Snow, snow, lots of snow...

 Sing the following along to the tune of London Bridge:

Snow, snow, lots of snow
Falling on the ground
Merrily, merrily, merrily, merrily
School is closing down!

You can thank our seventh/eighth grade math teacher for that one. When snow was in the forecast, she would always stand up at assemblies and we'd sing it in a round, hoping for snow. She would also make origami snowflakes with the class and hang them from the ceiling, hoping to encourage snowfall. It often did! 

Maybe she's been singing it again in retirement. In Pennsylvania, major snowfall has hit for the first time in a while. It shut down schools and the kids went out to play. Just this afternoon I saw a bunch of kids having a snowball fight on the sidewalk. Of course since it was iced over, they mostly were throwing ice chunks in trapezoids at each other instead.

I miss a good old snow day. They're hard to come by working in health care, but I manage as I can't actually get there some days. As a kid, Mom would always make us chocolate chip pancakes on snow days. She'd wear an old blue sweatshirt with Pooh and Eeyore dressed for winter. Then it was time to go outside or head out to play.

But today I'm talking about the outdoors. It was just fun to stand out in it. Everything was so quiet and different. We enjoyed making snow forts and sometimes throwing snowballs. When I was little I'd play a game where I'd throw a plastic fish into the air blindly and then try to find it, of course being super sad on the occasions where I couldn't find it. Snow angels were attempted, but it was so hard to get up without wrecking them. Another thing I'd do was bring the sled up the ladder of the swing set and then ride it down the slide. One time I actually managed to get some distance!

Speaking of sledding, my best sled memories come from young childhood. Dad would give us a ride to a teeny tiny hill. By that I mean it would take me about five steps to walk down. It was sure fun as a kid though! And it was also nice just to take the sled ride, in the darkness of night when everything was quiet and crystalline. 

Even after the snow day, there was fun to be had. At recess, we were allowed to play in the snow as long as we brought boots, snow pants, a coat, and gloves. Getting these things on in the halls was such a nuisance!  When I decided to brave it, I found it was mostly worth it. 

Fun story time: one of the fields had iced over once, and we used it as a little rink. I can't believe the teachers didn't stop us. It was so much fun; one of those magical kid moments I knew I'd always remember. Once a section of my backyard did the same thing when I had a friend over, and we slid all over the place. Such fun. Nothing beat a nature-made ice rink.

One more memory from school: getting dismissed early. Usually they just cancel ahead of time now, but there were times when the snow got to be too much and they'd send us home early. Nothing beat the anticipation of snow coming down and kids yelling "It's snowing!" and teachers telling us not to get too excited. And when they called your bus over the speaker, you'd drop whatever you were doing and leave. 

So if you're getting snow this week, don't worry about the bread and toilet paper, because chances are you don't need all that. Take it in, enjoy it, and remember what it was like to be a kid again. 

Kid Perks!

My family and I enjoyed dinner at Perkins recently and we got to thinking of how many memories our family had there. Isn't it funny: memories at a restaurant?

But let us think back...

My family has always liked Perkins. After one of us had a preschool show or event, the whole family would hop in the car and celebrate with a Perkins lunch. (I still walk past that preschool regularly; although I can't remember any specific days, I always get the feeling that an event just ended and that I should be going out to eat!) We had a round table in the back that became our favorite. 

You had to love the atmosphere. You were greeted with pink, green, white and brown; cases full of baked goods; Give Kids the World advertising; a claw machine; and numbers. Scattered throughout the ceilings were number lines going from 1 to 10 (or 13? 15? 16?). When an order was ready a number would light up, playing a doorbell sound. 

The kids menus were titled Kid Perks and featured a boy in a backwards baseball cap giving a thumbs up. On those were various activities. (Later, they would be activity packets with characters such as Kelly Cookie which my sister with the same name was the butt of many jokes about). I remember my best friend showing off her cursive letters on one of those kids menus once. 

But food choices were always easy. I always got a chocolate milk complete with a plastic cup, and the Perky Bear Pancakes. Those were three chocolate pancakes with chocolate chips. One was the face and two smaller pancakes were the ears. These were topped with a dollop of butter. (They still give you butter scoops, often in their own cups). Another favorite meal of mine was the Captain's Catch, a plate of flounder, fried clams, shrimp and fries.

What to do while waiting? There were the kids menu activities. Mom would always pack the crayons in her purse when we left, When my youngest sister was very young, she would have my mom sing the ABCs and when she'd finish, it was assumed that the food would be ready. Mom obviously didn't know how long it would take, so she'd begin and make mistakes. When a mistake happened, she's have to start over. My sister never caught on! What we also loved to do was stack the half and half cups and jelly pouches to make towers. If my grandparents were there, we'd often help my grandpa stir creamer in his coffee, and pick out the right sugar pack (a blue Equal).

