After Tuesday's activities, the rest of the week kept me fairly busy. I made the delivery that was postponed by the weather on Wednesday, along with the scheduled pickups that were an ongoing thing. Friday was the busiest by far, with one pickup and two deliveries out toward the Fort Worth area, fighting traffic each way. Then, I had to come back and load the trailer for a delivery on Monday. All told, I got about eight hours of overtime this week. It's still better than what I was doing, because at least I get paid for EVERYTHING I do, and get overtime after my forty hours.
We celebrated my first paycheck by going to our favorite Brazilian restaurant and enjoying the rodizio dinner. Perfectly cooked meat on skewers, brought to the table and carved ... what's not to love? And the roasted pineapple? To DIE for. Items like that make me wish I had a little rotisserie, so I could attempt to duplicate it.
I remember what Easter week was like when I was growing up. Basically, from Wednesday night onward, there was lots to do. After Wednesday's service, we (the altar boys) would rehearse for Holy Thursday, jsut refreshing on the order of the service that night and getting things ready. After that, we went over the Good Friday morning service, with lamentations that evening. After that night, we would get things ready for Holy Saturday, which involved the blessing of the fire and water. In retrospect, maybe it wasn't such a good idea to give a bunch of hyperactive youth the job of getting the water ready for the mass the next day. We were surprised things dried out as quick as they did, given the volumes of water that went seemingly everywhere.
After mass on Saturday, we would go over the order of the Easter service, after which two of the altar boys would accompany the priest as he went around and blessed the Easter food at the home of those that requested it. It was always a treat to walk into someone's house and smell all of the wonderful food. The day would end at the rectory, and a small dinner of the blessed food before we went home to get some sleep for the sunrise service the next day.
Easter breakfast was a big deal, and my grandparents would have a wide variety of things ready: ham, kielbasa (store-bought and the one made at the church), eggs, homemade horseradish, farmer's cheese (which I can never find any that tastes the same as the kind my grandparents would get -- think cottage cheese pressed into a small wheel, with very little moisture), Easter bread from a nearby bakery,and the usual coffee, tea, or whatever you preferred to drink. Grandma, Mom, and I would go back for the more sparsely attended service at the normal time -- Mom and Grandma in the choir, me at the altar.
I don't get to church much, mainly because there are no churches of my faith here in Texas, but I do my best to uphold the Easter breakfast. It's one of the few traditions I observe, and it takes me back to those earlier days.
Dinner tonight is a crock-pot lasagna from a recipe I got here, and because I'm a tinkerer, I made a few small alterations to the original recipe. It smells wonderful, and in a few hours we'll see how it tastes.
If you celebrate it, I hope your Easter was a good one. For the rest, I hope you had a great Sunday.
Showing posts with label memories. Show all posts
Showing posts with label memories. Show all posts
Sunday, April 8, 2012
Saturday, June 11, 2011
We'll be right back after these messages...
I didn't realize until I stopped watching television on a regular basis just how much of a stranglehold advertising had on me. I imagine it was even worse than I feared because I am one of the most gullible people on the planet, or maybe I just wanted to believe all of the claims put forth in those ads. I was quite the trusting soul when I was younger. Is this the toy that will make me the envy of all of the kids? I want it. Will drinking this brand of soda (or beer, later on in life) make me cool and popular? One, please. Is there an invisible man living in the sky that sees all, knows all, and watches over everything I do? Well ... we'll cover that in another topic, but I sure bought into it.
Nowadays, when I do have the occasion to see television, I watch the commercials and programs with a kind of bemused detachment. Most of what I see doesn't make me desire their product, but instead makes me wonder who the hell falls for such ridiculous claims and ... oh yeah, a few years ago it would have been me.
Advertising has become less about showcasing a product and more about trying to convince you that by using this product, you will:
Nowadays, when I do have the occasion to see television, I watch the commercials and programs with a kind of bemused detachment. Most of what I see doesn't make me desire their product, but instead makes me wonder who the hell falls for such ridiculous claims and ... oh yeah, a few years ago it would have been me.
Advertising has become less about showcasing a product and more about trying to convince you that by using this product, you will:
- Become popular and well-respected among your peers and others.
