Posted 2:26 PM by Alfred

random childhood memories…

one time when I was camping with my family this giant bear came and sat next to our tent and chomped and chewed on some food or something he’d found. All of us slept, except for my dad who sat there having a heart attack with a face (although I didn’t see it, but I imagined) close to Jack Nicholson’s wife in the Shining when she’s like, really freaking out. After that, dad always slept with a tire iron right next to his sleeping bag.

Another time we were camping, my mom had a dream that some Chinese people were trying to steal her wedding ring, and she punched a hole in the tent in her sleep. Luckily this was not the same night that Yogi was having lunch next door. My mom always had dreams that Chinese people were trying to steal her wedding ring, and would wake up screaming sometimes. She always told us though, that we shouldn’t hold it against the Chinese people, it was just a dream. And I don’t. really.

Another time we were camping, this girl who was the daughter of some friends of the family ate a bunch of tar that had been sitting next to the trailer, which my grandpa and my dad and some other people were using to resurface the roof of the trailer cover-structure, whatever you call that. The trailer (which stood there all year) had to have a roof over it or else the winter snow would cave in the roof. This was and still is in Yosemite, at Arnold’s meadow.

I learned to ride a motorcycle at Arnold’s Meadow, also known as high sierra meadows.

I learned how to drive a boat at Mammoth pool resorvoir.

We used to go to lake tahoe in the summers, and there was a cool old fashioned coke machine sitting outside the office of the cabins that had the actual glass bottles, and a bottle opener on the machine, and I thought that was pretty cool. We were there for fourth of july and got to have sparklers. I remember sleeping in the same room with my grandma and her telling me I talked in my sleep. Older people don’t sleep all the way through the night, apparently, so she passed the time trying to figure out what the hell I was talking about. She couldn’t.

The first few times I walked to school by myself, my mom would follow me, hiding behind trees I assume, to make sure I got there ok. I never noticed her & she told me about it later. I remember being highly impressed and slightly fearful of her sneaky skills.

When I was a little kid my dad was working for a long time on a project in Iran, and he would be gone on travel for weeks at a time. One time one of his coworkers got busted trying to smuggle some drugs out of Iran, and they caught him at the airport. My dad watched the guy get dragged away by security and never saw him again. I think this was before the Ayatollah took over, so the shah was still in charge. That freaked me out, the idea that you could be in another country and if you act up they’ll drag your ass away never to be seen again.

My mom used to pack me lunches when I was a little kid, and one time she packed some pudding in this really cool Tupperware little bowl, and like a dumbass, at lunch, when I was done with my pudding, I threw away the Tupperware thing. I get home and hand in my lunchbox for cleanup/inspection, and my mom finds the Tupperware thing is missing. “where is it?” she asked. “I threw it away,” I answered. And then there was some cross words followed by me walking back to school and rummaging through the garbage bin and not finding it. I still feel guilty about it. yes I am weird. The pudding was good, though. This was before Bill Cosby did the advertisements, I’m pretty sure.

I used to get up so early for Saturday morning cartoons that the cartoons weren’t even on yet. This was in the late 70’s/early 80’s. it was a battle for TV control because the accepted rule with me & my sisters was first one in the tv room got to control the channel until they left the room. So earliest to rise and take some cereal out there and a blanket basically ran the room until cartoons were over. So like I said, sometimes I’d get up like at 5:30 or 6, because my sisters were getting pretty crafty and early, and you’ve gotta adjust to the competition, so there were some really shitty shows on before the cartoons started. They included “That’s Cat” which was this show where they would take you around to see things in the world, like to the dairy to see how milk is made or to the cookie factory to see how cookies are made or like to the slaughtering house to see how cows are “destroyed” – ok they didn’t show that last one. It had this little song that went “that’s cat, that’s cat, that’s cat, that’s cat,” – I wish you could hear me playing the oboe right now so you’d know the tune. I guess if something was “cat” that meant that it was cool. That show sucked. But it was either that or like Johnny Bench’s baseball lessons with that stupid bird thrown in for comic relief, or the pretty green red and yellow lines and that buzzing sound, so it was usually that’s cat.

It was all worth it in that I got to watch the SuperFriends and that superhero guy with dyno-mutt and bird-man and all the superhero shows and usually Scooby doo, and my sister’s would complain that they wanted to watch the smurfs, but I was like “eff the smurfs” ok I didn’t say that cuz you couldn’t even say “shut up” in my house without a stern look from mom, so I would just say “hey, these are the established rules. If I leave the room, you can watch the smurfs. Maybe I will leave after this show.” But they and I knew that I would not leave that room until there was absolutely nothing worth watching, so they accepted it and planned out their map of attack for next Saturday.

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