thermos: Browse The Strips
Sunday, July 6, 1986
Thursday, December 4, 1986
Friday, December 5, 1986
Wednesday, November 14, 2001
Tuesday, September 9, 2014
Sunday, July 5, 2015
Thursday, December 3, 2015
Lynn's Comments: My mom made bread every two weeks. Being a kid, I figured I was missing something by not having store-bought Wonder Bread, and eagerly traded my school lunch with friends. The weird thing about the commercial bread was that you could press it flat and fold it up like cardboard. It tasted like cardboard too unless you put lots of margarine on it. (Few families could afford butter.) One of my friends made his own lunch every day, and the things he found to press between slices of bread varied from garlic cloves to dill pickles to just plain sugar.
Sometimes I traded with him, sometimes I didn't, but I was always envious of his store bought bread and the way he was allowed to make his lunch any way he wanted to. What we didn't know about each other was that my mom couldn't afford to buy commercially made bread, and his mom went to work before he got up. He had to dress himself and his brother, make both their lunches, walk his brother to a neighbour's house, and then get himself to school. With nutritious meals to look forward to and a mom who was home to look after me, I was the lucky one.
Sometimes I traded with him, sometimes I didn't, but I was always envious of his store bought bread and the way he was allowed to make his lunch any way he wanted to. What we didn't know about each other was that my mom couldn't afford to buy commercially made bread, and his mom went to work before he got up. He had to dress himself and his brother, make both their lunches, walk his brother to a neighbour's house, and then get himself to school. With nutritious meals to look forward to and a mom who was home to look after me, I was the lucky one.
Before we left, both he and my mom made sure we kids had everything we needed. They packed, repacked, checked, and double-checked our suitcases, and told us that if we forgot anything, we'd be out in the bush where there were no stores, we would have to live without it. Off we went in our old 1959 Chev, with a pile of supplies and suitcases lashed to the top of the car.
After a long day of driving, we finally came to our first stop; a swampy, mosquito-infested campground just north of the town of Hope. The sun had dropped below the mountains. Mom reminded Alan and I that there was nothing around us for miles, and to make sure we had everything we needed for a night in the woods--just as Dad discovered he'd forgotten the tent poles.