy. She kissed her young children as she put on the latest Christmas special. She never put the claymation and sugary sweet holiday programs down.
She smiled and sang along when they sung the Christmas song they were practicing for their schools Christmas pageants. She could not go to a one of them. They understood. Mother worked hard, but was there for them when they really needed them. Anyhow their friend's mothers would tell them how great they were.
Kids adapt in ways adults don't often comprehend. When the other children's mother say "what a shame.", "Those poor kids" and "She could have taken one day off to show her kids THEY were important." The children shrug it off. There was the first year when little Susie kicked a few mothers in the shins and called them bitches. When Mother was called from work and heard what had happened she replied to the mothers who were outraged "Sounds like you are bitches. Want some ice cream Susie?"
But here, in her car, old, beat up, falling apart, this was her zone. In her zone Christmas didn't exist.
She used to love Christmas. Everyone used to who doesn't like it now she believes. But there are no presents for her. She can not get her children "that one great gift they want to get" and if she see one more commercial where a man buys his woman some fucking unrealistic piece of jewelry or a car she will throw the t.v. out the window. 'Do they really need to be told what to spend $30,000 or more on when they have that much to spend on their women?" For this was more than she made in a year. She wonders if the more money you have the less your ability to know the person you are suppose to love. She decides she will never loss that ability when she has that much money.
A month ago: She withdraws her Christmas fund. She had all the hopes to get the children a games system and 3 games for Christmas.
Winter's wind came early. The house got real cold. About then the oil ran out. She thought about the game system and the three games when she handed most of the money over to the oil guy with a smile and a thank you. She shut the door and began to cry.
She called her ex. She begged him for some of that child support he owed her. He spent a half an hour calling her a selfish bitch. You see he moved on and he had to buy presents for his girlfriend and new baby. She got called a gold digger and was told to get a lawyer if she ever wanted to see any of it. Then he laughed and explained how he knew how to hide it all anyway. All his money was untraceable. He was an electrician. He worked under the table. He had told her he never wanted to see 'those little leaches again' and 'they are probably not mine either.' . Around then she hung up. Tears were her constant companion this time of year. They were making her look old real quick.
"Divorce is never easy on the children."
To many people told her that over the last 3 years. 3rd Christmas since she felt as if she was alone. Her and her kids against the world. Oh she had friends. No-one she could count on when the chip were down. She learned to pretend while knowing the reality of the situation. It was a duality she believed other's did effortlessly. Or maybe they just didn't know.
The children adjust quickly. Most of their friends were from divorced family and those who weren't divorced yet were not conventional by any stretch of the imagination. She liked them most of all.
It was her who did not adjust quickly. She became a survivor. She would sing the song by Destiny's Child over and over again. It became a manual for her life. But it really didn't tell her how to go beyond that. She is realizing surviving is not living. She started searching other songs for divine wisdom. She has yet to find the right one. She just found one who told her to drink her money and start a fight. This is also not working out as well as hoped. Though, it dose make her feel better for a while.
"NANA NANA NA NA NANA NANA NA. So what, I'm still a rock star..." She sings while sipping her beer.
She knows she needs to stay away from Janis, Country music and the Blues. Some music was made for the self pity just broken up stage. She was past that. She was just not ready for any pop silly love songs yet. They still made her want to puke.
She puts in Fun House in the stereo and starts dancing to 'So What'. Sings off key and starts her second beer.
She stares at the 3 stockings and the tree without anything underneath.
Slowly she goes to the closet and takes out some bags and wrapping supplies.
3 small presents get wrapped . One for each one of them.
At work they had a toy drive. She had wanted to ask where they were giving out the toys every time she saw one her children would like. Her poverty stricken friends told her she should bring her children to the toys for tots Santa. It seems they always get great gifts for the kids there. They do. She has seen them every year. The kids don't know. They are happy with the toys. She felt it was begging. Begging for something that was a luxury. She was taught not to beg as a child. Don't even do anything close to begging. Don't ask, don't take when they feel sorry for you. Have pride.
She did have that. She had her pride. She was hoping she was teaching her children the same. She wonders if it was an outdated notion. Should she continue to deny her children for a pride her mother and grandmother taught her. No one seems to have it any more. You are not expected to. Then you are expected to act overly grateful. Pride in poverty was better.
She wraps 3 more boxes. She places them under the tree.
She remembers her grandmother talking about how the Salvation Army gave her grandmother and her great aunts and great uncles all oranges when they were children. That was their Christmas present. Her and her siblings got an orange and they were happy for it. Ever since they always gave money in the kettles. Even this year , she gave up her change to the kettles and bells. A tradition she told her children "there is always someone worse off than you."
The news on the television talked of a little boy that died in a fire. 'That poor mother, she is worse off tonight.'
