Facebook is really what you make it. I’ve found it to be an excellent communication tool, a learning experience and a place to go for entertainment as long as you distance yourself during elections and politics. While I personally attempt to consider the feelings of others, I’ve found that during political upheavals a huge number of people could give a flip about mine, so I pick my battles and I’ve learned to avoid politics altogether and those that thrive on the controversy.
Almost a year ago a friend sent me an invitation to join a Facebook discussion page she was a member of and was enjoying. I don’t usually join those things but this one looked interesting. The subject was Growing up in the 70s and 80s. The discussions were lively and fun and there was a certain nostalgia that appealed to me so I accepted her invitation and joined the page.
Over the past months people have posted photos of numerous things that I remember and I began looking forward to future posts. I haven’t been disappointed.
There was a post about cereal boxes that could be sliced open along the perforations on the back, milk added in the box and the cereal eaten right from the container. The caption said, “Who remembers eating cereal right out of the box?” Since I did remember that and the fact that there was never enough cereal in those tiny boxes that sometimes leaked, I chimed in and said that. I got a bunch of fun answers and I was hooked.
Someone posted a photo of those tiny cedar chests the Lane Company gave to graduating senior girls with the caption, “Who Remembers These?” I did and responded that not only did I REMEMBER them, I still had two … one that had been mine and a second that had belonged to my sister.
More questions and answers: “Do You Remember This Song?” “Did You Ever Have This Hair Style?” “CHARLIE– I can still remember how this perfume smelled, can you?”
Someone posted a picture of a set of Tupperwear containers with the message, “Did your grandmother have these containers?” I laughed and answered, “Yes and I STILL have them. You can’t kill Tupperwear,” to which a number of people responded with smiley faces and answers of their own. It’s just been fun and a nice get-away from pandemics and politics.
Earlier this week someone asked, “Did your high school have a Driver’s Ed class and did you take it?” Before I could reply I was hit with a memory that made me laugh out loud. I hadn’t thought of it in so many years but the Driver’s Ed question brought it back suddenly on the wide screen of my memory in full Technicolor and surround sound.
It was a sunny early spring day and I was out in the school’s Driver’s Ed car with two other students and the Driver’s Ed instructor. He was a nice man; quiet and very tall and, I remember vividly, he was very high-waisted. He seemed to wear his pants right under his armpits and we use to make jokes about the possibility that when he sweated the change in his pants pockets probably got wet. But he was nice and good to his students and we all enjoyed Driver’s Ed for a number of reasons … not the least of which was getting off the school grounds for an hour and out into the world of highways and drivers.
So where was I? Oh, it was a sunny early spring day. Because I was an exceptional pupil, the instructor told us (putting quite a lot of pressure on me to perform), he was going to let me be the first one of us to drive on the actual highway. Seeing it as an honor, I slipped behind the wheel of that automatic transmission Ford mid-size car, adjusted the mirror, put on my seatbelt and put the car in GO. At the end of the high school’s drive I stopped and looked both ways and went off in the direction the instructor told me to go. It was a “freeing” experience after days of driving around the school parking lot, learning hand signals and parallel parking techniques.
Several miles down the road the instructor told me to turn right into the entrance of a local college. I was going to drive through the college, return to the entrance and we would switch drivers. I loved a plan!
Just as I turned in and was beginning down the road we saw something in the road but too late for me to avoid hitting it. I was alarmed and very scared when a gosh-awful smell wafted into the car. The two students in the back were waving the air with their hands and making gagging sounds as we all realized I’d hit a skunk. To be honest, I didn’t kill it but it had been very recently hit and killed as the odor coming through the car’s ventilation system announced with fervor.
The instructor told me to drive on, which I did and then he told me to pull over and I did that, too. The students in the back seat were laughing and making skunk jokes. The instructor, after I came to a stop on the shoulder of the road, looked at me and said, very calmly with patience he grabbed from somewhere, “I wish you hadn’t hit that.”
I burst into tears, another student came from the back seat and took my place and we went back to the high school eagerly looking forward to abandoning the car and the odor that penetrated even the upholstery by then.
As traumatic as that incident was, I went on to become a fairly good driver and have carried with me quite a lot of respect for skunks and avoiding them if they are alive OR dead.
All that came rushing back to me when I read that question on Monday on the Growing Up in the 70s and 80s Facebook page and couldn’t stop laughing. So I pulled my chair closer to my desk and my keyboard and responded, “Yes … and my first time driving on the highway in the Driver’s Ed car I hit a skunk ….”
The responses were wonderful and the laughter was such a pleasant experience because I hadn’t expected it. And it was all such a refreshing change from politics.
heimdalco 