On the way out, it was home to check out the dessert. The pies always looked pretty, with swirls of topping and peanut butter cups and chocolate shavings. It was the cookies we went for, though. If my grandparents were there, Grandpa would always insist on getting the buy 3 get three free special. If it was just me and them, I'd go home with a lot of cookies! The brownies were tempting, but they were topped with nuts (no thank you). Mom always went for elephant ears, which looked like huge sugar cookies. 

There was one last step: the claw machine. Ours has never worked well and is pretty much a scam; the claw is too loose to grab anything well. Still, it was always fun to try; Mom digging out quarters from her purse. We may when won two or three times. But the best was when I was with my grandparents and sisters. The youngest wanted to try for something, so we did, knowing it wouldn't pan out, likely. Completely by accident, the beak of a stuffed eagle got stuck on the claw and l held on until it moved back to its original position! We hadn't even tried for that but it remans a memory to this day.

Any particular places my visitors liked eating at? 

What is summer?

How do I explain summer growing up? One simply does not one pick one definition.

Summer was my sister's best friend from down the street coming over and making hundreds of Miis. It was also the two of them making agility courses for the dog made of pillows.

Summer was golf tournaments on in the background. It was afternoons watching Spongebob and making fun of the infomercials in between, tearing them apart and figuring out reasons why they wouldn't work while also enjoying the satisfying imagery. It was also secretly enjoying the wholesome antics of Toucan Sam, Apple and Cinnamon, and the Charmin bears in between episodes.

But in our old house, summer was Domino's Pizza on the brick patio, with a knife and fork, and chicken kickers in blue cheese sauce. It was visiting our grandparents' old house, playing "going to the moon" on the blue swing that hung from the tree. Summer was the big pink balls, one for each of us, that we rolled around. It was sitting on the glider on the screened-in porch while playing with Grandma's robin eggs that sat in their little nest. It was gazing at the lazy-L-shaped pool next door wanting a pool of my own.

When we inherited the glider, soon summer nights became nights for sitting out and playing Super Mario Brothers 3 for the Game Boy Advance with my sister and cracking up as he died and cried, "Oh, mamma mia!" It became catching lightning bugs and bringing them inside. Summer nights were bringing them inside which we ate grape and cherry Popsicles with punch lines on the end of the stick. Early summer nights were my sister not being able to read her punch line and her simply saying: "Go bus."

If the weather was good, summer was going our to own pool too and, if you were lucky, getting ice cream from the snack bar. It was saying hi to the grandmother who scanned our badges on the way in. If you were lucky, it meant buying an ice cream bar. If the weather was bad, summer was typing out stories on the basement computer in Word.

Summer was a week spent on the Jersey Shore---not Atlantic City or Cape May, but Manasquan and Point Pleasant. It was soft sand and salty smelling waves with high tides that chased beachgoers and their towels. It was fireworks on Thursday night and digging holes in the sandy yard of our beachfront rental. It was riding the "fish ride" and playing skee ball on the boardwalk, then hitting up the fireman's carnival at the park. It was pinball and Spider Stompin' at the arcade.

Summer was camp. Usually a creative writing program, but for about six years it was also a program on a high school campus. We were the guinea pigs of the program, three friends and I, getting to choose our own activities a few times a day; nature walks, newspaper writing, and outings to Color Me Mine.

Summer was exciting.

And then summer became dull. Sitting around doing nothing turned into back to school sales, fresh smelling piney pencils and notebook paper. Summer was organizing binders and sharpening pencils and calling parents to figure out who was in whose class this year and finding out via letter who your own teacher was.

Summer was over. And it was anticipated once again.

The magic of the supermarket

Everything was so magical as kids. And just one of those everyday things that was full of wonder and awe was the grocery store. 

There was so much to see. Rubber balls in display racks if it was summer. We used to be able to see live lobsters in tanks depending on where the store was. (Anyone remember them?) Those little balloons on sticks--they didn't even float. Even the food was fun to look at. I evidently called pickles "peekles." I liked the aisles full of milk and how creamy it looked like it tasted. It was always a great thrill when you wandered through the produce aisle at the same time it was being watered. 

What was your pick from the candy at the aisles? I think my dad bought me a pack of Chicklets gum once---the actual name is escaping me. They were in a yellow packet. But it was truly a treat when I got to pick up a Wonder Ball and see what character's face appeared on Sweet Tarts inside. 

But the real treat also happened at check out. I always got a sticker from the cashier at the end. I would place them under "my" window in my dad's Volvo. I had quite an impressive collection. When it wasn't raining and I was watching raindrops "race" down the window to see which one "won," I studied my stickers. Of course I don't remember what was on any of them. Do they still do this? 

And if we didn't go to the store that week, there was always the joy of watching Mom get home on weekend mornings. After she put everything on the counter, we would get to see what she bought that week.

I wish regular life was as magical as it was then! Wouldn't that make everything better?