My daughter's former college roommate married a Frenchman and has lived in Paris these past twenty years.
Our hearts go out to all the families in France.
In a simpler time:
As
a little girl, I used to make cakes in our 1950 green Ford.
It was summertime
and we would be on our way across country from Virginia
to visit my grandparents in Tulsa, Oklahoma.
It was a long trip in that pre-electronic era. There was no movie playing on
the monitor in the headrest in front of me (and in fact, no headrest), there
was no Leap Pad to distract me from obsessively kicking the back of my mother’s
seat, or Game Boy to teach me that electronic friends were better than the flesh-and-blood
variety.
On
the plus side, there were no pesky booster seats or seat belts to hamper free
range of that big back seat. We’d sail along, state after state, the hot summer
air from the open windows pummeling us, and my sister reading or doing some other
boring big-sister thing next to me.
I’d make cakes.
I’d sit there with
my mixing bowl (a shoebox) and assemble the best cakes ever. The empty ashtray
held flour, the crank to roll down the window emitted chocolate if I pressed
the center circle, the push button to release the triangular vent window
squirted whipped cream. If I was a little vague on the ingredients necessary, I
found any number of objects there in the back seat to provide them.
At some point, my
mother would pass back sandwiches or deviled eggs wrapped in twists of waxed
paper. I was ready with dessert, if everyone wasn’t too full.
It’s too bad that
today’s kids are so insulated from boredom that they rarely experience the cozy
monotony of letting their minds wander while they stare at their parents’ heads
and listen to the muffled murmur of grown-up conversation.
This is true. I think we should have days when kids must just use their imagination!
ReplyDeleteWonderful memories you have. I remember my childhood of listening to the stories the grown-ups would tell. As you say, simpler times and oh how my heart aches for the people of France today, and those in Paris especially.
ReplyDeleteTwists of waxed paper--
ReplyDeleteThe world will never be so simple again.
my parents didn't do family vacations. they would go off somewhere once or twice a year leaving us kids behind with a baby sitter. we did once or twice drive across the state to visit my dad's family in Lubbock and what I remember is my dad yelling at us to get our noses out of the book and look at the scenery as it passed by.
ReplyDeleteOh the memories this post evoked. Thank you.
ReplyDeleteI remember making mud pies that were chocolate "mud" decorated with flowers. They looked so good! I don't know if kids ever do that sort of thing any more. Love your memories. And we all stand with Paris today.
ReplyDeleteYou have a very valid point about our kids today. I think they have been changed greatly and I' wondering what kind of adults they will be. Certain basic skills will be missing. Cute story of your being a little girl.
ReplyDeleteAh, our summer trips were from California to my grandparents in Vian, Oklahoma. We had a station wagon and I would ride in the back with a book and travel to other lands. Never thought of baking a cake.
ReplyDeleteI think we really need days like those again.
ReplyDeleteI remember Sunday drives with three of us in the back seat, me usually in the middle and desperately trying to focus on a single point of the horizon, or upchucking into the ice cream bucket on my lap. They weren't fun.
ReplyDeleteI did my 'cake' making in the backyard instead with dark mud for the cake and lighter mud (a bit of real flour helped here) for the icing and decorated with fancy leaves and grasses.
I do worry that kids don't have the freedom of imagination that some of us grew up with. But I'm glad we have seat belts now. :)
ReplyDelete