The Smell of High School

/ wvfurandroot / 4 Comments

In 1976 and 1977, the scents of Charlie perfume and Right Guard deodorant collided in my high school.  All the cool girls wore Charlie, and everyone used Right Guard.  The May that I was due to graduate was hot, and the school wasn’t air-conditioned. Imagine hundreds of puberty-ridden teens filling stuffy hallways.  The scent was overwhelming and accompanied by the slamming of metal locker doors.

Built in 1916, the school was massive and architecturally interesting.  It still stands and is used for a variety of things, but in the late ’70s, it swarmed with students. I was one of them.  There were more than four hundred in my graduating class. 

The basement opened into an outdoor area called the arch.  It was cool and dim and packed with teenage smokers.  The arch smelled of burnt tobacco, as well as Charlie perfume and failed Right Guard.  Sometimes you could catch a whiff of pot.  We stood there during lunch, smoking and talking.  I mostly listened.  I was still considered the new kid, and nobody knew me.  Nobody tried to know me.

I had an advanced biology class in one of the coolest rooms, although it was on the third floor.  The biology lab was furnished in 1930s-era lab tables, and the teacher, Mr. Berry, was a legend.  We were dissecting fetal pigs, and the room reeked of formaldehyde as well as Charlie perfume and Right Guard.  Sometimes I would sit in there at lunchtime with other students and work on my pig. 

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National Pancake Day was yesterday

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National Pancake Day was yesterday. As usual, I’m a day late and a dollar short. Nevermind that I had a pecan waffle with extra pecans sans syrup at the Waffle House this morning.

Still and all, I offer you this, my homage to maple syrup (and to pancakes though indirectly.)

As a child, I did not like pancake syrup though I loved the shape of the Aunt Jemima glass bottle. Everyone thought I was weird, but I much preferred my pancakes and French toast with tons of butter. Dripping with butter. Drowning in it. Floating.

Some time during my misspent early adulthood, I did not mark the day in my calendar of things to remember, I was unceremoniously given pancakes with syrup already applied. Not wanting to be one of those people, I unenthusiastically loaded a forkful and put it in my mouth.

Oh my. All the pleasure pheromones and chemicals and other assorted signals lit up like a Christmas tree at the North Pole and I smiled big and broad.

Real maple syrup tapped from trees is one of God’s gifts

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Cinderella’s Step Sister Speaks Her Mind

/ wvfurandroot / 2 Comments

I cannot believe this. I just can’t.  That little bitch, pardon my language, but this is so beyond the pale that that’s the nicest word I can use.  After all we’ve done for her.  I don’t even know where to start.

I guess with the housecleaning thing.  Cinderella is OCD.  No, really, I mean it.  She was officially diagnosed by a psychiatrist and everything.  Won’t take her meds.  We never asked her to clean anything.  And she’s made our lives a living hell.  It would look like no one lived here if it was up to her.  She entered a state of rage cleaning when I once left my library book on the piano while I ate lunch.  She thought I should have returned the book to the basket she bought for library books.  Everything has a specific place.  Everything.  And she goes nuts if you don’t use it.

I do all the cooking. I like to cook, but not with her around.  I like to gather all the ingredients, use them as I cook, and put them away when I’m done. She thinks I should go back and forth to the pantry fetching and returning each one in turn.  Bah! Sister cleans the kitchen, but can’t meet Cinderella’s standards, so she cleans it a second time grumbling about how she has to do everything if it’s to be done right.

And the talking and singing with the animals.  Good grief.  We live in a 3-bedroom apartment in Queens.  No deer, no rabbits.  Yeah, there are birds.  We’ve seen and heard Cinderella stand at an open window and sing and dance.  It never occurred to us she thought she was communing with forest creatures.  I mean, really, why would we?  And singing?  Cinderella can’t carry a tune even with a little red wagon and a small boy to pull it for her.  She’s dreadfully tone-deaf.

All we’ve done to try and make her a part of our family!  I’m sorry her father died.  He was a good stepfather and I miss him, but we only knew him for a few months.  Of course, we didn’t mourn as hard as she did.  But we felt so sorry for her – all alone in the world.  We made sure she understood that this was her home now and we were her family.  We were generous to a fault with her.  All of her dad’s money, even that bequeathed to us, is in a trust not to be released to her until she’s 21.  We’ve been paying for everything.

And the ball.  My God! What a debacle that was.  The Met called the police when she tried to crash it while wearing her prom dress and silver shoes from the Goodwill.

I could go on and on, but you should get the picture now.