3 Things You Don't Know About Me

Family – I'm a member of a very large extended family, which I love. I actually have too many cousins to count, I had great-grandparents, and great, great aunts and uncles and on down the line. I spent much of my childhood summers with my mother's family and they were a close-knit group, with big families living in close proximity. We had complete freedom to go from house to house, to the pool, or down to the small town center. The older cousins would take us out for ice cream at night. If one of the aunts and uncles wanted to go on a road trip, they'd pile whoever was handy into a car or two, and off we'd go (no worrying about seat belts). I don't know if those kinds of freedoms exist any more.

Entertainment – Well, I grew up without a TV. That's my claim to fame. Lol. The interesting thing is that, to this day, I don't watch TV. I simply don't think of doing it. My sisters don't watch TV. My brothers watch sports, but not much else.

I do have gaps in my cultural knowledge and, as a schoolgirl, I sometimes felt deprived because I didn't know the shows the other kids did. But, on the whole, I'm glad I never got addicted. Occasionally, I hear about things that I think I would have enjoyed watching, but I get over it pretty quickly. The other negative is that I don't have much patience for movies. So I still have gaps in my cultural knowledge!

On the plus side, I learned the pleasure of reading. (Of course, one can have both.) In my childhood, the one thing my parents allowed us to buy without restriction was books. We got those Scholastic book orders in school about four times a year, and I can think of few things that thrilled me more. I could buy as many books as I wanted! That was riches. And when the books arrived - An even bigger thrill!

A Skill I Wish I had – Cooking. I just don't have a big interest in food. I can eat the same few things over and over (unfortunately, not all of them healthy, lol). I try to tell myself this is a good trait. In primitive times, every tribe needed someone who wasn't interested in experimenting. That person would be the one to avoid group poisoning from some new plant they'd foraged (though she might die of starvation).

But in this century, I do love to entertain, and it's a handicap when you're not a good cook. I'm adequate. People accept my invitations, but I wish I were better. Still, I know I never will be because it's not an undertaking that interests me enough. I have one daughter who loves to cook. I watch her zip around the kitchen, forage in the grocery story for new products, print thousands of pages of recipes off the internet (and I'm not exaggerating), buy gadgets and pans of all shapes and on and on. It just enthralls her. I don't know where she came from.