Focused at Fifty

Here are a couple stories as a child that involve some car issues. As I have stated before, I was a pretty odd (maybe more normal than I realize) child.  All I know is that I gave my parents a lot of grey hairs. No wonder Mom did the 80's frosting kit every other week.  Anecdote #1 I don't know why I wanted to do it but I did. I remember when I was about 5 years old,   my family was driving back from my grandparents' house in Willingboro, NJ on Rt 295 in South Jersey on afternoon. Car seats, what were they? We were all over the back seat. I don't know what possessed me to do it, perhaps too much sesame candy at my Nana's, but I rolled down the back seat window of our blue rambler station wagon while Dad barreled down the highway at 50 MPH. For some reason, I wanted to see the tire spinning so I started to climb out the back seat. My sister was preoccupied joking around with my brother and wasn't paying attention to me. My Mom saw me attempt to climb out a...

 Recent pic of the bull fighting ring, it's still there! There are no crazy drunken bar stories in this post. My crazy drunken bar stories all happened during the 90's in Philly. As I've said before, another post, another time. As a child in the early 80's, I remember traveling with my family across the border from El Paso, Texas to Cuidad Juarez, Mexico. We just drove in, no questions asked; no passports or government ID cards were needed to enter and return. It was a hot dry dusty August day. I remember driving down the main thoroughfare with no real destination in mind. It was just the thrilling idea back then of going into Mexico.  I remember looking out the dirty, dust covered windows of our sky blue Pontiac Phoenix and seeing a bull fighting stadium in the distance. We ended up at a shopping mall and walked around inside. It was nearly deserted, dark and foreboding. I was nervous. I remember finding it peculiar that half ...

I hadn't done a family recipe in awhile, so I got out the trusty old recipe box and picked one out that I hadn't made before. This is an easy stove top recipe for stewed chicken. It comes out real juicy. I remember Nana and then Mom making it during the 70s and 80s.  I found quite a number of variations of potted or stewed chicken online, many from the 50s and 60s. My Nana's recipe is decidedly from that time of simple, yet good cooking. It has European origins and as my wise sister pointed out, was probably used as a cost savings dish. The recipe was passed down to my Mom without any set amounts. Just add as much ingredients as you think would taste good!  You'll see with the recipe below. And I just realized that much of Mom and Nana's cooking included the essential chopped onion, sliced carrots, and sliced celery. One may think that this is a bit plebeian or common but in fact, it is the basis for any good solid recipe involving meat ...

I was driving to work the other day down Route 78 and some huge ass tractor trailer started every so slowly nudging into my lane. I leaned on the horn while screaming bloody murder above my 80's mix CD, "WHAT THE HELL!" Yes, I drowned out the Bangles while flipping off the truck next to me, spewing my Dunkin' Donuts coffee all over the Camry dashboard. OMG I am so now middle-aged! Luckily, the rest of the commute into work was uneventful. But it allowed me to remember past near misses and some minor accidents that I had during my high school years. (UM ... Dad, this is the part where you may want to stop reading. AND I LOVE YOU!) Like the time I was driving with one of my high school best friends, Angie, and I came around a turn in a corn field. I was driving our fire engine red Nissan Sentra and took the turn too fast, going over a small turn marker into the field. She screamed, I screamed. We survived the plunge into the corn field. Luckily no damage to the car,...