- Get laid, or at least become more desirable to the opposite sex.
- All of the above.
As a dorky little kid with very few friends, anytime something was advertised that held even the remotest of promises of popularity, I bought into it hard. Maybe it was just a way of instilling a sense of conformity at a relatively young age in an attempt to make it routine in later years, but whatever it was, it worked. And yet, for all of my attempts at seeking approval, I was still the dorky kid with very few friends and some version of the latest "cool" thing.
I'll feature some of the ads from those bygone days, along with personal reflections on what I was thinking when I first saw these items and whether or not I actually obtained them. Maybe, in the course of doing this I can figure out why today's ads don't hold the allure their older counterparts did. I think it's just because I've gotten more cynical and skeptical in my old age.
Sunday, May 22, 2011
TV Time: How To Kill Time On Weekend Mornings
A typical weekends when I was younger would have found me up at around the crack of dawn, heading to the television set, waiting for the farm reports to end so I could get to the serious business of watching those all-important kids' shows. Bear in mind a lot of this took place when I wasn't bust with catechism classes or other activities. This would last until around noontime, and after a nice lunch I would head outside for the bulk of the day.
There were a few programs I got to thinking about recently, and how they pretty much disappeared from view, for better or worse. We'll explore a few of these programs in this entry, and as more present themselves, they will be featured in future articles.
NOTE: Video links will be included, but there will be no embedded videos in this or any entry. I do this so as to: a) not break your reader window; and b) give you the chance to "opt-out" of viewing any of the content I am showcasing.
Let's start with Make A Wish, which ran until 1976 on Sunday mornings. Yes, ABC was, at the time, showing children's programming on Sundays as well. This practice was eliminated in the early 1980s when ABC joined the other big networks in presenting news shows. Strangely enough, Make A Wish was produced by ABC News. Hosted by Tom Chapin (brother to Harry, who also wrote some of the music for the show), each episode would focus on a particular theme, encouraging the viewer to "imagine all the possibilities." I can still remember the words to the part that was sung right before a commercial break:
"Dream a dream, sing a song, wish you could, right or wrong.
Take a chance, sing and dance, wish you could, you'll find it good.
So dream your dreams, dreams come true.
They can even work for you..."
*ahem* Sorry, my singing voice is a bit rusty.
In 1976 this show was replaced by Animals, Animals, Animals -- a show about, yup, animals. Hosted by Hal Linden (known to me at the time as Barney Miller), the show presented a different species of animal each week and told you a little bit more about them. This was another Sunday morning timekiller, since it was on late enough that church would be over and I could be home to watch it.
Moving along to a couple of forgotten gems from Saturday mornings, we begin with The Hudson Brothers Razzle Dazzle Show. Now, I had never heard of the Hudson Brothers outside of this show, which only lasted one season but seemed to me to go on much longer. It was typical goofball stuff with musical numbers thrown in, and while much of the show doesn't stick in my brain, I can still remember the opening and closing, along with good ol' Avery Schreiber. An attempt to cash in on the Hudson Brothers' fame, perhaps? Maybe, I can't say for sure.
Another show in the same vein was The Harlem Globetrotters Popcorn Machine. The famous comedy basketball team had their own entry in Saturday mornings, appearing here in person rather than animated form. This was also where I had first heard of Rodney Allen Rippy. This was another one-season wonder and again it seemed to me to have been on much longer.
But things weren't all fun and games. CBS, in an attempt to educate and inform produced In The News, highlighting and explaining a current news topic. Each segment was maybe five minutes long, and aired in the space between programs.
There's more to cover, but we'll save that for another entry. So, until next time, take care.
There were a few programs I got to thinking about recently, and how they pretty much disappeared from view, for better or worse. We'll explore a few of these programs in this entry, and as more present themselves, they will be featured in future articles.
NOTE: Video links will be included, but there will be no embedded videos in this or any entry. I do this so as to: a) not break your reader window; and b) give you the chance to "opt-out" of viewing any of the content I am showcasing.
