BELATED, PERHAPS, but better late than never: 25 random things about our childhood, from my side of the equation, in answer to Marion’s.
1. The prefix Mar- has been a persistent, insistent sound in my life. I am named for a grandma I never met, Margaret; am granddaughter to another I revered, Marion; I am sister to a Marion, too; best friend to a Marco; ex-aide to a Martha. I am regularly called all of those names (except Marco, owing to gender realities), and answer to them by reflex. If you utter that first critical syllable, I will turn my head or come running before you form the next.
2. That is not to say I am obedient. I was taught very good manners, but they fail when something strikes me as wrong. Then I have trouble stifling myself about it—especially around family. In dysfunctional-family-speak, I was The Confronter.
3. My parents were liberals, though Daddy (also known as Podners) retained his Republican-party registration. One afternoon on a beach in the Florida Keys, when we were very small, my mother pointed to someone in the distance. “That’s Richard Nixon, and he’s a very bad man,” she said, sternly. He was Eisenhower’s VP at the time, I suppose.
4. These two very smart, very charismatic, very mismatched people surrounded us with books and exposed us to travel, music, museums, the theater. Our regular after-theater dinner place was the legendary Toots Shor, and we called the bigger-than-life New York City saloonkeeper Uncle Toots. I don’t think this was a place many people took their kids.
5. My (very loosely speaking) “godfather” was a famous trainer of race horses. Many things were “very loosely speaking” in our upbringing and in their marriage, actually: My mother wore blue, not a wedding gown, and they had lunch, not a reception; Marion has no godfather; and neither of us has a middle name. We were not baptized until Grandma Marion finally won out when I was 4 and Marion 2.
6. My parents didn’t belong to churches. Then the guilt of raising two heathens set in. Off we went.
7. One Sunday morning before church, around age 15, I fell off the stool in front of my bedroom “dressing table” while curling my eyelashes, pulling out all the top ones on one eye. (They grow back. God is forgiving, even to non-believers.)
8. I was sent away various summers to various places: Girl Scout Camp (where I fell out of a platform tent, rolled down a hill and broke my wrist); private girls’ camp in New Hampshire; to Cape Cod with our parents’ most bohemian friends, whose one girl among their five kids was my best friend.
9. On Cape Cod, I learned the word phosphorescent (owing to jellyfish you could see at night); danced in an Indian-print Nehru jacket to Jimi Hendrix; and painted my friend’s mother’s aging refrigerator yellow with flower-power flourishes. We were perhaps 13 years old.
10. My sister (aka, Not the Confronter) never went to camp (or Cape Cod). She stayed home and played sports all summer long with Mommy, or so I imagine since I was not present to witness it.
11. My father was a sports editor, with access to Mickey Mantle and Muhammad Ali and all manner of box seat, every boychild’s dream. His first marriage, at age 45 to my mother (then 24), resulted in two girls, me first. I don’t think he minded one bit, and a lot of neighborhood boys got great perks.
12. Girl Scouts, Barbie dolls and trolls played a probably alarming but critical role until well into my teens, though not Marion’s. (I later horrified my sister by bringing a pink Barbie van as a gift to my niece’s third birthday. I was the most popular adult at the party among the kids as a result, but apparently my sister hadn’t intended to raise a Barbie-playing daughter. Oops.)
13. My mother got rid of all my dolls of both kinds without asking, but I still have my sash from Troop 4-334. The embroidered badges on it include ones for sports and sewing. Even today, this strikes me as funny. (No, I do not wear the sash; I keep it folded with my table linens in the sideboard.)
14. Re: sports: I do not participate in sports contests of any kind, since falling face down on a tennis court as the boy I loved watched on. “Poetry in motion,” he yelled through the fence. Love-15, and no match.
15. Re: sewing: When I stood up at the bell signaling the end of sewing shop one afternoon in junior high, the project we were making was stitched to my skirt. I had to wear it, collage-like, to my next class.
16. I did not drink until I was 40, or at least didn’t except once, at a “boy-girl party” where I sipped several kinds of wine that kids had smuggled in (think Thunderbird and Mateus Rose). I promptly became dizzy, and threw up on the shoes of the boy I loved then (the one before the boy I Ioved in the tennis incident; see Number 14).
17. Our mother was quite athletic, a lifetime sailor and tennis player, as is my sister, who also excels in just about anything with a bat, ball, racquet or net involved.
18. Re: sailing: Though I was a competitive swimmer as a kid, and do not fear the water whatsoever, I am happy on terra firma, and never wanted to sail. Being on, but not in, the water makes no sense to me. Being on land is best of all.
19. “Nonsense,” said my mother, signing me up for sailing lessons at the local dock. The sadistic young instructor paired me with Jane, the other terrified pupil, and hoisted our mainsail then cast the two of us adrift from our mooring, when we refused to do so ourselves. Learn by doing? No chance; we lay on the floorboards, crying, as the boat bobbed around the bay, the big sail slack and flapping to punctuate our sobs.
