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| JACKIE & CHARLIE SR. CIRCA LATE 1940'S EARLY 1950'S |
When I was younger, I would have said that I had an ordinary childhood, one with many joys and a few sorrows…but pretty normal. I think I was a basically happy and well adjusted kid. As I’ve gotten older and raised a family of my own, I realize that perhaps my childhood was a little unique.
As far as being "well-adjusted", I see now that I comforted or de-stressed myself with food.
My dad was an alcoholic and because of that, he was divorced from my mother and out of our house by the time I was four. I have no bad recollections from that early age about my dad; I had never witnessed his drinking and loved him a lot!
My dad was a local businessman and in my early teens I started helping him in the family business. This was fun because I was earning money and getting to know my dad better than just the once a week get-togethers we had had up to that time!
By that time he had gone for treatment for his alcoholism and remained sober (with a few relapses) thru the rest of his life. Dad was more than an "alcoholic"... labeling is too easy....he was my dad and I loved him and he was a pretty good businessman, he knew how to take care of customers! He also made the best breakfasts, and those fried eggs and fresh garden tomatoes are some of the best memories I have of my boyhood! He died of lung cancer at the age of 57 when I was 19. I miss him and wish he was around to give me his advice now that I'm old enough or smart enough to listen.
Both of my parents remarried, so I had two older sisters and one younger brother, a step-mom, and a step-dad, 5 step-brothers and 1 step-sister all older than me....I scrambled hard to fit in and please everyone!
My mom was, of course the best mom any kid ever had!
She sacrificed a lot for me, my older sisters and my little brother and raised us all with pretty strong senses of self worth.
Mom was a child of the “Great Depression” and was the youngest of nine children. She was farmed out along with a couple of her sisters to other families when she was young as her parents were unable to afford to feed all of them.
There were other extenuating circumstances but mama never wanted to talk about it…I just assume it was a bad time in her life, best left in the past. Mama was what they called back then a "brittle" diabetic. It kicked in during her pregnancy with her second child in 1950, and was terribly hard to manage, plus she didn't watch her diet, and she later went legally blind around the age of 50. Her blindness continued to get worse until she really was only able to determine different brightness of shadow and perhaps the overall shape of a persons face.
See: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Brittle_diabetes
She was my champion, who in spite of her own fears and health problems raised me with so much love, positiveness and affection, I cannot easily imagine anyone else having a similar experience to mine with their mother! (Except of course my siblings! And she had us all convinced that each of us were her favorite child, tho I know it was really me!)
As a result of her living thru the depression with never enough food to eat, it was of paramount importance to her that her children would have enough to eat. Truly if one plateful of food was good, two platefuls were better! She would have starved herself if she thought the food was needed for one of us. Apparently she’s the one who originated the phrase: “more is better”.
During my teen years and throughout my adult life, she was seldom satisfied with the amount of food I would eat that she had prepared. I always had to have a second helping or she accused me of not liking her food! Talk about some manipulation! She was an awesome cook, and seconds were quite doable, it was when she only had a "little" left and wanted me to finish off the rest that it became hard to bear!
"Come on honey, you don't want me to waste putting this little bit of food in a container to eat later...that's just another dish I'll have to clean! Come on, help mama out! It's just a little bit!"
And she did it to all of us every time! As a result of thirds etc, I had a skewed understanding of what "full" felt like. I have discovered that "full" is not some unbearable painful feeling of bloated full to the brim stuffed sensation , rather just enough food is in all actuality...a feast!!
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| Taken one week past my fourth birthday. If you look closely you'll see an open barn door! |
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| Butter & sugar on white bread! |
Looking back on it now, I see that my mama was one who comforted us by the use of food. From her perspective, being raised in the depression, if you had food, everything else would work itself out. So while I’m sure she never quite realized it, she did have a tendency to help scraped knees, banged up thumbs and upset emotions feel better with a cookie or two. Mom passed away at the age of 70 from breast cancer, I was 35. Within 6 months of her death I was diagnosed with Type 2 diabetes. High blood pressure, acid reflux and clinical depression followed soon after.
SCHOOL DAZE/SECOND GRADE:
In 2nd grade we all made and decorated Valentine’s boxes out of shoe boxes from home. This would be the receptacle that would receive each child’s valentine from every other class mate. This was in the mid 1960’s where there weren’t a hundred choices of valentines to choose from. No Disney, or other cartoon character choices, just generic little cards that every kid scrawled their name on and sealed in an envelope to deposit in each class mates shoe box, before the big Valentine’s Day class party.
My mom took me to Ben Franklin, a “five and dime” and we got a box of thirty cartoon animal valentines with envelopes. You know the kind, a picture of a bee on the front that said- “Bee my Valentine.” or a picture of a frog with the caption that said- “I’m hopping to be your Valentine!” There was one with a pig that said “I’m bacon you to be my Valentine.” Well anyway, you either went to Ben Franklin, or perhaps to one of the grocery stores like Red Owl, Hinky Dinky or Sunshine, and they all pretty much had the same brand of Valentine’s cards to buy for kids to use at school.
Finally the big day came, and we all got to stop class work early for the Valentine’s party. Each of us retrieved our decorated Valentine’s boxes and opened up the cards from our classmates while we ate candy and played games. It was a fun time and we all looked forward to it with much anticipation.
As I began to open up the cards from my classmates, I began to notice a trend. Almost every card was the same, it had a picture of an elephant on the front and said something to the effect of “Remember, be my Valentine.” I began to notice that most of my classmates had started looking my way and snicker or laugh out loud. Apparently all the boys and most of the girls got together and decided that those who had bought the same Valentine’s card kit that had the animals on them would save the elephant one for me. I guess it was there not so subtle commentary on my being overweight.
As it dawned on me what was happening I had to quickly make a choice. I could either cry and let them know how much they hurt me, or laugh along with them and agree that the joke was on me and how clever they all were to tease me like that. I chose to be the “jolly” fat fellow rather than let them think they hurt me, but forty-three years later it still hurts and like the elephant with a good memory, I remember it like it was yesterday.
SCHOOL DAZE/THIRD GRADE:
I remember in 3rd. grade, the principal came into our room to help the teacher weigh and measure us. He would call out the weights and heights of each child while she wrote them down.
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| About third grade. |
I hadn’t seen what he wrote, but I soon found out as when we were dismissed for lunch, a boy named John walked by the teacher’s desk and turned that slip of paper over and announced to the class…”97 pounds!-Oh my gawd!” Oh my indeed, they all laughed, my face flushed, and I died a little bit more inside that day.
SCHOOL DAZE/5th. GRADE
During the 5th grade my dad sat me down and made me a deal. If I would try to lose weight, he’d pay me a dollar for every pound I’d lose! Since I had about 40 pounds to lose, that sounded like a lot of money to me and I agreed.
SCHOOL DAZE/SEVENTH GRADE
SCHOOL DAZE/8th. GRADE
One last school memory for now. In junior high we had an all school wrestling match where any of the three grades in school could wrestle each other according to weight. There was a "weight division" for me---"Super Heavyweight". My first match pitted me against a 7th. grader...a large formiddable opponent. I won't bore you with the details, but I ended up in third place in the super heavyweight division...not bad considering it was an "all school" open event. That's the way I tell the story anyway. There were only three "super heavyweights" in the whole school....hence someone had to come in third, or last...it was me.
