What food brings back childhood memories?

I've been signed up with Proust, a memory-jogging service designed to help people tell their stories.

Every week they send a question meant to encourage me to write something. I've mostly been ignoring the questions. Until this past week. This past week, I couldn't ignore the question. So I finally wrote an answer this morning.

What food brings back childhood memories?

My answer?

Ah! Buttermilk!

I remember the Carnation brand buttermilk my mom used to have us drink when we lived in California. Little flakes of yellow ("butter!" we were told; I have my doubts; but it sure tasted good). "Churned" buttermilk. Yum.

So we often drank it for lunch. And one day, in fifth grade--probably sprintime of 1966, I came home from school for lunch and a brilliant idea crossed my mind. I loved buttermilk and I loved chocolate milk. What could be better than combining two drinks you love? So I proposed to Mom that I would mix some Nestlé's Nesquik^® into my tall glass of buttermilk.

"No! No, John. You don't want to do that!"

"But, Mom! It'll be great!"

"I'm sure it won't."

"But I'm sure it will."

"Okay. Let me suggest you make a very small amount of chocolate buttermilk just to test it."

"No. No! I'll love it!"

"Okay. If you make a full glass, you're going to drink it all. And you're going to have to drink it all before you go back to school. I'm not going to let you throw it out."

"Don't worry, Mom. I'm going to love it."

Oh, fool that I was!

How horrible!

Oh, woe was me! How could two things that I love so much on their own taste so horrible when mixed together?

My mother, tough lady that she was (and she was tough!), made me drink every drop before I could go back to school.

For some reason, I recall I was late getting back to school that day.

********

Another food. Actually, a meal. Saturday nights: Hot dogs, baked beans and brown bread. Actually, hot dogs, Boston (B&M brand--Burnham & Morrill) Baked Beans and Boston (B&M brand--Burnham & Morrill) Brown Bread (with raisins!). Always. Every Saturday night.

And make sure you add the extra molasses to the baked beans while you're cooking them. And butter the toasted brown bread.

Yum!

I'll tell you, none of us ever complained!

Only many years later--like, maybe, in the past five years, did I discover that this was (and maybe still is) a tradition among New Englanders. (See, for example, Boston Baked Beans: It's Not Called Beantown for Nothing by Kim Knox Beckius.)

My mom was from the Boston area, so it makes sense.

Funny, though, how a tradition like that can be so strong in your family growing up, and then it kind of disappears when you get out on your own. And, now, sadly, with my gluten sensitivity, I'm afraid I won't be eating too much Boston Brown Bread in the future!

*********

Oh, boy! And then there was the time my parents left us in the hands of a babysitter. I had to have been in first grade. It was winter in Syracuse, NY. So it was probably about February of 1962.

The babysitter was an older woman and, to my eyes, she looked like a witch. I think she had a mole on her chin. She definitely had obvious whiskers. And Mom and Dad left her to feed us something I can't remember having ever eaten before: liver and onions!

Oh, did that smell awful! And it was being cooked by a witch!

I knew she was going to kill us.

And Mom left her with specific instructions, probably because of me. I was a "problem eater." (Still am, apparently. According to Sarita.)

Anyway. That horrible-smelling liver came out of the frying pan looking gray and mossy, and I wanted to throw up.

The witch made sure we knew we had to eat it all, and if we didn't, she was under strict orders to put it in a Tupperware container so we could eat it the next day. (Oh, barf!)

I took a little nibble and left the rest on my plate. There was no way I was going to eat that! I would let it sit in the refrigerator (or out; it didn't matter to me) until it turned moldy and I couldn't eat it. My mom was definitely not going to win this particular contest!

I ate whatever else was available that night, but the mossy, gray-brown patty of liver remained on my plate.

The witch dutifully packed my liver away in the refrigerator so I could eat it the next day.

The next day--for some reason I think it was a Monday; it might have been Tuesday (and this was important, as you'll see in a moment)--Mom asked me if I wanted my liver for breakfast.

"No!" (Obviously! Why would I want it for breakfast when I hadn't eaten it for dinner the night before?)

"That's fine," she said. "But you can't have anything else for breakfast. Indeed, you won't be eating anything else until you eat the liver. So, if I were you, I would simply get it over with."

