Fried Cocks and Dandelions.

A friend of mine thought stories from my youth would make for good blog fodder. I am here tonight road testing this theory. If this works out, it'll be a re-occurring post I'll call "By Today's Standards", 'cause most of the stories I will tell would have Children's Aid Services banging down my parents door today. Not that they were bad parents mind you, we've just gotten a hell of a lot pickier about what's deemed to be OK and what isn't. Both to the detriment and betterment of today's youth. It's a slippery slope. I'm digressing. I'm not going to allow that to happen because this could so very easily become an opinion piece and well, I've been painting for four days and I think the fumes have fried my brain. I need time to recover before I put my heavy handedness out there for the world (read: 6 followers, 6 (I love you all, I'm not ungrateful)) to question. I think I may have abused a few parenthesis in that last sentence. Yup, entirely possible.

Between the years of 1983 and 1988 I spent a lot of time at my Great-Aunt's house. There were a number of reasons for this; she loved kids, she had a kid old enough to look after the rest of us, her and my Uncle were foster parents and there was always 5 or 6 kids (3 of their own) there so what was two more. Mostly, I think it was because my parents trusted her more than anyone else to look after us and she was more than willing to do it. I would have been 5-10 years old during that time, and while I'm a whiz at blocking out some memories, I cherish the ones I have from there.

Auntie was one of those adults that I loved absolutely. There was nothing she could do wrong in my eyes. But she had a strict streak in her a mile wide. It wasn't a mean streak, but she sure knew how to scare the livin' shit outta ya and get you to do what you were told. And you were 'told' a lot.

The kids at Auntie's house often felt as if we were treated like hired help. We were never allowed to use the front door unless it was life or death. For example, if one of us walked through the front door, she'd hear (damned door squeaked something serious and there never seemed to be any oil to fix it), she'd holler from wherever she was in the house "If that's one of you kids your leg better be fallin' off or you better be dyin' ". At which point, the offender would go back out the front door, run around to the back and enter that way. I would love to have been a bonafide visitor after a statement like that one.

We weren't allowed to use the bathroom upstairs. Oh no, we were relegated to the depths of the basement. When it was time to eat, we'd all line up on the basement stairs and two at a time we'd wash our hands in the sink in the basement bathroom. During the summer months there were an average of ten kids in her care at any given moment. What amazes me is we were only ever told once or twice that upstairs was off limits except in the most dire of circumstances (like a bloody nose, or an upset tummy). The really amazing part is that everyone one of us thought that bathroom was as haunted as the day is long, whole stinkin' house was, but that's a story for another time. Point is, we caught on to the routine real quick in spite of said belief (and basements, just being creepy as a rule), such was the power of Auntie.

If we happened to be hanging around the kitchen while the food was cooking -which was unusual, because unless we were big enough to help, we were underfoot- it was inevitable that one of us would ask what was for lunch/supper. The answer to that question varied but it was rarely accurate. Some examples: Horse Shit and Ponies Piss, You'll Get What You're Given and my all time favourite, Fried Cocks and Dandelions. Now, I was around five when the latter was first said to me. A five year old who had until then never heard the word "cock" (at least this is my first memory of it) and the context it was used in led me to believe it was plant life of some sort. I always laughed and left the kitchen, I understood I was being told that it didn't matter what was being made to eat, we would have to eat it anyway because nobody eats plants(vegetables are not plants, duh)! You can imagine my surprise when I was set straight.

While we were eating all of the common table manners were enforced with fervor. I was careful not to reach in front of my neighbor's plate lest I catch a fork across the knuckles. I never, ever rested a forearm on the table or hugged my plate. The forearm resting would lead everyone at the table to sing "Mable, Mable, If you're able, Take your elbows off the table ". It was embarrassing. If I were caught hugging my plate, I was asked if I was worried about someone stealing something, which again, induced embarrassment. I wouldn't have thought of resting my head in my hand while eating, because that meant I was too tired to hold up my own head and was then sent to lay down (don't think anyone ever actually made it to the threatened bed, unless we really were tired, in which case we were made to finish eating first). A couple of the strangest table "manners" I ever encountered were at Auntie's house, which I can now explain but baffled me as a youngster.
1) The drink glasses were always turned upside down on the table. We weren't allowed to drink until we had finished our meal. I understand now that this is meant to keep a kid from filling up on Kool-Aid instead of the nutritious stuff, but to this day it is nearly impossible for me to eat without having a drink with my meal. That nasty little rule was painful.
2) One of us had to read a card from the "Daily Bread" card box that held it's place of honour on the kitchen table before every meal. As an adult that leans towards agnostic (not now folks, that's a discussion better had at a later date), this annoys the ever-lovin' crap out of me. Freaking religious propaganda! As a kid, I both loathed and revered the opportunity to be "The Reader". I loathed it because it was written in bloody bible speak and that shit was hard to read at that age and I never understood what in the hell I was reading anyway, but I wanted to. Oh, dear God, did I want to. It was special because no matter how badly we screwed it up, how ever many missed missed words, ill-used inflection, didn't matter, we were always rewarded with a beautiful smile and a "Thank you, Eyvi. Now you can eat". The religious shit fell by the wayside as the majority of us grew. I think Auntie recognized us for the heathens and savages that we were and knew we didn't want God to save us, so all the scripture and preachin' was fallin' on deaf ears. I have to ask her about those cards. She is a God-fearing woman, but she is not a thumper by any stretch of the imagination. I don't think she was trying to recruit anyone. We were never forced to attend mass other than holidays. She gave each of us our first bibles, but never forced us to read from them. Auntie is a woman who very much believes to each his own. Hmmm, I may be on the edge of an epiphany, but I'm currently in the thick of a beer cloud and can't see my way clear. Tomorrow, maybe.

For all her militant ways though, Auntie was full of awesome. She always baked and always let the kids help (and by help I mean, we ate the dough and ate the finished goods). She used to do crafts with us long before it became trendy to have craft time with your kids. In the summer there was always popsicles. She would let us watch just about anything on t.v. or in movies as long as there wasn't nudity, although we could only watch when it was raining or too cold to go outside. Otherwise we had to be outside getting fresh air. Auntie knew that a kid that had played outside all day was one that was going to go to bed by 8pm and was going to sleep like the dead 'till the next morning. She always had time to answer questions (which is an amazing quality for any adult to have to a kid). Praise was always given when it was due. Love was abundant and felt. Many of the kids that were fostered there keep in touch. One girl called from Texas a number of years ago, 20 years after having been fostered there and once she made sure Auntie remembered her, she told Auntie she had named her daughter after her in the hopes her daughter would grow up to do her namesake justice. I too, named my daughter after her because she is responsible for most of the brighter times of my childhood.

Well, folks I think that'll do for now. The clock has struck midnight here and this girl is getting sleepy. More on Auntie and other things that would make today's standard makers cringe another time.