Mainly
Especially
Food
Adults. My line was deeply flawed and deficient in debilitating and dangerous ways; however, Nature, abhorring a Vacuum, struck a offset by granting them talents and strengths which were compensatingly meteoric to the Good. I rattled around like a pinball flying from one bumper to another simply to stay out of the waiting abyss of darkness at the bottom of the decline. Separation was one technique until alcohol gave me the courage to be part of the enigma or the apathy to surrender. Sometimes passing out was the best option. The point is that for each scar, each disappointment, each unfortunate lapse of custodian judgment; there is the equally powerful treasury of extraordinarily expanding experiences that offset the damage. Quick to pan, slow to give credit, it has taken me almost 50 years of stringing life’s opportunities together to capitalize on the mine that was not the “Model Issue Childhood”; 75205, notwithstanding. And, that the dark abyss is not fatal. Ask Jonah.
Children. My grandmother, Vivian, instilled in her daughter, Vivian, a awe for food preparation and home-sewn couture. Where the sewing lessons inspired irascibility, the cooking instruction spawned an avocation of disciplined over and practice and enjoyment of the culinary arts including the cultures that they nourished. We children were the beneficiaries. There are conservatively more than 5,000 who will proclaim that Vivian the Elder and Vivian the Younger each put Jesus’ loaves and fishes trick to shame (John 6.1-14). Regardless of what economic calamity fell upon our household, there was always food and it was always good even if it meant that bag lunches had hearts of palm instead of carrot sticks or endive stuffed with olive spread substituted for tuna on immaculate—we ate. Rigid Tupperware (deemed more valuable than one’s own safe return from Grade 1) containers in place of Baggies portended some explaining to my classmates at the luncheon tableland and barred...
