Thursday, February 24, 2011

Mom vs. the WWII vet.....

As a child, my upbringing was far from terrible. Had a good home, good parents, and all that warm/fuzzy stuff. I did have certain complaints though. Growing up, around ages 7-10 or so, I used to go on little fishing trips with my grandfather. Nothing crazy, it wasn't something we'd get asked to do some discovery channel show about. We stuck to local lakes. As part of our supplies, gramps would make sandwiches to take along as many hours of sitting & watching a fishing pole make about as many movements as snookie makes positive contributions to our society were ahead of us and a hunger would be worked up. These weren't any ordinary sandwiches, they were peanut butter and butter sandwiches. I ate them, crust and all. Making a "no thanks" face and a shake of the head side to side was never an option in my mind and for good reason.
A little back round on the kind of guy gramps was. Born and raised in the late 20's/30s on farmland in Oklahoma, so right out the gate he wasn't going to be a how you say, Oprah or American Idol type audience member. He then went into the military and was one of the first soldiers to step foot on Guadalcanal. He took bullets and chunks of metal and I'm going to take a guess he did a lot more than that. So, that should make it easier to understand a little of how he might have been.
I soon started to notice after these trips that I was getting these same paper bagged bullshit bombs packed daily for school. I never said anything until years later, but immediately after opening I would give them a half ass toss into the middle of the road to watch on coming cars run straight over them. For whatever reason, I gained some sort of satisfaction out of doing so. I asked later on, "Why would you think those would even be a good idea?" My mom responded, "Your grandfather said you loved them, so I went with it." He caught metal in his flesh, probably got a bit of that gang green that would go around and saw blood fly like water out of a sprinkler on a hot summer's day. Now, I'm not saying my mom doesn't work hard or isn't someone who shouldn't be appreciated, that's not it at all. I'm just saying, when compared to the intimidating "gang green and catching bullets with his shin guy", I have no problem rebelling against her pb&b sandwiches....

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