Good night, John Boy!

Where have TV theme songs gone?

You take the good, you take the bad...

Here's a story, about a lovely lady...

So no one told you life was going to be this way...

Thank you for being a friend...

Sunday, Monday, happy days...

1, 2, 3, 4, 5, 6, 7, 8, Sclemeel, schlemazel, hasenfeffer incorporated...

 

Come 'n listen to my story 'bout a man named Jed...

 

They're creepy and they're kooky...

 

Making your way in the world today takes everything you've got...

 

Just the good ol' boys, never meanin' no harm...

 

Hey baby, I hear the blues a-callin', tossed salad and scrambled eggs...

 

Now, this is the story all about how my life got flipped-turned upside down...

 

Just sit right back and you'll hear a tale, a tale of a fateful trip...

 

Look at what's happened to me, I can't believe it myself...

 

Green acres is the place for me...

 

Welcome back, your dreams were your ticket out...

 

Now, how many of you can still sing the rest of the lyrics to each song?  Go ahead, admit it.  You LOVE singing them, don't you?  Or what about the distinctive tunes of The Waltons, Dallas, Knots Landing, I Love Lucy, Bonanza, The Big Valley, Batman, Bewitched, CHiPs, Knight Rider, Charlie's Angels, Gunsmoke, The Lone Ranger, Good Times, or M*A*S*H?  Or the original Mickey Mouse Club?  The old black and whites are the best!  I love TV Theme songs and I find modern selections to be a bit lacking.  When I was 2 or 3 years old I would jump up and down every Friday night at 8pm when Dallas came on.  We would crank it up!  It was my favorite song!  Well, second only to Juice Newton's Queen of Hearts.  Every time I hear a theme song from when I was growing up, it evokes an individual memory or sometimes it's just a feeling; the feeling of being 5 years old and believing with true innocence that everything will be okay.  Mommy and Daddy love you, you've got a full tummy, a little brother you're forced to take baths with every night, some hand-me-down clothes from cousin Joyce, a doll named Honey that Grandma Betty gave you that now goes everywhere with you, and a big ol' sand box to let your Barbies play in.  Truth be told, when I was 5, everything was certainly not okay.  That was the year Dad was diagnosed with cancer, which turned out to just be the first shock in a 2 year wave of bad news.  But, somehow, a little boob tube reprieve helped me cope.

 

While I love all of these old shows, the one that affects me the most is The Waltons.  I watch reruns in the afternoons when I'm off during the week and I hum the song to Rocco and he smiles the biggest smile.  And it almost makes me cry; it evokes such powerful memories that I almost can't bear it.  I think about watching it at Grandma and Grandpa's house, sitting on their old sofa, drinking some sweet tea and oh, how I miss them!  And when the theme song (from the later years) is playing and the "old pictures" scroll through, it makes my heart hurt at the loss of simpler times.  The last picture is of Elizabeth, played by Kami Cotler.  She was very young at the time, in her little dress and bare feet, with her hair in braids, carrying a stick and her school books wrapped in a belt.  It reminds me of summer days at Grandma and Grandpa's, gathering eggs, picking tomatoes and cucumbers, playing with Rocky and our cousins in the corrals and then getting whipped with a flyswatter by Aunt Debbie because we were gone too long and she didn't know where we were, the smell of a horse that spends it's days in a pasture (they have a different smell than show horses who are kept in stalls, FYI), walking out to the pond to fish, playing in the stacks of hay, helping Grandpa work on his semi, the same semi where we would play and pretend we were out on the Mother Road in our very own Big Rig, working cattle, shucking corn and snapping beans for hours on end, all of the women-folk buzzing around the kitchen as we prepared to can everything from tomatoes to corn and it was as hot as the dickens from all of the steaming pots, the smell of fresh apple butter and the warmth of it when you snuck a bite from the pot, grandkids taking turns cranking the handle on the ice cream maker while we listened to the adults talk in the living room, watching Hee Haw, playing Wahoo (who remembers that game?!),playing with Grandma's old adding machine that always had a funky smell to it, her green lipstick that turned red when she put it on, Grandpa's large, strong hands (the testament of a man who worked with his hands his entire life), the corner closet with all of our toys in it (the same toys Mom and her siblings played with), standing in front of the air conditioner with our shirts raised up to cool us off, eating at the "kids table" in the living room every Sunday, spending hours looking through Grandma's photo albums, her Aquanet hairspray, Grandpa's lunchbox and thermos that he took to work with him every day, going out to the chilly well house to get jelly or other foods that Grandma had canned, and sitting in their front porch swing as the south wind cooled me off.  Or sometimes I would sit in a seat Grandpa made out of an old metal tractor seat and he and Grandma would sit in the swing and hold hands.

