1. Early childhood discipline. Were you swatted? Grounded? Left on a desert island to contemplate your sins?
I can remember getting swatted on perhaps three occassions, but I also remember the threat of a spanking always on the horizon. Mom was best at the guilt and at grounding. Dad was generally a push over and really had a hard time raising a hand against his kids. But he was creative in doling out punishment. I remember once when I was in my mid teens and full of myself and kept putting off mowing the lawn. Dad arranged with the neighbors to have me mown his lawn and the neighbors. I never forgot that.
2. As a child, when was the first time you remember experiencing Them Cold Hard Facts of Life (real disappointment and realization that bad things can happen). (With apologies to Whisperin’ Bill Anderson.)
I was five when Grandpa Nall died. And there were lots of funeral’s as a child but they never really sunk in. I think the first real sadness came later on, around 10 or so and my grandmother was sick and you could just sense the whole house on pins and needles and people kept returning from intensive care and they would be talking and stop abruptly any time I came in the room, triggering a danger sense that there was something wrong. (ultimately, all was well, grandma recovered from her heart attack and lived a marvelous 96 or so years.
3. At bed time, do you need a bed time story or do you fall fast asleep? Any routines that must happen before the slumber?
I usually curl up with a book but am generally asleep quickly – the book is just a pretense. I can usually be in deep REM sleep in about 20 minutes. It is frightening.
4. How old were you when you learned to ride a bike?
Summer between Kindergarten and First Grade. The neighbor Jay was already on wheels and I had to hustle to catch up.
5. As a teen learning to drive, any driving related altercations that you never told your parents about?
I.Can’t.Drive!
Seriously, I was 15 on a learners permit and snuck the car out drive around the block and had a minor, unreporter fender bender in the parking lot of the 7-11. No harm, no fowl.
BUG YOU KRIT THAT AND FINISH YOUR FIVES!
1. my mother’s favorite form of punishment was to put whatever chore i failed to do in a timely fashion into my bed; e.g. leaves from the yard, dirty dishes, dirty clothes, contents of the vacuum, etc. so not only did i have to do the chore, i then had to wash my bedding.
2. the first time i realized the
i give up, i just wrote out my whole friday fives and it ATE everything. sigh.
1. Discipline came in the form of the Willow Switch – I even had to cut my OWN. One day I purposefully chose a brittle, dried-out twig about 8″ long and my Mom was so angry she wouldn’t let me get another one because she thought she’d kill me with it. Ah, the Menopause Years. Otherwise, I was grounded from phone and car as a teen. THAT sucked the most.
2. Cold hard facts came around in 1984 when my Grandpa Doc died. Wonderful human being and it seemed very sudden to me. I didn’t process it until about 1989, I don’t think. I was a late bloomer at about *everything*.
3. Much to Doodle’s chagrin, I can fall asleep anywhere, anytime, with or without book. I think that’s why my Indian Totem animal is a bat. While I’ve never *tried* sleeping upside-down, I’m sure I’d have little trouble.
4. Christ, I was again a late-bloomer. I think I was 12 – it was a rainbow bike with a yellow banana seat. I can barely ride a bike to this day. Don’t laugh.
5. WHICH altercation, is the quest
5. WHICH altercation, is the question? I nearly rolled my gold 1972 Jeep Commando after over-correcting from swerving to miss a pheasant. There’s also an incident with a porcupine that, while it couldn’t be avoided, is a source of regret to this day. Poor thing. It was dark!! 🙁
!) I believe I was spanked & took the belt once. Aside from that, nothing other than my father’s daunting voice stating, “I can’t make you do something, but I can make you wish you had.”
@) My first experience with cold hard facts was in 4th grade when my best friend Jason Morningstar suffered for a year & then died of a brain tumor. After that, many funerals followed until my sister in 2003. Since then, I’ve gone to more weddings, which are much less somber affairs.
#) I need nothing except a comfortable position at night. Although it takes an extended amount of time to fall, I do eventually achieve sleep once my head is silenced.
$) I was in third grade when I learned how to ride a bike. My father taught me how to ride, but not how to brake. I then found myself at the bottom of a 6′ ditch with Dad snickering in a concerned manner.
%) I think my parents know everything about my driving. My record is sadly perfect & therefore uninteresting.
1. Spankings definitely took place in the Cortez household, but I recall the *threat* of being spanked as being much worse.
2. RE: LifeÂ’s disappointments . . . . . my family used to spend its summers in a cute little pink adobe house in the San Luis Valley. One winter, when I was four or five, the house was burglarized and generally trashed. A lot family heirlooms were stolen, and much unnecessary damage was done to the house itself. As a result, I felt rather violated, and it planted deep-seated seeds of distrust within me.
