Steak boards and clocks spin round and round...

Things That I Miss - Episode 1

Now that I'm about to turn 42, I find that I've hit an age where I'm reminiscing a lot about days gone by. In my life time, I've seen some incredibly significant changes in the world. I'm sure our parents would say their lives saw some huge changes as well, but I might argue that my generation has experienced more drastic changes in the way people live their lives, at least in a one generation time period.  I'm not necessarily talking specifically when things were invented, but more when they became popular, accessible or affordable enough that more people had these things than didn't.

Example 1: Home Computers. These started when I was in grade school. They made life slightly easier...you could type things and see them pop up instantly on your monochromatic monitor. Do your household books, play a few crappy games, do school reports and look like a real keener with your dot-matrix printed assignments. You had to be careful, though, ripping off the sides of those pages. But this was like having a sports car on a tiny, deserted island covered in soft sand...not too damn useful, but then...

Example 2: The internet. All of the information in the world (accurate or not) instantly within reach by the simple act of a typing your query into a search engine bar. Any book, newspaper, magazine, album, song, movie, tv show, all accessible without leaving your home. That is huge. I love it, but I also hate it.  It's made life too easy. You no longer have to go anywhere to get virtually anything, picking up the phone is a dying art (I'm looking at you text-a-holics), and the casual "pop by" someone's house for a visit has all but disappeared. (Yes I understand the irony that without the internet, this blog would not exist, but if you look back two sentences, I did say that I also loved it.)

The world has changed too drastically for my liking and things have gotten far too convenient.

I like going places to see things, get things, do things.

This preamble has obviously been for a reason, and that is to introduce what may become an ongoing list of Things That I Miss, which may have nothing directly to do with what I was just on about, but they harken back to a simpler time when people were doing things and going places because there was no other option.

So without further ado, here is the first thing (and in no particular order) that I will say that I truly miss: Gas-Station Give-Aways.

 

Remember when every fill-up meant you got a prize?!?!  That, friends, was living.  We lived a block away from a Beaver Gas station and they loved give-aways. Glassware was a very common incentive used to get you to choose their fuel over the competition's. Highball glasses, juice glasses, beer glasses doled out one at a time with every fill up. We just had to get the complete sets, which wasn't too hard back then as my parents drove gas-guzzling station wagons and pick-up trucks, and dammit, we DROVE places to get stuff, and to SEE things, and DO things. That took gas, that emptied tanks, that earned us free stuff!

 

One summer they gave away round, wooden steak boards with an accompanying steak knife. Yes, it was a gentler time back then when a gas station attendant had no trouble handing a knife to a customer even before they had paid. I'll bet we ended up with a dozen of those food frisbees. We used the knives, but we never actually used the boards for the purpose that they had been designed for. They just sat in Dad's basement workshop in their individual plastic bags. Then one day, years after 'earning' them, Len (my father) had a "Eureka!" moment. My Dad used to love to tinker around in his workshop, especially after he had retired, making things out of wood (rocking horses, walking canes, banana hooks, etc.) But this idea was truly inspired. He'd turn those 12" diameter steak boards into Lazy Susan's for people's kitchen/dining room tables! He went to the hardware store and bought the little mechanism to attach to the bottom of the boards that, when set down on the table could then spin around and around. He then cut some rounded wooden guard rails he attached on top of bits of dowel all around the top side so that anything taking the ride wouldn't slide off.  No more pesky reaching across the table for the salt and pepper for our family! Just give it a little spin, et voila! When he showed me the first one he had finished, all I could think about was the opening scene in "Temple of Doom" with the diamond and the antidote. I could now recreate that moment in my very own dining room!  It was great.

 

Anyhow, I miss gas station giveaways...and I really miss my Dad.

 

All for now,

 

G'night.

 

(P.S. Please feel free to comment below on stuff you miss, or anything else...I've changed the comments section settings so that anyone can type a comment without having to be a member, so it's wide open and ready to go.)

 

Ron.

 

 

We had some weird food back in the day..

As I'm sitting here sipping away at some Red Stag on ice (Jim Beam black cherry flavoured bourbon) I got thinking about some weird food and drinks that were around when I was a kid.

Do you remember Pizza Spread?  It was this crazy product that came in a can, that had a plastic lid included for when the can had been opened. It was this weird mix of tomato sauce, cheese bits and pieces of pepperoni that you spread on a piece of toast and put it under the broiler for a few seconds, and sim sala bim, you had a pizza.  I remember liking the taste, but being revolted by the texture of it cold, out of the can. It had the consistency of dog/cat food, smelled strange, but somehow made this remarkable cellular change when heated that improved the look, taste, smell and texture into a tasty treat.