("Forget it!" I said to myself.) "Well," I said, "Then I guess I'm not eating anything."

It must have been a vacation period. I didn't get to relieve my hunger at school. And I can't imagine Mom would have sent the liver with me as a lunch option. She would have known I would have dumped it in the trash or otherwise disposed of it.

Lunchtime came. I wouldn't eat it.

Dinner. No liver for me. (And, therefore, nothing else, either.)

Wednesday.

Thursday.

Friday.

By this time, I was becoming very weak. For some reason (because she didn't want to be viewed as abusive?), as I recall, Mom let me not go out during the day. I remember wearing my PJs and bathrobe around the house in a way that I wouldn't have normally.

Finally, Sunday noon came. The time we had our fanciest meal of the week.

I still hadn't eaten that vile (and reviled), mossy, grayish-brown-green hunk of . . . body part.

Mom knew my favorite dinner at that time was her fried chicken and mashed potatoes.

"Look," she said. "We are having fried chicken and mashed potatoes for dinner today. If you will eat half of it, that will be good enough. You may then have some fried chicken and mashed potatoes."

"Half of it?" I said.

I looked critically at that awful, putrid piece of flesh. It wasn't perfectly symmetrical. What was "half"? How could I know when I had reached her stated finish line?

I scraped gently at the mossy coating on top. It looked awful, but it was definitely not mold.

I began to realize I would not be able to hold out long enough for it to become mold.

I then drew a line across the top of the piece of meat.

"So if I eat this part [which was pretty obviously somewhat less than half the total volume], I can have some chicken and mashed potatoes?"

Mom was in a forgiving mood at the moment.

"Yes," she said.

With gag reflexes at the ready, somehow I got that portion of the whole all in my mouth and began to chew.

It was enough for her to reward me with chicken and mashed potatoes on a fresh plate.

I got some chicken and mashed potatoes in my mouth to help that hated liver go down my throat.

Five days without food because of a strong-willed mother, a witch who served as a babysitter, and a stubborn boy who didn't want to eat the mossy, gray-green substance called cow's liver fried with onions.

*********

Another food memory: brewer's yeast. Every morning in our orange juice. Mom said it was good for what ailed us, and if nothing ailed us, it was good for what might ail us. Or, at least, that's what she claimed.

Oh! But did that stuff taste awful!

*********

And another regular: Every Sunday morning. (Or, at least, almost every Sunday morning.) Oven-baked Finnish pancake (pannukakku). With canned blueberries on top. And melted (or melting) butter.

Yum!

Every Sunday morning.

Mom was of Finnish extraction. I guess that was one of her favorites from growing up. It is (or was) certainly one of mine!

What a delicious smell. Not to mention taste!

And one last memory: Fish. With bones.

We weren't Catholic, so we didn't eat fish on a regular basis. Indeed, we rarely ate fish. But when we did, I found it was inevitable: I'd always get a bone stuck in the roof of my mouth.

Ouch!

Why didn't my parents teach me how to avoid them? Or show me how to fillet the fish. Or do the filleting themselves?

I was surprised, a few years ago, to discover that there is a "secret" that can yield almost 100% bone-free fish. And it's not too difficult.

If only I had known. . . .

Oh. I guess a couple more. And then I'm done.

We hardly ever went out while I was growing up.

I remember Mom coming home from shopping sometime around 1963 or so while we were living in Syracuse, NY. "There's a new hamburger stand," she announced. It was a McDonald's hamburger stand (definitely not a sit-down restaurant!) and it featured Mr. Speedee. I have this vague thought that the hamburgers were 15 cents apiece or something like that. And I think Mom brought some home once.

The other thing Mom would bring home in the fall while we were in Syracuse: fresh squeezed apple cider.

And then, finally, while living in Palo Alto in the mid- to late-60s, I remember that every once-in-a-great-while we would go to Shakey's Pizza Parlour. What a blast! Great pizza and old-tyme (silent) movies. I seem to recall a player piano, too.

So though most of my most well-formed memories are related to unpleasant food experiences, I do enjoy a lot of good memories as well. And, certainly, the regular experiences of life had to do with good food. (Except for the brewer's yeast! Yuck!)

So what food memories do you have?

Funny how one's own "ancient history" can come back to life!