3. My bedtime ritual probably looks like something out of Benny Hill, as my OCD kicks in at that time of day. In a nutshell—take powerful tranquilizer, check to see if the front door is locked (at least twice), lay down, immediately get to use the bathroom, lay down again, get back up again, fuss with the lights, drink entire glass of water on bedside table, go back downstairs to refill it, recheck the locks, finally lay down again with a book and the television remote control, open book, read until tranquilizer kicks in (anywhere from one paragraph to 100 pages). I’m not kidding—this is pretty much it.
4. I was five, I believe. I was the first of the Cortez children to employ the concept of “training wheels.” My older siblings learned via the “tough love” method.
5. As my dad was the town driving instructor, I donÂ’t think I ever did anything that would have gotten him in trouble.
Wow! Jenny’s mom’s a total beyotch! Finish the rest–I wanna know more about the clan Nelson.
1. I was the victim of the belt, spanking, slapping, pinching, etc. Dad was the disciplinarian.
2. Moving to steamboat from California, I didn’t want to go, but had to.
3. I lay down I sleep. I try to cuddle mister E2 sometimes too!
4. I was in kindergarden, unlike my Brother Tony I managed to survive not getting ran over by a car.
5. My driving record is perfect, so nope.
1.) My dad had this leather belt with steel rings reinforcing the holes. He only used it 3 times during my childhood, and to be honest, I ( and my brothers ) probably deserved it. Funny how the words ” pull your pants down” have gone from an association with pain to one of pleasure.
2.) I guess after my mother died ( I was 4 at the time ). The family dynamic that ensued after my father’s re-marriage was like having a mastadon-sized skeleton hauled out of the closet. It was really fucked up. My natural mother’s grandparents were openly hostile towards my New Mother, and my dad and New Mom used us kids as a way of venting their frustrations with the whole situation. To wit: if either Matt ( my biological brother ) or I got into trouble with New Mom, you can bet dad was going to find a way to come down on Brian ( my newly-acquired step-brother ). It was a really viscious cycle that was not lost on us. The ultimate irony, was that at ages 4-6, we could’ve cared less about o
FUCK THIS STUPID WORD LIMITATION!! I’M WITH JENN.
For those of you who want to read my Friday Fives, just click on my “homepage” link.
Mark: http://www.beakerdude.blogspot.com/
Kevin
http://iamcorrect.blogspot.com/
1. The safety spank was a big thing at our house. Roy has a terrible memory. Mom regularly broke wooden spoons on his butt. Roy was grounded regularly, me only once (I rarely got caught).
2. Waking up at 5 a.m. to find my Mom, and Nancy (Drew’s mom) nursing my Aunt Hope after she suffered a severe beating from her husband. I was about 10.
3. I curl up with a book. Sometimes I fall right asleep (whether the light is on or not), and sometimes I read all night if the book is a page turner.
4. 4, I had to keep up with Roy.
5. No, the one teen fender bender I did have they found out about. That was one of the grounding incidents. I did not tell them right away.
See, the trick is to ctrl-A and ctrl-C all your typing BEFORE publishing it.. that way you can paste paste paste what was truncated. What an odd word, ‘truncate’.
I have gas.
okay, okay, i’ll finish (belatedly)
2. the first time i realized the CHFOL , was when i was about 4. i had heretofore thought of my dad as a superhero, but on that day he dropped a match and it burned a hole in the linoleum floor. i realized then that life had some much harsher lessons in store.
3. i fall asleep quickly and easily (but i *cannot*, however, fall asleep ON a fitness ball like reid can). weirdo.
4. i was never very good at bike riding and am still leery of it due to an accident where i took a few of my fingernails off. {{shudder}}
5. when i was a freshman, my friend and i “borrowed” her parents car, then drove it backwards around a field trying to reverse the mileage. of course it didn’t work, but she got in trouble and i didn’t. very ferris bueller-esque.
1. i dont recall any whupings. although my father was gone when i was 5, and i would’ve kicked the living shit out of my stepfather if he ever got uppity.
2. when your parents divorce when you’re 5 years old, i think it shapes a good part of your outlook.
3. i can fall asleep anytime, anywhere.
4. i think i was about 7…i actually rode bikes purdy darned good…at one point when i was about 13, i was ranked 11th in the state in BMX racing. then i started boozin’.
5. no. i’m an excellent driver. although i did once steal a shitload of drivers licenses from the DMV office so i could get into bars. and one time when i was 14 my girlfriend (at the time)katie was backing out of her garage to pick me up and neglected to close the rear passenger door and broke it off on her parents’ garage door. i stifled any laughter in hopes of getting laid, but didn’t.