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Post by Deleted on Apr 9, 2010 17:35:35 GMT
Actually, if we had gone to Saudi Arabia, my mother probably would have never met my future stepfather, and my life would have been totally different, maybe even without divorce trauma.
Knowing what I do now, I am 99% sure that was actually happened was for the best.
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Post by rikita on Apr 9, 2010 20:57:14 GMT
hm my first visit to west berlin was a bit of a disappointment. didn't look so different at all there, not in an amazingly bright and beautiful way anyway, and it smelled funny...
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Post by bixaorellana on Apr 9, 2010 23:17:34 GMT
Rikita, when you were little, before there was free passage to West Berlin, was it described to you as a wonderful place?
How did it smell funny?
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Post by Kimby on Apr 10, 2010 19:38:28 GMT
A big childhood disappointment - and very difficult lesson for me to learn - was that you can't do everything.
I had SUCH a hard time choosing what I wasn't going to get to do when two events conflicted.
And I HATED it when Mom would dismiss my disappointment with the despised words: "you can't do everything"
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Post by rikita on Apr 10, 2010 21:12:54 GMT
bixa - well, since i had relatives there, and my parents had been there on several occasions, i guess my view was more realistic than that of other people. at the same time of course, we had the descriptions given to us at school, i remember one article in the children's paper, about poor children from west germany whose fathers are unemployed, together with a picture of a very sad looking boy standing on a barren field... so my expectations were probably mixed. but right at that time after the wall came done it was all the big talk of course. contrary to others, my parents did wait a few weeks before they first went (with us) to visit some relatives in west berlin. so at that time of course there were big expectations... anyway, what smelled funny was my relative's house, dunno why, they might have baked a cake or something. thing is, i got motionsickness very badly as a child, so the car journey had done me in, and i didn't recover all day.
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Post by Deleted on Apr 11, 2010 20:56:02 GMT
The houses of relatives always smell funny, everywhere in the world -- mothballs, strange diets, weird bathroom cleaners... you name it!
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Post by bixaorellana on Apr 11, 2010 22:36:30 GMT
Poor Rikita -- motion sickness makes almost any smell unbearable.
I think that's true about the houses of relatives. We probably expect them to smell exactly like our own houses because they're our kin. To me, my grandparents house had no smell, probably because I thought of it as my own. The same with my mother's house. I have never lived in that house, but it seems to have no odor at all. My godmother's house however, always smelled wonderful to me, and certain subtle odors always remind me of her house.
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Post by Deleted on Jul 23, 2010 23:08:46 GMT
Seeing Imec's weekend plan to go and see Cirque de Soleil triggered a major childhood disappointment of mine just now... It wasn't Cirque de Soleil,but the Ringling Bros. Circus,and my father took two of us,I was around 7 or 8 years old. I remember the smell of the elephant dung,but,most of all ,I remember the lady up on a high,high swing,and was mesmerized watching her perform her feats on that swing. I asked my father if I could have my swing at home in the walnut tree raised up higher...he told me on the way home that he would raise it for me. My mother,who was not at the circus,would not allow for my swing to be raised to the height I wanted it to. I have never quite got over it...
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Post by Deleted on Mar 28, 2013 12:43:22 GMT
I had a flashback this morning about being denied going to NYC for the big Easter Parade because I was "too young"..... I did get to go the following year but this still stings somehow.
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Post by mossie on Mar 28, 2013 19:38:14 GMT
I got tonsillitis at Easter 1945, so the doctor arranged for me to go in to hospital during the school summer holiday, which I thought was a rotten trick I was bribed by being told that on the childrens ward where I would go, I would get jelly and ice cream These were luxuries we had been denied since 1939. In the event I was put into the mens ward and so no jelly or ice cream.
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Post by htmb on Mar 29, 2013 16:07:10 GMT
Oh, Mossie, if it's any consolation, I was told I'd have all the ice cream I wanted when I had my tonsils out at age three. I felt so rotten afterwards, I didn't care to eat anything at all. Bad break for you to be put in a men's ward. I was put in a crib room with the babies.
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Post by Deleted on Mar 31, 2013 20:21:32 GMT
I still have my tonsils and always dreamed of the unlimited ice cream that one was supposed to get.
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Post by htmb on Apr 2, 2013 16:08:13 GMT
I still have my tonsils and always dreamed of the unlimited ice cream that one was supposed to get. It's just as well, Kerouac. Those tonsil people lie. ;D
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Post by Deleted on Apr 12, 2013 7:12:31 GMT
From my youngest age upon discovering geography, I 'knew' that the tropics were the best place to be. Palm trees, beaches, no winter... that was probably as much as I could imagine at the time, but it already sounded great. However, it was clear that never in my life would I travel so far since our family had no money (and I certainly could not imagine that I would have to actually work and earn some myself one day), so besides the tropics there were the subtropics, which were better than nothing. These start at the tropics of Cancer or Capricorn and go north or south up to 30° latitude. Well, where we lived was at 30°21, so we just missed it! No matter how much I wanted it, our town would just never drift a few minutes south to put us in the subtropics! I was really disappointed. However, every now and then we would at least go to the subtropics for a shopping trip to New Orleans (29°58) -- it was a pitiful consolation, but it was better than nothing.
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Post by htmb on Apr 15, 2013 2:14:22 GMT
We always went to the beach in the summer when I was a child. No matter how hard I strained my eyes, or how clear the weather, I never could see Mexico off the west coast of Florida.
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Post by mossie on Apr 15, 2013 15:41:39 GMT
We could not go to the beach when I was a child. All our nearby beaches were mined and covered in barbed wire to stop the Germans laying their towels out on them. We used to stand on the cliff where we could see France, my mother use to tell us that if it was a very clear day we could see the time on Calais' town hall clock. Now you know where I inherited my kidology ;D ;D
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Post by bixaorellana on Apr 15, 2013 15:48:35 GMT
All our nearby beaches were mined and covered in barbed wire to stop the Germans laying their towels out on them. *SNORK!*
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Post by htmb on Apr 15, 2013 16:14:25 GMT
Probably your mother's way of keeping you busy and out of mischief, Mossie.
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Post by tod2 on Apr 15, 2013 17:18:08 GMT
Oh Mossie....wasn't that a different time, a different era. Children of today (my grandson's for eg.) would challenge any utterance that did not suit them...... I feel extremely sorry for children of today. Their parents are at loggerheads, they're being passed from pillar to post like a parcel, what the hell happened to the family unit??? I've been married 43 years. I told my old man there was no way in hell I was moving over for 2 twentyfive yearolds!! I've got the diamonds to prove it.
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Post by mossie on Apr 15, 2013 18:39:11 GMT
Oh, I don't know Tod. Let him have his two 25 year olds, and you would very soon have all the family jewels ;D ;D
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