Cool Stuff My Family Did That Other Folks May Think Was Bonkers

Yeah, I know, your family’s stuff is perfectly normal. But I’ll take my family’s weird shit any day of the week. Normal is boring.

Families: ain’t they cool? | Tá Focando (Unsplash)

Families are weird. Can we all just agree that is the way of the world? Everyone who was lucky enough to have a family that was even approaching normality has things they can point to that their family did that seemed normal to them growing up but looks weirder than shit looking back as adults.

I’m afraid that’s what I’m going to find if I go down memory lane here in this article and talk about the “cool” stuff my family and I did back in the day.

But nothing ventured, nothing gained, right? Plus, I should have a little faith in my family — it’s not like we were the Adams Family or something. So, I’ll dive right in.

1. Potty training & conducting music

You go girl! | Gohar Avdalyan (Unsplash)

We were a very musical family. My Mom was the only one of five girls in her family to get a college degree and it was in music education. My Dad was the Layman Minister of Music at the church we attended. Now, what that means is my Dad did the job of a Minister of Music for that church for free. And yes, that sucks. And yes, I think they took advantage of him. And yes, I’m getting off topic . . .

Anyway, he would go over the music for that coming Sunday at home, conducting it as he looked over the score. I watched everything my Dad did when I was little very carefully — I thought the sun and moon moved around the Earth solely for his benefit at that age. So, if he thought it was cool to sit there waving his arm around in the air, then that must be the coolest thing in the world to do!

My Mom took advantage of that adoration. I was potty training at the time, and she needed to figure out a way to make a headstrong 2-year-old sit on the kid potty long enough to, let’s say, make things happen.

So she would get my Dad to sit on the toilet and conduct his music there in the bathroom. I would follow him in there and sit across from him on my kid potty. And we would both sit there, happily “conducting” music. We have a picture of the two of us in the bathroom: him on one john, me on the other, conducting away.

To me, it’s sweet and funny as hell. To anyone else? Probably just weird.

2. My glorious Red Wagon

My red wagon was bigger. Just sayin’. | Jackie Best (Unsplash)

From the age of 2 to about 5, one of my dearest possessions was my red wagon. You know the one; kids of my generation all had it in the US. The quintessential red wagon was made by Radio Flyer. They made all kinds of things, but what they were known for was their red wagons. It very well may have been a law back when I was a kid — every American kid who lived in the suburbs had to have one.

I loved my red wagon, and my parents indulged me to an excessive degree where that wagon was concerned. I took it everywhere I was allowed to go. When they took me to the park, that wagon came with us and my Dad would pull me around in it. I can remember going to a national park that was close to where we lived where the trees grew to a massive height (at least to a 3-year-old), and I would lie back in the wagon and look up at the trees while Dad pulled me around — super cool.

But I also got to bring the wagon inside. (The fact that I was probably tracking God knows what into the house from outside on the wagon’s wheels was not an issue I considered at the time.) Sometimes Dad would pull me around the house in the wagon, from room to room. That rocked. And in the mornings, my routine was to load up that wagon with the stuffed animals that were in favor that day, pull them down the hall from my bedroom to the living room, and line them all up in front of the TV in time to watch Mister Rogers Neighborhood.

Why wouldn’t you have an indoor/outdoor Radio Flyer red wagon? I mean, come on!

3. Racing the trains & The Jungle Book

By Disney Wiki, Fair use, https://en.wikipedia.org/w/index.php?curid=15770836

Okay, folks, this next story is going to reveal that I am older than dirt. But no matter — I am older than dirt, so fuck it.

When I was little, I loved the movie, The Jungle Book. I mean, I really loved it. I still do. The music for that movie rocks. I plan to write a whole article about the soundtrack for this movie, because it was groundbreaking, in my opinion. Of course, I didn’t know that at the time. I just knew King Louie, the leader of the orangutans, was really funny and could sing.

I looked up when The Jungle Book was released theatrically back then — 1967 to the spring of 1969. That floored me because it means I was seeing it up until I had just turned 4. And I saw it many times. On the nights my Dad was off, he’d pile me and my Mom in the car, and we’d go to the Drive-In to see it. I know for a fact we went to see it at the Drive-In at least 6 times.

Kids, back in THE DAY you could go watch a movie sitting in your car. How fucking cool is that?! And you could buy all the crap to eat you usually get at the movies (popcorn, candy, soda, etc.) and eat it in your car! When you are 3, that’s just this side of pure magic.

We’d go and watch The Jungle Book at the earliest evening show we could catch. There was a reason for this. Now stick with me, here, it’s going to seem like we’re changing subjects a bit, but it all comes together at the end.

Trains are COOL! | Jad Limcaco (Unsplash)

I also loved trains back then. Still do. I fucking love trains. One of the things I love about Europe is the trains. All we have here in the US is AmTrak and it totally blows. It blows chunks. I don’t ride AmTrak — ever. Did it once, won’t ever do it again.

Anyway, my Dad knew I loved trains. So after The Jungle Book was over (See? I told you we’d tie it all together!) my Dad would take off down the road, and we would “race the trains.”