Let's start with Make A Wish, which ran until 1976 on Sunday mornings. Yes, ABC was, at the time, showing children's programming on Sundays as well. This practice was eliminated in the early 1980s when ABC joined the other big networks in presenting news shows. Strangely enough, Make A Wish was produced by ABC News. Hosted by Tom Chapin (brother to Harry, who also wrote some of the music for the show), each episode would focus on a particular theme, encouraging the viewer to "imagine all the possibilities." I can still remember the words to the part that was sung right before a commercial break:
"Dream a dream, sing a song, wish you could, right or wrong.
Take a chance, sing and dance, wish you could, you'll find it good.
So dream your dreams, dreams come true.
They can even work for you..."
*ahem* Sorry, my singing voice is a bit rusty.
In 1976 this show was replaced by Animals, Animals, Animals -- a show about, yup, animals. Hosted by Hal Linden (known to me at the time as Barney Miller), the show presented a different species of animal each week and told you a little bit more about them. This was another Sunday morning timekiller, since it was on late enough that church would be over and I could be home to watch it.
Moving along to a couple of forgotten gems from Saturday mornings, we begin with The Hudson Brothers Razzle Dazzle Show. Now, I had never heard of the Hudson Brothers outside of this show, which only lasted one season but seemed to me to go on much longer. It was typical goofball stuff with musical numbers thrown in, and while much of the show doesn't stick in my brain, I can still remember the opening and closing, along with good ol' Avery Schreiber. An attempt to cash in on the Hudson Brothers' fame, perhaps? Maybe, I can't say for sure.
Another show in the same vein was The Harlem Globetrotters Popcorn Machine. The famous comedy basketball team had their own entry in Saturday mornings, appearing here in person rather than animated form. This was also where I had first heard of Rodney Allen Rippy. This was another one-season wonder and again it seemed to me to have been on much longer.
But things weren't all fun and games. CBS, in an attempt to educate and inform produced In The News, highlighting and explaining a current news topic. Each segment was maybe five minutes long, and aired in the space between programs.
There's more to cover, but we'll save that for another entry. So, until next time, take care.
Sunday, May 15, 2011
Lazy days
Today is my lazy day, of a type I very rarely get to experience anymore. It's not often that I get a day to do hardly anything, what with getting caught up on things I couldn't do during the week and general household things that need doing, so I'm making the most of this. I have stew in the crock pot for dinner, later on I'll make a batch of biscuits, maybe watch a video or two, and get myself all relaxed for back to work tomorrow.
When I was younger, we lived in a fairly rural area and on weekends I would take the opportunity to just head off into the woods, or explore a field nearby the house, or just plunk down under a tree and watch the sky for a while. Being isolated from everyone and everything, for however brief a time as it was, helped me recharge a bit and get in touch with me, which made it a lot easier to deal with things throughout the rest of the week.
I know that, realistically, I'm not able to do that anymore. It is nice to just be free from responsibility for a bit, let things go and relax, and not have to be doing things that others are demanding I do. I can set my own pace, my own schedule, and do what I want. And, if what I want to do is nothing, even better.
I've been going through some things here that will factor in when I do future posts. I'm hoping these will serve as a bit of a snapshot as to what I was exposed to when I was growing up and maybe provide a glimpse into the not-so-distant past. I may work on that a little bit later, or perhaps I'll set it aside for another time.
After all, today's a lazy day.
When I was younger, we lived in a fairly rural area and on weekends I would take the opportunity to just head off into the woods, or explore a field nearby the house, or just plunk down under a tree and watch the sky for a while. Being isolated from everyone and everything, for however brief a time as it was, helped me recharge a bit and get in touch with me, which made it a lot easier to deal with things throughout the rest of the week.
I know that, realistically, I'm not able to do that anymore. It is nice to just be free from responsibility for a bit, let things go and relax, and not have to be doing things that others are demanding I do. I can set my own pace, my own schedule, and do what I want. And, if what I want to do is nothing, even better.
I've been going through some things here that will factor in when I do future posts. I'm hoping these will serve as a bit of a snapshot as to what I was exposed to when I was growing up and maybe provide a glimpse into the not-so-distant past. I may work on that a little bit later, or perhaps I'll set it aside for another time.
After all, today's a lazy day.
Subscribe to:
Posts (Atom)