GrowingUP: A Partridge In Hand Is Worth Two On The Bus!

I guess after my last post I feel the need to somewhat redeem the band of grown-ups who so painstakingly raised me to adulthood. Tribal custom requires it after even a mild dissing. I have also been contemplating my own parenting skills and style as of late and have a few questions that I am very sure my children will not be able to answer for many years to come.

I have one year left until my oldest graduates from high school, flies the nest and is on her own. I have mixed feeling about this. Excited to see her venture out, seek new life and new civilizations and to boldly go where...ever she wants to. Yet it will be quiet around here without her. Sometimes that will be a good thing. See what I mean about the mixed feelings? My question is as she embarks on this next stage of life, what things will she remember from her childhood? What will she embrace, reject, share with others, be embarrassed about, and ultimately what will she pass down to her posterity--meaning what is she going to tell her kids about me!? Argh...is a year long enough to erase the previous 17? Hmmm...guess I should have started this "good mom" project earlier. Why do I procrastinate these things so?

But on to the point...yeah you thought I forgot again huh? Well, aside from the lack of supervision kindly described in my last post, what are my most vivid childhood memories? I have talked somewhat about my upbringing in a previous post, but I think I shall venture on.

I was not an easy child to raise. My mother has generously forgotten what a rotten kid I was, but rotten I was. Impossible to please stubborn beyond reason know-it-all bossy rotten! I pouted through my whole 7th birthday (can't remember why), all of junior high (here's why), and the large family trip to Disneyland (I kinda remember why, but am not willing to share that just yet). So my family deserves some credit for not selling me to gypsies like they threatened so many times. I think perhaps it is just that the caravan did not come through our neighborhood.

Music is a huge part of my life. I grew up with my parents' music. Wrong for my generation, but superior in every way so I thank them for that. We sat around my mother as she played the autoharp and we sang. Wonderful, old-timey, folk stuff. I pictured all my children gathered around me someday singing and traveling the countryside, guitars strapped to our backs. Every little girl's dream is to grow up to be Woody Guthrie right? It was California in the 70's, ok! Really I idolized the Partridge Family. "We had a dream, we'd go travelin' together. We'd spread a little lovin' then we'd keep movin' on." Truth be told, I still want that bus! I wore extra grooves in several old Beatles albums from Mom's teenage years and made my way through huge bins of 8-tracks from Dad's surfer days. Yes, you read that right. I think he still has a player in his truck. "Like totally vintage, Dude." Dad fancied himself a bit of a dancer and would strut his stuff around the room on cleaning day with the local oldies station blaring through the house. Music was life and energy and joy. I think I have passed this passion on to my children. We play music and sing together almost daily. Our extended family get-togethers are the same. The weird thing? The music has not changed. My mother laughs that we play "her" music, but it is now OUR music. That is legacy.

Quote of the Day: "Take care of all your memories. For you cannot relive them."

--Bob Dylan poet