Her family doesn't believe in divorce. She never knew anyone divorced in her family before. Now she knows why. They cut them off, they cut them out. It was like she didn't existed anymore to them. She went to huge family Christmas Eve parties. Uncles, Aunts, Grandparents, cousins and odd love interests or friends that tagged along. As soon as she could not work it out with her ex that stopped. One of her aunts quietly took her aside the first year without him and said "It would be so nice if you and your children were not here. You really are bringing us down. You could have tried harder to work it out, dear. And we just don't believe in divorce." She grabbed her children, took them out of that house and never talked to any of them again. Not that any of them made the effort to talk to her. No Christmas cards. Nothing. She ceased to exist.
Third long neck. 'That was the moment in time. That was the minute I started surviving and stopped living.' It's good to put things in time lines. She was an orderly person. Everything in it's place. Even her life events.
She opened up a bag of cheap Christmas candy. She evenly divided it among the 3 stockings. She topped each one with a candy cane, she had got at work and put a orange in each one.
The cleaning up was quick. Her bottles clinked as they got rinsed out in the sink. She looked it all over. Sadness still lingered in her. Shutting off the light she sulks off to bed.
Children awoke her, they brought with them the morning light.
"Santa came, Santa came, Mommy!" They chanted as they bounced on the bed.
She got up, and fell onto the couch. "Go on children, open your presents."
They all went for the bigger box first. Wrapping flying everywhere , she wonders why she bothered. What took 30 minutes to wrap took 3 seconds to unwrap.
"Oh, Dora!"
"Hanna Montana!"
"Curious George!"
Ah good they all liked their pajamas. "Do you like them?"
A round of "yes" came from the children.
On to the small ones.
A small electronic game each.
It was not a PSP or game boy or even an mp3 player. She felt incredibly guilty. But they were happy. It was as if they didn't notice.
"Do you like them?"
"Oh, yes, Mom! Can we have the stockings?" They knew candy was always in the stockings.
"Not until after lunch, dears, you know the rules. I will put on Christmas shows while I make breakfast."
"Can we have our Christmas oranges now?!" They shouted.
"Of course! Enjoy the juicy orange goodness. Happy Christmas, babies! Special chocolate chip pancakes are for breakfast."
A round of cheers came from the living room.
She sleepily walks into the kitchen to make pancakes. She hears them singing to the t.v. show. "You better not cry, you better not pout...."
Tuesday, 15 April 2008
the travaling show
Over the weekend.
Between driving the wee ones from place to place to complete everything I needed to before the working week, we past a carnival.
I get to hear a clammier of, "Mama Mama Mama stop the car!"Money is tight with me. So I think about this. Fun, a few moments on rides, it comes only a few times a year, usually in spring and during harvest festivals in fall. So it really comes down to, two times a year, the wee ones know, mama will open here coin purse, where she hides her mad money, and let them have total kid time with the traveling show.
So I tell them, I have an appointment, than we will come back.The appointment was renting some space to put my art in a consignment store. I hope it sells. People tell me they like it, but paying cash for it is another thing all together. But you might as well try. Sometimes it is all you can do. And if you try enough times, Sometimes things work out the way you want.
But the long trek to the store and back, gave me a chance to explain the the children how the traveling shows started and gained popularity. In the industrial revelation, when workers needed some cheep thrills. They played for the poor and the working poor. For the rich had their holidays. Mindless fun.But back than, they were much different. My grandmother would warn me not to go to the carnival. She said they were immoral. My wee ones than chimed in "Why?". Well she would tell me about the hoochy coochy girls. I had no clue what she was talking about back than. But once or twice when I was younger there we some traveling shows that still had freak shows. My mother would never let me go. She said they were immoral, wrong, made fun of other people. So I never went. When I was a kid, I wanted to know what all the other kids saw. Forbidden fruit.
The wee ones ask me what these freak shows and hoochy coochy girls were. Now got to say once I watched the HBO series Carnival, which I was addicted to, even though it had a bit of 1970's drive in film about it towards the end, I really didn't know what hoochy coochy girls or what was in the freak shows. I really never understood my grandmother's objections to the traveling shows. But than I got it.
So I explained that hoochy choochy girls were a stripper act that the men would go to. And sometimes they made extra money as prostitutes. The Freak shows made fun of people with deformities. In the old days some of the traveling shows would buy children from their parents for the shows. But as far as I knew as long as they were born, there were no traveling shows like my grandmother's day.
Yes, I do use many excuses to give the wee ones history lessons. If I relayed on what school teaches, they would not be able to have to understand Eddie Izzard's stand up or any movies made before they were born, or most people around the world, well the list could go on. Unfortunately the other children in their class don't always get what they say and the argue with their teachers, because they are dumbing down their teaching. You know they actually did not teach my child's class that the Muslims eventually won the Crusades.
Now, Strippers are in clubs or at private parties. Prostitutes are, well, on the streets and in brothels in Nevada. I am sure brothels are else where but they aren't legal else where. Oh and we have stripper work outs. You can buy the hoochy choochy girls, in the magazines, look at them on line, go down to the "red light " district of you local city, or "what happens in Vegas stays in Vegas".
The Freak show, well most of it is not politically correct. I would hope most people no longer found the need to make fun of people with physical deformities. but if you haven't, well there is the Internet and American reality shows, Jerry springer come to mind. I am sure there can be far more examples, like the biggest loser equates the fat woman, The medical show are fascinating why? Physical defects. And every time there are conjoined twins or a baby born with extra arms and face they are world news. Or at least it seems that way.
