More dribblings from the deep end.

I know there are some around me who will claim I’ve gone totally off the deep end. Not true. Okay, okay, I have my doolalley days but for the most part I’m mostly, kinda, sorta, possibly all there. Or somewhere nearby. 

I do enjoy my exercise routine in the deep end of the community pool at the Marshall Center. Despite Carolyn’s claims that I am just “mucking about in the water ogling the lady lifeguards,” there is serious intent to “build up my core.” Whatever that may mean. Ogling? C'mon. Really? Ogling a definite no. Appreciating. An innocent yes. 

Earlier, I wrote about the Deep End Divas who circle in the middle of the area like baby sharks chumming for minnows and talk about all manner of important topics like their hair, their nails and their bitch of a daughter-in-law. Occasionally, I hear them giggle and even laugh out loud and I’m tempted to paddle close to overhear what’s so damn funny. (Satan, keep thee behind me)
Today, as I was mucking about ogling the lifeguards (oops, I mean building up my core) I saw a young snorkel thrasher, semi-intent on swimming some unrealistic number of laps from my end to the far end and back. Before long, the open area in the middle of the lane I was M . . .king about in was occupied by a not unattractive young woman, also swimming laps. (albeit in a much more relaxed fashion)
    Now, I should admit that “young” is a rather liquid term in my codger vocabulary. It basically means anyone without grey hair and washboard wrinkly skin. Anyone who thinks "the sixties" is the temperature range between "the fifties" and "the seventies." The two principals of this anecdote were probably mid to late 30’s. Or possibly 40’s. Or even early 50’s. I’ve gotten very bad at guestimating age.
To make a long story short, (too late, I’m thinking) they stopped and talked at one end of the pool, smiling, gesturing and laughing. It was evident they’d just met. Soon, they were paddling back and forth alongside each other, the length of the lane and back.
    I felt like I’d just watched the opening “cute meet” episode of a Rom Com. Or the beginning of "The Love Boat." Funny, sticky sweet and predictable. Next thing you know they’d be living together, buying an espresso machine and talking about how many kids they wanted to have. Or maybe they’d just hook up. Who knows?
People watching is an added bonus when building your core. An observation about lap swimmers. There are two basic kinds. Gliders, who stroke silently and powerfully for extended periods of time and use a narrow alley of water and Thrashers, who yank their arms and legs out of the water and after throwing them to the side, slap them back down on the surface. Or onto another swimmer, whichever is closest. Their philosophy is “Hey, I’m swimmin’ here! Get outa my way!!!” One of those attractive lady lifeguards will one day have to referee a fistfight.
        One other note on a totally unrelated topic. (A distasteful dripping from my leaky brain pan.) The information age is a wonderful thing. Except when the information is something you really didn’t want or need to know. Like the latest thing the drooling eedjit in the White House has said or done for example.
        I’ve become addicted to googling anything that triggers my curiosity. For example; after cooking up a batch of my favorite New Mexican recipe for a red chile pork and hominy stew called posole, I began wondering what it’s roots were. So, I did what I always and searched online.  
        Its beginnings were with the Incas who revered the food as having spiritual significance. Traditionally, after one of their periodic human sacrifices, they’d whip up a batch to consecrate the ritual and celebrate the life of the late sacrificee. (If you’re squeamish you may want to skip the next part). The meat they used was not pork, as in my recipe. They used (ooh, ick) whatever was close at hand. Waste not, want not.
        Well, that’s about it for now. Time to crawl out of the water and go muck-about on the official curmudgeon recliner. With luck, maybe a lifeguard will pass by.

Early Learning Back in the Day

 Carolyn J. Rose

 

If you can remember the early 50s, cast your mind back as you read. If you can’t—if you’re too young, or your memories are blurry, or you’ve spent decades trying to forget and have finally succeeded—that’s fine. But here we go, here’s my take on education in those days.

 

 

Oddly—perhaps because of the dearth of options, my grandmother read to me from a book of stories by Nathaniel Hawthorne, stories like “The Great Stone Face.” Did I understand what that was about? Nope. Thinking back, I doubt she even briefly considered moving on to his novel, The Scarlet Letter. And I’m relieved. If she’d attempted to explain adultery I think she would have blushed so intensely her face would have blistered.

Unfortunately, the kinds of books kids learn on now weren’t around; we grappled with the so-called adventures of bland and mindless characters like Dick and Jane. Sure, there were exciting stories and books, but they contained long words and complex sentences. We needed adults to explain and unravel as they read tales like Treasure Island and Twenty Thousand Leagues Under the Sea. In an age when TV was black and white and kids’ programming sadly lacking, this was great stuff, even with only a few drawings to supplement the text. We used those as springboards to “fill in the blanks” with our imaginations. Those tales became fuel for made-up games and occasional nightmares about pirates and giant squids.

 

But, moving right along. With literary experience under my belt, and with a Hopalong Cassidy lunch box in hand, I set off for the one-room schoolhouse a mile away. There were two of us in the first grade, no one in second, one girl in third, and a sprinkling of kids in the grades above up to high school level.

 

I looked forward to finishing lessons and being allowed to draw along the bottom of a chalk board gray from years of use, to bang chalk dust from erasers, and play with the View-Master or look through the older kids’ history books for maps and pictures of pyramids and the Founding Fathers in their wigs. I also looked forward to lunch—I still do—and recess and the days Mr. Hearn brought his dachshund along. I can’t recall the content of the lessons, but I know they were of the bare-bones variety—drawing numbers and letters with thick pencils on cheap wood-chippy paper, sounding out a few simple words printed in a worn book, counting pictures of apples or cats. Bored between lessons, I’d scooch up toward the front of the room and listen to older kids reading and answering questions about history or math or science.

I see kids now watching videos, playing with fascinating educational toys, and reading books brimming with action, colorful characters, and loads of drawings or photos. I envy them. But I wonder if my imagination would be as powerful if I hadn’t had to work it so hard in order to “fill in the blanks” of my early education.

 

Eggs and Attitude

 

Carolyn J. Rose

In the early 50s in the Catskill Mountains we got our eggs from a farm on the next ridge.

I remember my mother wiping each one with a cloth dipped in a bleach solution. I remember asking why and being told, in a cleaned-up kind of way, about other things that come out of a chicken. I remember not wanting anything to do with eggs after that, not realizing they were in cookies and cakes and the cheese souffles I loved.

Later, we purchased eggs from the nearby general store or from a supermarket farther away. I remember my mother complaining once that the price of eggs had gone up—to a whopping 60 cents a dozen. A nickel an egg.

I chuckle about that now when I’m considering the four eggs left in the carton in my refrigerator. Should I use them for waffles or cookies or sell them and buy a blended coffee drink or a new set of tires?

What I wish I could chuckle about are the people who believed the current resident of the White House could make those prices go down overnight. I could say “I told you so” to several people I encounter regularly, but I won’t. I could ask “How’s that working out for you?” but I won’t. I could bring up bird flu and supply and demand and the size and scope of the economy and all the factors at play. But I won’t. Instead I will pass them by, walking on eggshells as I do.

I don’t know what a carton of eggs costs right now at supermarkets around here. I do know many markets are taking losses to keep shoppers coming. But how big a loss are they willing to take? And for how long?

In the meantime, I have those four eggs in the refrigerator. Until they ease too far past their best-by date, I consider them an investment.