Pathways of Life...

Thursday, March 19, 2009

Special Gifts....a blessing or a curse???













How do you eat a Snicker.....
Oh my, let me Count Thee ways!!!

Yesterday evening I was taken back to my childhood days of when I was about 8 or 9 years old, about 1948 or 9. Wow, so long ago and I remember SO well. My older brother David was in high school and was utterly 'thrilled to pieces' that he was lucky enough to 'get a job' as a Bell Hop (or usher) after school each day....at the Ritziest Movie Theatre in our fair city.

This was REALLY awesome luck for that period of time since World War II was just over and all the soldiers were all coming back home to the USA and everybody needed jobs....and as OUR NATIONS HEROS...they got most of the jobs that were available---not a kid in high school. So, David, KNEW how blessed that he was to have been chosen for his job and to get to wear a maroon 'monkey suit'...trimmed in beautiful gold braid ropes and gold brass buttons across the front of the suit....the frosting on the cake....was his little round PILL BOX maroon and gold hat...with a gold braid chin strap!! ha ha He was

very tall and handsome and picture perfect for the period time---celebration of life!

His purpose for the job: simple---to buy a car to drive from our ranch in the country to the city and school. With his very first pay check he bought a 'weathered looking little old Chevy Coupe' from an elderly couple. Thrilled beyond words...he came home...drove it into our FRONT yard...which I had never seen anyone do that before. Beneath the giant live oak trees, with greatest pains he 'wrapped the windows of his little car in old newspaper and began PAINTING!.......... 'WATERMELON' green....not dark...but bright, rich GREEN! To him, green meant prosperity! It took a day or so for the car to dry...but it was truly beautiful....that is AFTER all the old newspaper and tape was removed! That was the joy for me as a little sister to see 'the success and pleasure' of my brother with a really good job and still in high school. Wow!

Now, the second part of my admiration of his new job. CANDY!! Awesome Chocolate candy. We were not allowed those treats very often on the ranch. But like MAGIC...David who dearly LOVED our Mother...began buying and bringing home...those awesome, yummy, magical....SNICKERS, MILKY WAYS, BABY RUTH AND HERSHEY CANDY BARS!!! They were for her....and her ALONE! It was His gift....and that was His orders. Rightly so. He certainly DID NOT want any of us other kids to have EVEN a smell....of his gifts...certainly no bites!

I was usually a very good kid...or so my Mother told me often as an adult...but geepers, I have to admit that THOSE chocolate candy bars were such a horrible, horrible temptation to my dry mouth after school each day. No, I NEVER opened one of them---but I rolled them, smelled them...once I carried it in my pocket...to the barn...with the intention to sneak it and EAT it...but my guilty conscience got me and I took it back and put RIGHT BACK on the top shelf of the refrigerator where he had placed it. (why can't I have that power today...ha ha)

There were many, many times AFTER that incident that I would come in ....look in the fridge and see that Mom had opened her candy bar and take a bite or two--or, I would quietly and quickly break me off a bite or nibble....and I'd hold that awesome delicious stolen chocolate and peanuts in my mouth for 10 or 15 minutes....savoring the yummy flavors that were never meant for me. Oh, Oh Oh....how sweet it was...how wonderful to have the fobidden...
Momma was renown for CUTTING candy into slices...tiny slices...off of the Snickers or Milkyways and eating to make it last longer. Well, my thought....if I do the same thing....she will just think that SHE ate it herself. I did that for a few times...until one day when she walked in on me slowly cutting my sliver away---and instead of scolding me....she simply took the knife from my hand and sat down at the table and we sliced out the whole giant Snicker bar...and we both laughed and slurped up that yummy chocolate and peanuts in the greatest of Mother and daughter consumption and joy ever known to man.

This became a Special time for us, during those years and for the rest of life of her nearly 100 years. Candy was to be eaten, enjoyed SLOOOOWLY, chilled in the fridge...cut in thin slices, so that it would last longer. It was fun...it was good.

Now, like my mother, today, I, too, am a diabetic in my Senior years and do NOT buy candy, unless it is sugar free....excluding making Christmas fudge of coarse.haha Then yesterday evening my dearly beloved hubby.....has watched me go through some really bad pains for the last week or so and he wanted to do something SPECIAL for me...he loves to surprise me with his little treats. and as you may have already guessed....he came home and put something in the refrigerator and turned to tell me that the EASTER BUNNY had a surprise for me in the fridge.

He KNOWS how hard I try to keep my diabetic blood gluclose readings down and in line...and I am good at staying in line...in fact I have to carry the gluclose tablets with me constantly to stop from going too Low... blood count from dropping to hypoglycemia (which I have had about 4 really bad black out spells and know the dangers of that world.) and I often have mild 'gluclose drops' (lows) every few days or so.... when we don't get to eat on time and I have to take a tablet to stop the weakness and black outs.

Anyway, with his encouragement to OPEN the fridge door to see his surprise...I Did...and THERE in all it's SHINING GLORY AND GRACE....lay an innocent little brown and white SNICKER BAR...with my name on it.
Hallllla lu ia...what joy is greater...unless its an Almond JOY? Wow... Is this a blessing or is this a curse....for the diabetic...over weight, crippled, pained. (ha ha....do we really have to ask)

I am not a little girl in Kansas. I don't have a dog named Toto....but so help me, all I want to do is exactly WHAT I wanted to do when I was a little girl and stole the candy bar and went to the barn then brought it back to the fridge, I WANTED TO GOBBLE IT UP...INSTANTLY VANISHED!!! SNORF, SNORF, SNORF----GONE. HAHAHAHA

Then my mind went quickly back to Momma and me...cutting the tiny slices of the cool refridgerated chocolate peanuts and carmel...eating it really slow and now tonight....sharing it with my hubby in joy of two old idiots making a game out of a simple little candy bar. and.... no, that didn't happen either.

Well---it is now past Midnight....and the first day of SPRING...so what will happen with this meer little SNICKER CANDY BAR. It IS still in the fridge....still fully wrappped.

How long will it take for me to 'stay in control'. I am headed to bed....with visions of sleep...but will I have nightmares of some burly crummy robber coming in the house in the middle of the night with a hatchet or a chainsaw....and attack my little Snicker. Or maybe I will just PRETEND that I have a problem ....and walk in my sleep....straight for the fridge.....grab that brown candy bar and BEGIN GROWLING like a hungry bear and slurp it down in one gulp...never know what the real flavor was.

Or I could leave this computer right now....put the iron skillet on the stove and DEEP FRY it in peanuts and coconuts, sprinkle powdered sugar on for a tad of good looks. Hummm, maybe even a Snicker Salad....Oh lord, I am too tired and my Ambien is kicking in , so I am going to bed and forget that stupid Snicker---Jims sweet gift....a blessing or a curse. Tomorrow is a new day. Momma....Heeelp. (tune in later...maybe...to find the truth---is this neat, well intentioned gift a blessing or a curse)?


























1 comment:

Journey on! by Kelleye said...

Aw how sweet! Now the stare-down of the snickers bar~!
I was never a snickers eater- In fact the only ice cream we could find anywhere on spring break was a frozen snicker bar ice cream and I passed it up thinking how gross... Now I am wishin' I had something sweet- anything! Especially those reese's shaped eggs right now!and of course I had to read this in your blog! LOL! I remember my grandma cutting up candy bars into smidguns of slices and keeping them in the orginal wrapper in the fridge- I never knew why.......... hummm....