 

Sorry about the run-on sentence.  I'm having trouble with those this week.

 

Some days I worry about what I will teach Rocco.  Will he have memories like these?  Will he know the value of a simple life or will he only know the fast paced world we live in today?  Will he know the joy of spending an afternoon lazing away with a fishing pole in his hand or sitting on the porch swing and watching a beautiful sunset?  I look around and I see so many kids that are overscheduled and struggling.  We've become so programmed to go faster and farther and bigger that we forget the power of simplicity.  I plan on raising Rocco on The Waltons and old Disney movies; D can resist if he wants, but I'm going to do my darnedest!  If the Hallmark Channel, TV Land and others stop airing reruns, I'm in trouble.

Just for fun, I might make him watch Jaws.  Just kidding.

Good night, John Boy!

Good night, Mary Ellen!



 

In case you couldn't place all of the songs, here's the shows they came from and a link to the lyrics and intros:

 

The Facts of Life

The Brady Bunch

Friends

The Golden Girls

Happy Days

Lavern & Shirley

The Beverly Hillbillies

The Addams Family

Cheers

The Dukes of Hazzard

Frasier

The Fresh Prince of Bel-Air

Gilligan's Island

The Greatest American Hero

Green Acres

Welcome Back, Kotter

 

 

 

 

 

 

Making a memory

Have you ever thought, "I want to remember every little thing about my child - every whimper, every smile, every grunt, every giggle, every wail, every little contented sigh, every drop of drool, his first fuzzy piece of toe jam, his big, bright blue eyes, the way he gets excited and will immediately stop fussing when I carry him into the bathroom for a bath, the way his whole body gets red when he's mad, the way his hands lay when he's asleep, the way his hair stands up in the morning and curls when it's wet, the way he snuggles up against my neck when he's sleepy and holds his head up like a turtle when he wants to see what's going on, the way he squeezes my arm, the way he holds my fingers when he drinks a bottle, the way he wiggles and smiles and laughs when he wakes up, the way he laughs in his sleep, the way he smells like baby lotion, the way he tries to sing along when I make up silly songs to entertain him, and the way he flails his arms and legs when he lays on his back as he learns to control his extremities. I never want to forget these things!"

Wow, there were a lot of every's and the way's in that big ol' run-on sentence! But, you get my point, right? Remember the original "Parent Trap" movie when Suzan, acting as Sharon, is sniffing her Grandfather's jacket and when he asks her what she's doing, she says, "I'm making a memory. Years from now when I'm all grown up, I'll remember my Grandfather and how he always smelled of tobacco and peppermint." That's how I feel about Rocco; I'm constantly making memories.

He's so precious and so sweet and I am so in love with him that I do not EVER want to lose a memory. And, sadly, I know that I will. Age will catch up to me and time will rob me of many of the tiny details I want to preserve. He will only be this teensy weensy size once and I will only be able to protect him for so long. He will grow up and I can only pray that God's plan for my little man keeps him close to me without me smothering him. In the meantime, I've taken somewhere close to a bazillion pictures and videos of him, so when I'm old and gray and my faculties aren't what they are today, I can still see this baby boy and maybe the pictures will bring forth a memory and I will be able to come back to this day, to this moment in time, when I was his first love. And it will make my heart smile. 