20. Apparently someone ran up the hill to the tennis club and got my mother, but my memory remains fixed on the being-cast-adrift part, so I do not know what happened next. Ask Marion.
21. People say I am a picky eater.
22. My father cooked from Craig Claiborne, Pierre Franey, even the giant brown encyclopedia Larousse Gastronomique. My mother relied on her aluminum Mirro electric frypan as an all-purpose vessel in which to create weekly installments of chicken cacciatore, meatballs (served with spaghetti that was thankfully not cooked in the frypan), and banana pancakes. A modern WASP housewife.
23. The secret ingredient in “Mommy’s” rosemary chicken (Marion’s list, Number 5) was crumbled potato chips. There are few things that don’t taste good to kids “breaded” in potato chips; even our family dinner-table scene brightened on such nights. (The recipe is actually our grandmother Marion’s.)
24. My sister and I rinsed off most of our entrees en route from stovetop to table (not said rosemary chicken). We feared coming into contact with what we called “juice spots,” those bits of coagulated meat drippings of an unusual texture that make good starter for gravy. In what is perhaps a related development: I have been a vegetarian for more than 30 years.
25. I am not crazy about ice cream (my partial explanation can be found at this link, thanks to Marion’s sharing it with you first, here).
No related posts.
First time here? Here's the idea: 
{ 18 comments… read them below or add one }
#3 cracks me up. I think Jim and I have similarly traumatized our daughter when it comes to Bush.
Whenever anyone brings him up in conversation she says, “[ex]President Bush is a really bad man. He starts wars.”
I’m laughing so hard right now (with you, not at you) and I so completely appreciate the insight!
But we do need to talk about that ice cream thing.
Welcome, Sister Matt. If you want to even have a chance convincing me on the ice-cream front, make it coffee-flavored…but even then, a few spoonfuls is quite enough. I do hope you will visit soon again.
I make very good lavender honey ice cream. Perfect for a garden maven…
From one picky eater to another, aren’t we glad childhood is behind us?
Welcome, Keith, fellow picky eater. And yes, oh YES, so glad that’s behind us. See you soon again, I hope.
A fantastic, meaningful blog. I promise to participate when moved or appropriate and lurk always. ;) Thanks for your kind reply.
On the contrary Mar, our parents took us to Toots Shor at least every Sunday, and sometimes before Dad would go to events at Madison Square Garden. Joe Harrison,
the Maitre’ d had a special word for my sister Patti (then known as Patty) and always a story for my Dad.
Welcome, Michael. I am glad to hear that it wasn’t just us (and maybe you and the former Patty and Marion and I were all there together). But Chuck E Cheese it wasn’t (thank goodness). I think we went to Sardi’s, too, and of course the clubhouse restaurants at all the race tracks. I probably only ate the rolls and butter wherever we were.
Loved #15. When I was in “Home Ec” (of dreaded memory), I sewed my pleated skirt to the bedspread. My mother fell out laughing and I wept.
I’m proud to say that it only took me 10 or 12 years to get back in the saddle and re-learn to sew. I have stopped since, in favor knitting — the only craft my mother did not ply.
A wonderful list, Margaret, and to the reader’s benefit, not at all random. It drifts high, low and back again, with funny and delicious bits. I’m with you on the potato chips – crumbled for mac & cheese topping, they’ll improve most any dinner table.
I had to laugh at the sewing “incident”. I was the older sister and loved everything related to home ec class. Four years later, my sister had the same 8th grade home ec teacher, Mrs. Curtis. She said Mrs. Curtis was always asking her “Are you sure you’re Tammy’s sister? Mrs. Curtis let my sister take her sewing project home for either my mother or me to “fix”. I believe my sister was the only student ever allowed to do this in all of the 30-something years of Mrs. Curtis’s teaching career.
Potato Chips. Love it. As a child my Mother always baked the mac & cheese with crushed potato chips (Stewart’s brand “Jean”) on the top. Heavenly!
re: nos. 18 & 19: so poignant and true! I myself do not even qualify as decent ballast , having spent one sunny afternoon on a sail from St. Martin to St. Barts (always into the wind in that direction) huddled belowdecks in the leesheets in a 10hr panic attack). Landlubbers unite!!!
Welcome, Miriam, and thank you for confirming that not all of us are meant to be afloat in the literal sense of the word. Nice to see you here, and hope we will again.
I can’t believe your mother got rid of all your dolls without asking! how horrifying!
I have just discovered your fabulous website and am very curious as to who the sadistic sailing instructor was !
I, too, remember being tortured in sailing class and am trying to recall just exactly who to blame. Male or female ? If you feel the need to protect their identity just give up the initials.
Welcome, Barbara. I have conveniently blocked out the name(s) but I will ask Marion and send you a note offline, since it’s just my memory at work and not necessarily fact. I suspect the phenomenon of older kids being put in charge of younger kids (as in giving lessons) often yields feelings like the ones I had (and apparently you had, too). Tricky stuff. Hope to see you soon again.