How about fruit flavoured potato chips?  I went to St.Joseph's catholic school here in Woodstock from grades JK-Gr.4. Those were the days when in grade 3 and 4, I was allowed to drive my bike to school, by myself. Now that I'm a parent of two, I can't imagine them doing that once they reach the same age...times are different, but that's the subject for another blog...let's get back on track, shall we.  On my route to and from school I would pass Nash's Variety on Huron St.  Occasionally I was given a dollar to spend on the way home with my friends. You're thinking, "A whole dollar you say?", but hey, those days that was more than enough for a bag of chips ($0.25), a small bottle of pop ($0.25), and maybe a chocolate bar, too. ($0.35). Some days you felt sassy and bought a chunk of sponge toffee, some bottle caps or maybe a pack of hot cinnamon tooth pics, and don't get me started on the plethora of penny candy to choose from straight out of the wide-open, unsanitary, every kid reaching in with their snot covered hand, boxes. But guess what..we never got sick from it, not even once. One day on the drive home, we stopped in for nourishment and found a brand-new display of Hostess Fruit Flavoured Potato Chips! That seemed right! We loved salty chips, and we loved fruit, so why shouldn't they taste amazing together, right? Well, just like Homer's "Nuts'n'gum", some things aren't good together. There were cherry, orange and grape flavours. We all bought different flavours so we could go outside and taste them all, and one after another, we all had the same horrible reactions. I remember that none of us finished our bags, which was saying something, because back then when you finished a bag of chips, you crumpled of the heavy-gauge foil bag and had an awesome, sharp edged ball that could inflict some serious damage as a projectile. It was the prize at the end of your snack.

Finally, and it's probably still around in the U.S. (from whence it came) is Yoohoo, the chocolate flavoured soda. It was featured on an episode of Seinfeld a few years ago (The Bubble Boy's father was a Yoohoo delivery guy). Anyway, here in "The Stock" I found it at Variety King, a variety store on Dundas St. in the strip mall/apartment unit next to the Beaver Gas station. At first glance it reminded me of a fresh brewed pot of toilet coffee (sorry to be so vulgar, but I like that description better than 'diahrea water') I know some liked it, and I just had to try it, but I will sum it up with one word: gross.

All for now.

G'night.
 

Nothing happens...so stop it.

O.K. folks, here's the deal...

When you see a picture on Facebook with instructions to click on it, then write something in the comments and "See what happens!" 

Nothing happens.

Ever.

Stop forwarding it, stop trying it, just stop.

Also, there is not a Nigerian with unclaimed millions for you and Bill Gates will not send you weekly cheques just for forwarding his beta email chain.

I know you all say that you realize these are scams, but I still get these things forwarded in my direction or see them posted on your walls on a pretty regular basis.

Sorry in advance if I have burst anyone's bubbles.

To make it up to you all, just click on the image below, paste it into your Facebook comments section, forward it to all of your friends, spin around in your chair 5 times, touch your nose to your monitor, squint your eyes and watch your screen to see what happens.

G'night.

There is NOTHING interesting about 5:00 a.m.

It's Friday night, it's 10:00pm, and I'm going to bed.

That's the norm these past couple of weeks since my 4 year old daughter has decided to start waking up around then and calling out to my wife and I wanting to get up. After some debate, and threats of taking away certain stuffed friends, she quiets down, and even goes back to sleep, but then, I'm awake for the day.

I hear my friends with older children complain how hard it is to get their kids out of bed in the mornings, and to them I say, "Shut the hell up."  I sincerely can't wait for those days. There appears to be a bit of light towards the end of this tunnel as our 6 year old son pretty routinely sleeps until 7:00 a.m. I know, that too sounds early, but it's heaven compared to 5:00 a.m.

That's all for tonight as I am genuinely excited to get upstairs and go to sleep.

Yup....livin' the dream, as they say.

G'night.

Tillsonburg....

I'm playing hockey tonight at 9:45pm, followed by our annual insurance brokers bonspiel tomorrow, so the curling + the hockey should be fantastic for the degenerative disc in my back. I know, I know...I'm whining, but wait until tomorrow night...that'll be some world-class whinage.

(P.S. In case you didn't get the title, it's a Stompin' Tom reference.)
 

Kick in the arse....thanks Maridith!

A very new friend of mine (Merydith) just started a new blog, whose first entry was about a very old friend of mine. That old friend, Dennis passed away a month and a half ago. Her blog made me smile.

I love the idea of a daily(ish) blog, and I've tried on a couple of occasions to do it, but then, would miss a few days, and just forget about doing it. 

So, here I go again, thanks to the kick in the ass by Marydethe.

This is just the jumping off point, and I do hope future writings will be more interesting to read/write, but I feel as a creative, semi-intelligent person, this outlet will prove valuable for me.

Thanks again Mardithe! 

Ron.