Saturday, June 11, 2011

One Hundred Things My Mother Taught Me A Million Times – Chapter 72


#72 – “Use Palmolive dish soap to shampoo your hair.  It is less expensive than shampoo, and makes your hair really shine.”

Apparently Palmolive dish soap was pretty cheap when I was growing up as we always had it around. The only reason we didn't use Tide, which was even cheaper, for washing our hair and dishes in addition to our clothing, was because it burned your skin!

Mom was frugal, but not just because she grew up in the Great Depression, or because that was the way she was raised. After my dad died and we sold everything to pay off the loans on the road construction equipment (dad owned a fairly lucrative construction company), we were left with no home, an old car, mom’s $300 a month teaching salary, and her undeterred desire to groom me for marriage to someone who could give me a “better” life - or at least to become a strong independent woman capable of giving myself a better life. If washing our hair with dishwashing soap could save a few pennies to buy me a prettier dress, dance lessons, or books to “expand my horizons,” then that’s the way it would be.

When you are a kid you are oblivious to the sacrifices made by your parents, their motives, the what’s and why’s. I recall a child psychologist telling me one time that my kids were more concerned about what time their favorite cartoon was coming on then whether or not I was with them 24-7 - which I had a great deal of difficulty accepting.  

I recall agonizing for three days about having to tell my 8-year-old daughter she couldn’t go swimming because of an ear infection, but that her brothers could. When I told an old friend that I thought I shouldn’t let the boys swim either, he said to me, “You must teach your children to accept disappointment. If you fix everything for them, and they go out into the world and you’re not there to fix things, they are at a disadvantage.” I took his advice. My daughter cried for 5 minutes and got over it.

Bossypants by Tina Fey

Although I didn’t know much about Tina Fey before I read her book, Bossypants, what I think I know about her now is that she and I hide our insecurities behind humor. When going though the life-defining time of Junior High and High School, I was never pretty, smart or nice enough to be cheerleader, valedictorian, or most popular (my generation’s Nobel Prizes of Teenage-dom), so I fell back to baton twirler, clever gal, and class clown. Some of my classmates are probably thinking, “I don’t remember her being clever or funny!” But by gaud, no one can take my twirling medals away from me! So back to Tina Fey and her hilarious and interesting book, Bossypants.

Ever wonder where the fancy pants, smarty pants, bossy pants, linguistic formulation came from? Really? OK. Never mind. Let’s (I’ll) talk about Bossypants.

For those of you similarly unfamiliar with Tina Fey, she is (in her words), “a wide-hipped sarcastic Greek girl." She is also the former head writer for Saturday Night Live, and currently the star and executive producer of the Emmy-winning TV sitcom, "30 Rock.” Bossypants is her subtly deep book about her evolution from middle-class Pennsylvanian misfit to iconic liberal female humorist of the 2000’s. Do conservatives even have humorists?

When I first started Bossypants, I thought, well, this is funny, but it is really just a Tina Fey monologue, which is a ridiculous observation since that’s the whole point of biographies, but it felt like a stand-up comedy routine rather than your typical biography. What I soon came to realize is that Fey is really just too smart to do a straight-up story of her life. She has to weave her comedic magic by hiding her honesty, wisdom, politics and stunning intellect like Easter eggs. Granted, they were hidden like you would hide eggs from a 3-year-old, but that was the coolest part. It wasn’t in your face, but you also didn’t have to work for it. Click on Read More Below...

The Legacy Continues

SueAnn Wade-Crouse - Miss Iraan, Texas Baby 1949 and Miss Iraan 1966.

Mini Miss Texas, 2011, Granddaughter, Khloe Noelke.