I don't remember how I found this last week. But I was stunned. I didn't know (or, I guess I should say, I didn't remember!) that such an interview even existed, much less that someone might have a record of it.

I had little doubt I was the only male secretary, or only one of very few male secretaries at MSU. But I had no idea until I saw the title of the recording that I was the only one of 1400 secretaries.

I wonder what I said in that interview?

Brings back memories of an interesting time in my life!

"Super Cooper in a 22 Looper"

My son-in-law and I began watching When We Left Earth - The NASA Missions, a DVD set from Discovery Channel, last night.

We watched the better part of the first two episodes which cover the run-up to and experience of the Mercury (single-man) and Gemini (two-man) space flights. There is lots of footage similar to what I recall seeing on TV, but a whole lot more, including fascinating interviews with the men who were involved in the events of those days--from flight controllers to astronauts--as well as footage from inside the space capsules--things we never saw on TV at the time.

And Discover knows how to tell the story with emotion. When ground control loses radio contact with the space capsule--even though the event occurred 45 years ago or more--and even though I thought I knew the final outcome of the story, my heart was in my throat.

So there I was watching these historical archives and being astonished at what I was seeing: Major space flights going up every three months; astronauts' names I remember; even a couple of flights--like the one I referenced in the title of this post: As we watched the program, as soon as Gordon Cooper's name was mentioned in association with the Mercury 7 flight, I blurted out the headline I remembered from our local newspaper. Yep: "Super Cooper in a 22-Looper."

What shocked me: the mission's date--May 15 to 16, 1963. I was 7 years old!

I had thought the flight had come three or four years later, after I had become a paperboy.

That memory, then, inspired me to think of what other headlines or news events I remember from my early childhood.

Only two stand out in my mind.

1) The day Kennedy was shot (I had to look it up): November 22, 1963. I was in 3rd grade. In our school, all the kids in the class were brought to the bathroom at the same time to "do their business."

I remember filing back down the hall toward the classroom when one of the teachers came down the hall, crying: "The president has been shot!"

We were in Upstate New York at the time, so it would have had to have been about 2 o'clock in the afternoon. (I looked it up: Kennedy was shot at 12:30 p.m. Central Time; he was declared dead at 1:00 p.m.)

I remember just a bit about the funeral, though I wonder how much of that memory was actually shaped by newsreels since.

2) I remember watching Winston Churchill's funeral cortège. A very solemn, black affair. Again, I looked it up: it occurred in late January 1965.

3) One other very specific newscast I remember: the day they played taps on the hippie movement in San Francisco.

Our family was living in the San Francisco Bay Area at the time. And hippies would be a major social force for many years to come. But I remember the San Francisco news station declaring the death of the hippie culture. Very unnerving, because I was just getting used to the idea, and I was attracted to the general freewheeling, fun-loving, live-and-let-live approach to life that the hippies seemed to advocate.

I looked this one up, too. And there is the date: October 6, 1967--the tail end of the "Summer of Love," not even five months after Scott McKenzie's song "San Francisco (Be Sure to Wear Flowers in Your Hair)" was first released and, honestly, years before the movement would truly die.

--Strange. Why is it all the sad stories that most caught my attention?

One last story and then I'll quit. Actually two.

Story #4: I rode my bike through the middle of an anti-war protest in Palo Alto--the Stanford Industrial Park. It was a regular school day morning. (Maybe 7:30?) I was riding from our apartment in Escondido Village on the Stanford Campus, to Terman Junior High over on Arastradero Rd. I would ride down Hanover Street, through the Hewlett Packard parking lot, across the railroad tracks and through the neighborhood till I could cross Arastradero into the school parking lot.

Some demonstrators had turned over a school bus in the middle of the intersection at Hanover Street and Page Mill Road. As I rode down Hanover toward the intersection from the campus, I could see darkly-clad figures darting in and out among the buildings on either side of the road. Some were police in full riot gear, others were civilians (anti-war protesters). . . . --A very surreal experience.

And then, lastly: #5: Kent State. May 4, 1970. By this point my family was back in upstate New York. I was in ninth grade. The news of the students having been killed shocked, sickened, and disgusted me. I had seen too many protests "close up" while on the Stanford campus. I had seen the anger and hatred and seething violence just below the surface. After all, this was post Martin Luther King's assassination. This was post Bobby Kennedy's assassination. This was post the 1968 Democratic National Convention at which there was so much violence.