Corn and Tomato Salad

After umpteen hundred friends shared this recipe, I decided to give it a try for a little change-up on a Monday night.  I shared this recipe on Facebook from a page called Easy Recipes, Your Guide to Simple Recipes.  We gave it a few tweaks for our palate.  Here's the recipe as it was given (I halved it for the two of us and had plenty left over):

Corn and Tomato Salad

• 6 ears of corn
• 3 large fresh tomatoes
• 1/2 large onion or about 1 cup chopped
• 1/2 cup chopped fresh basil
• two to three sprigs fresh oregano (optional)
• 2 tablespoons white vinegar
• 1/4 cup olive oil
• fresh ground pepper

Boil corn in large pot of water for about 7 minutes.  Drain and plunge corn into cool water. Cut corn off cob and set aside to cool completely.  Chunk tomatoes and onion.  Coarsely chop basil and strip the oregano off stems.  Place cooled corn, chopped vegetable and herbs into large bowl.  Toss with vinegar and olive oil. Season to taste. Serve chilled or room temperature.

 

Here's what I did differently:

 

1.  I didn't plunge the corn into cool water.  I didn't even let it cool completely.

2.  I omitted the oregano.

 

3.  I added a few dashes of Louisiana Hot Sauce

 

4.  I added a small dash of salt.

 

I think a little bit of garlic would have been good in this, too.  It was light tasting and next time, I will use more basil because, you know, more basil is always better.  I was afraid that the olive oil might make it a little slimy, or make me feel like I had oil all over my face (the same way I feel after eating Chinese food) but it wasn't and it didn't.  The amount of oil is so small that it's really just more of a binder.  It was a different flavor for corn and tomatoes, not a flavor we're accustomed to having, but it was really good!  I also discovered that I like the salad better when the corn is still a little warm as opposed to chilled.  Give it a try and funk up your Monday night!

BLT Salad

Guess what?  The baby is napping and I'm taking the opportunity to get a blog post in.  It's been a while!

Who doesn't like a BLT sandwich?  Bacon.  Yum!  Tomatoes.  Yum!  Lettuce.  Yum!  Mayo.  Yum!  But, I'm on a salad kick, so with the inspiration of a BLT, I'm changing it up a little bit and adding a few funky flavors!  Don't go overboard with the dressing, you really only need a couple of tablespoons.  And believe it or not, on that huge salad in the picture (and to give you a concept of it's size, it is on a salad plate, not a dinner plate), there's less than 3 Tbsp of dressing, even though it looks like it's drowning in dressing.  Here's what you need:

BLT Salad

• 1-2 C Mixed greens (I buy the organic 50/50 Mix)
• 1 medium sized tomato, chopped
• Red onion, chopped, as much as you like
• Cucumber, about 6 slices, or more if you want
• Avocado, cubed (I used half of an avocado on the salad, but feel free to use less)
• 3-4 Banana or Anaheim Peppers, cored and sliced
• 1 Tbsp butter
• 3-6 slices of Center Cut Bacon (less fat and fewer calories than regular bacon)
• 2-3 Tbsp Dressing

1.  Brown, drain and pat dry the bacon (1 serving is 3 slices) then chop it all up.

2.  While the bacon is cooking, melt the butter in a small nonstick pan, then throw in the peppers and stir occasionally until they're soft.  Or, if you're like me, burn them a little; it tastes better, and I'm not being sarcastic.  D and I love a little burn on the pepper!

3.  Place your mixed greens on a plate and drizzle half of the dressing over the top.  Pile on the tomatoes, onion, cucumber, avocado and the rest of the dressing.

4.  Finish it off with the chopped up bacon and banana peppers.

5.  EAT THAT STUFF UP!!  IT IS DELICIOUS!!  The bold flavors of the lettuce, the sweetness of the tomatoes, the bite of the onion, the crisp lightness of the cucumber, the reminiscent-of-guacamole taste of the avocado, the saltiness of the bacon and the kick of the peppers ..... mmm, mmm, mmm, mmm, mmm!