Amazing a lot of the cases I see are in India, rural India, where they always remind us that these children are revered as the return of gods or goddesses. But modern medicine is not good with that. "Let's make them normal", they proclaim. And they remind us of the risk of death that their miracle will have go along with it. I often wonder, why not let these children be revered as reincarnations of the Divine.
What if they are.
They are surgical altering the second coming or 29th coming of their goddess. Isn't that akin to giving Jesus' second coming a dangerous operation that may kill him as a child. And if not killed, altering him so much that almost no-one knows who he is?
Though I spent $50 in food and rides. A bit of fun for the wee ones and the realization that the carnival is the least likely place to find the immoral acts now a days. the freak show is so common all around us that they would never make money in a traveling show. Showing your breasts mean nothing anymore, where you can get it for free on line, or at the local bar, or t.v. on Jerry Springer. The caravel near a church was the more moral thing I could do with my children.
Between driving the wee ones from place to place to complete everything I needed to before the working week, we past a carnival.
I get to hear a clammier of, "Mama Mama Mama stop the car!"Money is tight with me. So I think about this. Fun, a few moments on rides, it comes only a few times a year, usually in spring and during harvest festivals in fall. So it really comes down to, two times a year, the wee ones know, mama will open here coin purse, where she hides her mad money, and let them have total kid time with the traveling show.
So I tell them, I have an appointment, than we will come back.The appointment was renting some space to put my art in a consignment store. I hope it sells. People tell me they like it, but paying cash for it is another thing all together. But you might as well try. Sometimes it is all you can do. And if you try enough times, Sometimes things work out the way you want.
But the long trek to the store and back, gave me a chance to explain the the children how the traveling shows started and gained popularity. In the industrial revelation, when workers needed some cheep thrills. They played for the poor and the working poor. For the rich had their holidays. Mindless fun.But back than, they were much different. My grandmother would warn me not to go to the carnival. She said they were immoral. My wee ones than chimed in "Why?". Well she would tell me about the hoochy coochy girls. I had no clue what she was talking about back than. But once or twice when I was younger there we some traveling shows that still had freak shows. My mother would never let me go. She said they were immoral, wrong, made fun of other people. So I never went. When I was a kid, I wanted to know what all the other kids saw. Forbidden fruit.
The wee ones ask me what these freak shows and hoochy coochy girls were. Now got to say once I watched the HBO series Carnival, which I was addicted to, even though it had a bit of 1970's drive in film about it towards the end, I really didn't know what hoochy coochy girls or what was in the freak shows. I really never understood my grandmother's objections to the traveling shows. But than I got it.
So I explained that hoochy choochy girls were a stripper act that the men would go to. And sometimes they made extra money as prostitutes. The Freak shows made fun of people with deformities. In the old days some of the traveling shows would buy children from their parents for the shows. But as far as I knew as long as they were born, there were no traveling shows like my grandmother's day.
Yes, I do use many excuses to give the wee ones history lessons. If I relayed on what school teaches, they would not be able to have to understand Eddie Izzard's stand up or any movies made before they were born, or most people around the world, well the list could go on. Unfortunately the other children in their class don't always get what they say and the argue with their teachers, because they are dumbing down their teaching. You know they actually did not teach my child's class that the Muslims eventually won the Crusades.
Now, Strippers are in clubs or at private parties. Prostitutes are, well, on the streets and in brothels in Nevada. I am sure brothels are else where but they aren't legal else where. Oh and we have stripper work outs. You can buy the hoochy choochy girls, in the magazines, look at them on line, go down to the "red light " district of you local city, or "what happens in Vegas stays in Vegas".
The Freak show, well most of it is not politically correct. I would hope most people no longer found the need to make fun of people with physical deformities. but if you haven't, well there is the Internet and American reality shows, Jerry springer come to mind. I am sure there can be far more examples, like the biggest loser equates the fat woman, The medical show are fascinating why? Physical defects. And every time there are conjoined twins or a baby born with extra arms and face they are world news. Or at least it seems that way.
Amazing a lot of the cases I see are in India, rural India, where they always remind us that these children are revered as the return of gods or goddesses. But modern medicine is not good with that. "Let's make them normal", they proclaim. And they remind us of the risk of death that their miracle will have go along with it. I often wonder, why not let these children be revered as reincarnations of the Divine.
What if they are.
They are surgical altering the second coming or 29th coming of their goddess. Isn't that akin to giving Jesus' second coming a dangerous operation that may kill him as a child. And if not killed, altering him so much that almost no-one knows who he is?
Though I spent $50 in food and rides. A bit of fun for the wee ones and the realization that the carnival is the least likely place to find the immoral acts now a days. the freak show is so common all around us that they would never make money in a traveling show. Showing your breasts mean nothing anymore, where you can get it for free on line, or at the local bar, or t.v. on Jerry Springer. The caravel near a church was the more moral thing I could do with my children.
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