He knew where all the train crossings were around our town and he roughly knew the train schedule. We would hit each crossing, one at a time. We would try and time it, so we got to the crossing in time to watch the railroad crossing ties come down and the lights start flashing. And then the train would come rolling through! I would wave like a crazy person, and more often than not, they would honk at us.

It totally rocked. And then we’d go home.

For 3-year-old me? That was a perfect evening of fun.

4. I tried to sell my little brother

Yeah, yeah, he’s cute. I’ll trade him to ya’ for a dog! | Joshua Clay (Unsplash)

I’m not sure if this actually counts as a family behavior, but it does speak volumes about my behavior as a small child, so I figured I’d include it. Plus, I think it’s funny, so why the hell not?

I was my parents’ first child, so I got the benefit of all their attention. For the first (almost) four years of my life, I was the only child, and folks, I liked it that way just fine. I’ve seen videos on TV of little kids who act all happy and excited when they’re told they are going to be a big brother or sister.

That was not me. I was perfectly happy with the status quo and even at the tender age of 4, I realized this new interloper was going to make me split everything (including my parents’ attention) in half. That sucked.

So shortly after his arrival, I made a sign that read “For Sale: Brother” and put that fucker in the front yard. (The sign, not my brother.) I made it known to anyone even remotely interested that I was also open to a trade for a dog, which is what I had wanted to begin with. I don’t know if I spelled the words correctly or not. It wouldn’t have mattered: what I might have lacked in spelling proficiency, I made up for in sheer little girl cuteness.

Look at that face and tell me you wouldn’t have made the trade when you were 4. | Bill Stephan (Unsplash)

Needless to say, my mother put a kibosh on that whole thing right off the bat. Shortly after my brother was born, we found out he was allergic to dogs, and so I didn’t get one until after I was married. There are days when I still think I might have gotten a better deal had I pulled off the trade, but that’s neither here nor there. Love ya Bebo…

5. Friday Nights: Pizza & a Broadway Show

Candles & Pizza Hut pizza — awesome! | Toa Heftiba (Unsplash)

When my brother and I were little, we always looked forward to Friday nights. My Dad was the manager of a large retail store in Florida; kind of like a Macy’s. He often worked until they closed at 9pm and got home after we were in bed. But on Friday nights, he came home early. And he came bearing a gift: Pizza Hut pizza!

In our corner of the world, that was fine dining, folks. Back then, Pizza Hut was the thing. We’d get crispy crust, with all kinds of stuff on it. My Dad and I even got anchovies on ours (he was one of the only human beings besides myself I ever met that liked anchovies on pizza). My Mom would set the dining room table, lower the lights, and light candles. This was a big deal; we never ate at the dining room table other nights, except for holidays.

It made the room look magical to my brother and I. The four of us would sit around the table, chow down on pizza, and have a ball.

After dinner, we’d go in the living room, and my Dad would put on one of his Broadway music albums. He was a huge Broadway fan, and I became a fan through him. He loved the old composers: Rodgers & Hammerstein, Jerry Herman. But he also liked some of the stuff from the 70s and 80s like A Chorus Line and composers like Andrew Lloyd Webber.

Dance up a storm. | Annie Spratt (Unsplash)

Anyway, he’d put on Camelot, or Hello Dolly, or Oklahoma, and with the lights turned down, he’d take one of our lamps and hold it out sideways, making it into a spotlight. I would go into the middle of the room and just . . . dance. That wonderful man would spend his evening off following me around with that lamp, so I could dance and feel like I had a spotlight on me.

And if that isn’t love, I don’t know what is.

6. Going to the show & after hours

Broadway shows were a part of our lives. | Quentin BASNIER (Unsplash)

As part of my Dad’s job, he periodically had to go on what was called “Buyers” trips: he would go to large sellers conventions where store chains could place orders for what would eventually be inventory in their stores. My Dad would bring us along on these trips; during the day, he’d do the Buyers thing, and my Mom would let my brother and I play in the hotel pool and screw around at the hotel. (It was awesome for us kids, not sure how my Mom felt about it.)

These trips were usually in big cities in Florida, so often there would be off-Broadway tours coming through. My Dad always knew if there was. He would buy tickets for he and my Mom, and for me to go (my little brother would stay with a sitter at the hotel). The three of us would dress up and go see the show — it was marvelous.

Back then, a cast would usually go to a diner or restaurant close to the theater after a show to unwind. My Dad always seemed to know where they were going to land, and we would go too. So I got to meet a lot of these people at the tender age of 4, 5, 6. Imagine: I’m sitting there at 11, 12 at night, in my party dress, chatting away with the cast, and having a sandwich. To me, it was just what we did. Looking back? Pretty awesome.

Looking over what I’ve written here, it reads more like stories than specific etiquette or behavioral quirks. But these stories reveal how my family worked. It shows how my parents moved heaven and earth to make me happy when I was little.

They paid attention to the things that I was interested in, and they made something meaningful out of it. They were unashamed to make idiots out of themselves if it made me happy.

That is incredibly cool. And I will always love them for it.

[embed]Big List Energy: Submission Guidelines Want to write for us? Read this!medium.com