Some Idle Wonderings

I was watching a cooking show and the hostess was taking about having one cutting board that was used only for chicken.  In fact during all the cooking shows it seems everyone is terribly paranoid about "cross contamination".  Just makes me wonder.  I grew up in the country where fried chicken was a Sunday tradition and chicken and dumplings was often had at other times.

As I can recall, I never saw my grandmother or my mother washing their hands after handling chicken and nobody I ever heard of had gotten sick eating chicken.  It makes me wonder where salmonella really comes from.  Is it endemic to chicken or is it just a result of the commercial processing of the chicken?

This brings a lot of other things to mind.  When I was a very young kid I was always playing in the dirt and, in fact, I loved eating rocks.  The little, thin, blue ones were my favorites.  They had such a nice crunch.  Some years ago I heard a story on the radio where some famous allergist had stated the reason so many of our kids have allergies is our modern thinking that killing all germs is a good thing.  In fact parents are sanitizing their kid's environments to the point where the kid's immune system has not chance to properly develop so they don't learn how to deal with germs.  I tend to agree.  I'm a firm believer in pushing kids out of doors and letting them get dirty. 

Then there was the Internet collection of things we experienced as a kid that is so frowned on today and entitled, "It's a Wonder Any of Us are Here".  It was a list of all the things we were used to as children that people would be horrified of today.

For instance, I grew up in an era where there were no car seat belts or airbags and I always sat in my mother's lap in the front seat.  There was no such thing as 'baby-proofing' a room.  I grew up in an age when parent's told their kids things one time and expected them to obey and pay attention.  If they told you not to go near the stove and you did anyhow and got burned they'd put something on the burn and give you a good, long, "I told you so" lecture.  If they told you not to stick that penny in the electric outlet and you did anyhow they'd just laugh and say, "hurt didn't it?  Bet you won't do that again".

And whining when we were told to do something?  That was a fast track to getting your butt beat.  One of my Dad's favorite lines when I was whiny and crying was, "If you want to cry I'll give you something to cry about".  It eventually dawned on me it was much simpler (and safer) to just do what I was told without objection.  It was much faster and much easier on my butt.

And what about today's attitude towards guns?  I just shake my head when I see where some kid finds a gun in their parent's or grandparent's home and end up shooting themselves or someone else.  That is just pure (and unforgivable) ignorance and negligence on the part of the parents.  Kids don't know about guns and what guns do and that is kill things.  I shot my first gun at age four.  It was my Dad's .45 automatic.  I was using our single shot .22 to burst balloons tied to a tree.  I grew up around guns and knowing what guns did and what they were for.  I grew up with the credo, "All guns are loaded.  Never point a gun at anything you do not intend to shoot and never shoot anything you don't intend to kill."

I'm always amused when watching TV and movies when the "hero" is standing there with a loaded gun and the "villain" grabs a hostage and threatens to kill her/him if the hero does not put down his gun.  And they DO!  That is so stupid.  Now the hero has no power what so ever.  What I believe is you tell them, "OK, but when you do I'm going to blow your effin' head off".  Besides, I was a pretty good shot.  I always felt I could put a shot through their eyeball by the time they shut their mouth and got real.

It reminds me of a series of spy books I read by an author named Donald Hamilton.  The Spy was Matt Helm. (Yes, Dean Martin played Matt Helm in two movies but they bore no relation to the books other than the title).  His theory was when you were covering one man with your gun and another came up behind you and told you to "drop it" was to first shoot the person you already had the gun on and take him out of the equation then try for the guy behind you as the odds were he was going to kill you if he could either way.

That is rambling but the point is we do not really teach our kids cause and effect any more.  We try to protect them from everything even when letting them try and fail. Making mistakes and getting hurt is part of growing up.  I guess its natural though as we love our kids and want to keep them from making the mistakes we did.  Only thing is, they're going to make those mistakes anyhow no matter what you say or do.  After all we all knew everything there was to know by the time we were fifteen.

They say we either turn into our parents or we turn into the direct opposite.  I think I tried to be the direct opposite of my father.  He would use his belt on me several times a day.  I don't know if I was that bad of a kid or he was just impatient.  I suspect it was a combination of the two.  I tried to not be that way with my kids.  As I can recall I have never raised a hand with either of my girls and rarely, if ever, even raised my voice to them.  I just tried to explain that every action has consequences.  Some consequences are good and some are bad and if you do actions that have bad consequences you are going to suffer them and don't whine about it.  If you choose to do bad things then you just have to deal with the bad consequences.

I don't have any idea whether I succeeded in any way but I have two daughters of whom I'm very proud.  My elder is thirty now and has two wonderful sons and a great husband who seems to me to be a good husband and father.  My younger will turn twenty-four in July and has the most beautiful little girl in the world and will bless us all with another grandson in September.  She also has a husband who seems to be a very good father and husband.  However much I had or did not have in shaping their lives I'm proud of both of them and very happy for them as long as they are happy.

In the end a parent must realize each child must find his or her own way and just wish for them to find happiness and be happy for them when they do whether or not that happiness is exactly what we may have dreamed of when we first saw them in the nursery.  I think both my children are happy where they are now and I can wish no more for them.

Ok, another ramble for me.  I guess I just write "stream of consciousness" things that start with one point and weaves it way around and about wherever it wants.