I wrote a poem to express my grief:

Where’s our reason?
People shout and incite
Riots while men with rifles
Stand by.

After order is asked
And warnings are given,
The riotous crowd
Throws hate.

Insults freely flow
From snarling lips. . . .
The rifles fire.
More hate comes back. . . .
Smoke of battle
Jerks around.
(Violence protests war.
Hate burns worse than Napalm.)

Around the States
Radios hurtle their message:
“Four Students Killed—
More Injured.”

Music education: Waxing nostalgic a bit . . .

A couple of employees at Sonlight have started a blog about music education. Their first post inspired me to write about my musical training/background.

I'm curious to see where Tim and Anne Marie go with their blog. (I have some knowledge of what they have in mind. But they are also doing "their own thing," here, so there's also a huge gap in my knowledge and I really am curious to find out where they take this.) Even more--and this is why I'm writing this post--I am curious to find out what others think about music education and what they remember as they think about their own experiences with music education.

Indeed, I got thinking about writing this post because I want to ask my best friend from elementary school (whom I mention below) what he might have to say about these things.

Got any inputs you might want to share?

Here's what I wrote:

Let me start with my dad: He was a fairly accomplished pianist and violinist and--by everything I ever saw--really LOVED classical music. I mean, it MOVED him.

He wanted his 6 children--of whom I am #2--to love it the same way he did. As a result, he pushed me--at least, I think he pushed me! (I don't know anything about my other brothers and sisters)--to take piano when I was in first grade.

I hated it.

I hated having to walk the three miles to the lessons. I hated the practice. I thought it was "stupid." And it was certainly boring.

I don't remember the psychology of it all. Maybe I had asked for the lessons. Maybe. But, whatever, he kept on threatening me: "If you don't practice, I won't pay for your lessons."

I think I finally escaped the pain within about six months. Something like that.

But then, when I was in 4th grade, we (everyone in my class at school) learned a bit about the flutophone (cheap recorder). In 5th grade, we were encouraged to take up a real instrument.

I chose clarinet. I loved it. I got pretty good at it. My dad sent me to private lessons in addition to the public school lessons. I got up to Mozart's Concerto in A. Loved the music. Loved the sound of the instrument.

But my public school music teacher ("our" teacher) was an absolute witch. She verbally abused so many of the kids so badly, I "couldn't take it" anymore. (Honestly, as I recall: I don't think she abused me very much, if at all; I "simply" remember she would yell at kids and abuse them . . . and there was enough other noise going on in my life at the time at home that) I quit. I "just" left my instrument in the music hall at school one day with no intention of returning.

And I didn't.

My best friend went on with his clarinet playing and became quite good at it. In fact, last I knew, he does music for a living now (though not as a clarinetist).

Anyway.

I sang in church and in the church choir. Loved that outlet. Especially the tenor line.

Throughout high school, I used to listen to groups like the Moody Blues and sing along and especially enjoyed the high background wailing vocals.

Sometime about, maybe, 10 years ago, as the church moved more and more into "praise" music and completely abandoned four-part harmonized singing, I got the idea in my head that I would start harmonizing like the Moody Blues. So, at this point, whenever I can hear myself (i.e., the "worship band" doesn't play too loudly!) I try to improvise and add interesting ornamentations to whatever the rest of the congregation is singing.

*******

I think, honestly, if I had the opportunity to learn anything I wanted, I would love to learn how to play percussion (the only time I can recall ever laughing out loud for joy over someone's playing, it was because what a drummer was doing in the middle of a song; it moved me).

And the one other thing I would love to do is learn how to compose music. But/and, I'm afraid, I would have to learn a lot of music theory and, somehow, figure out (or be taught) the way music "fits together."

[I remember reading a good portion of Gödel, Escher, Bach by Douglas Hofstadter and being amazed at the patterns he described. I also recall watching/listening to and attempting to follow some of the early lessons in Piano for Life and being amazed at how regular the patterns are. --But I certainly don't understand these things! I can "feel" the harmonies when I sing; I have no idea where I am on the musical scale.]

Anyway.

FWIW.

John

--In case you're reading this on Facebook: This post originally appeared on my personal blog.