Showing posts with label parents. Show all posts
Showing posts with label parents. Show all posts

Saturday, June 24, 2023

A Look Back: Wise Words from a 22-Year-Old Barbie

First off, my apologies for my rather prolonged absence. Nothing is wrong. It's just when the weather gets warm, it becomes less and less likely I will spend a weekend day inside writing but today is very hot and I've been outside a lot lately so thought I would spend some time writing a blog today. Wow, lucky day!

Lately I have had several friends and family members who have kids that are either graduating from high school or college. Many of those kids are being gifted with cars, which made me think back to when I was heading to college hoping that I would also be lucky and get a car. Looking back, I have no idea why I was so optimistic. 

I thought it might be fun to jump in the Hot Tub Time Machine and go way back 35 years and give you you all a glimpse into the crazy mind of 22-year-old Barbie, a sassy senior Journalism major at Texas A&M University, and at the time a weekly columnist at my college's newspaper, The Battalion. If you missed the whole Barbie story, you can catch up here. 

Being one of the very few liberals on campus and without question one of the most vocal because of said gig, my columns were typically met with more ire than most. Got loads of hate for my criticism of the students who destroyed the shanty shacks that had beeen set up on campus to protest The Apartheid in South Africa. You can't even step on certain grass on campus without getting yelled at. Yeah, it's a thing.

I eventually decided it was safer to just write about my life instead of tackling political topics. Less hate mail that way. 

So behold, the very earliest version of the "World According to Barb," that originally posted in 1988. Sadly, you will see my writing hasn't evolved much and my sense of humor is still quite immature today, to which you can all attest. 


Oh, Joy the Search for the Perfect Auto

Over the past weekend several important newsworthy events happened. The US warship mistakenly shot down an Iranian jetliner killing, all 290 passengers, Attorney General Edwin Meese announced his resignation, and my parents bought me a new car. Well, it's not really new, but close enough.

This might not seem to some of you as a monumental event, but then again maybe I should back up and bit and fill you all in on the whole story. 

First off, I must explain a little about my parental unit. My parents believe firmly in two principles: One is that regardless of the amount of money one has, children are not to be spoiled. They must work for things they want and not just be given them. 

The second principle is that a car is simply a mode of transportation from Point A to Point B, not material possession. As a result, my family's driveway resembles a used car lot. In my family, you don't stop driving a car until it stops running. My dad still brags of a car he once owned, appropriately named the "Vomit Comet," which he bought off a friend for $50 and drove for two years. 

A lot of kids, when embarking on their freshman year, are given cars for graduation gifts by their parents. Well Bob and Barb Jones were not those parents. It was entirely out of the question. "But all my friends are getting to take cars to school," I pleaded to no avail. My parents were not ones to fall for that sort of logic. 

Fortunately, it turned out to not be such a tragedy since I was living on campus and everything could be access on foot.

My sophomore year I again pleaded for a car; instead, I got a bike. Not a new bike, but a friend of my Mom's Sears Jiffy 3-speed with goober handlebars and a basket with plastic flowers hanging off the front. I was horrified. I was going to be living off campus with no car.

The nearest grocery store was three-fourths of a mile away. To get my groceries home, I would have to steal a grocery cart and cross a busy 4-lane road and push it all the way back to my apartment—a very humbling experience. I would try and look as it had forgotten where I had parked my non-existent car. My friends called me the "bag lady." What are friends for?

Then came my junior year, and I felt assured that this was going to be my lucky year. Well, there was good news and bad news. Yes, I was going to have a car to take to school with me. The bad news was the car I had to take. 

Close your eyes and imagine every student's idea of a nightmare car. Yes, that's right a station wagon! Not just any station wagon, however, but the same one my parents bought when I was 11. It had 130,000 miles on it and it definitely was showing its age. Now imagine the worst color imaginable. Right again...Yellow!



Since the car had been collecting dust in the driveway for a decade and not driven in ages, I felt certain the old bomb wouldn't start. My (bad) luck continued, and the "Banana Mobile" as my friends called it, started on the first try with a sizable cloud of blue smoke bellowing from its tailpipe. Lucky me, right?

So off I went cruising in the Banana Mobile. Now considering the advanced age of said car and high millage, I knew the humiliation of driving this car would be short-lived, and excitedly looked forward to its dying day. Well, it lived and it lived. It was the eternal automobile, and I felt sure that this car would see my death before its own ultimate demise. 

[SIDE NOTE: For some reason I don't add (probably because it was humiliating) that one day, the entire rusted-out bumper fell off and rolled down the street, just as I was driving past the Dixie Chicken, the school hangout bar. This bumper was made of steel and the size of a modern-day Kia Rio, so obviously I kept driving. I thought that would warrant a trade-in of sorts, but no. my mom just drove it to the junk yard and for $20 I got a new (old) bumper that came with a "Honk if you love Jesus" sticker. Yep, that happened. Sorry, back to story.]

I drove it my entire junior year and senior years, and just when I thought I would have to hire a contract killer to get rid of this vessel, it happened. While I was home for the weekend this spring, my Dad discovered some major problems and deemed it unsafe to drive.  That was one of the happiest days of my life. I was finally going to get a car...or so I thought.

Sunday rolled around and no new car had materialized. My parents smugly handed me the keys to the maxi-van. It is not a merely a van, mind you, but at MAXI-van—a whopping 3 feet longer than your average van. 


I stared at them in disbelief. I once thought you would have to work really hard to find a car that is less cool than the wagon, but let me tell you a white, wood-paneled (because they got a deal) maxi-van is about as close to uncool as one can get...unless you do airport pickups for a living. 

"You will have to drive this for a couple of weeks or so until we find something else," my mom said. Well, the weeks turned to months, and I was beginning to think I was cursed. But indeed, it happened, and the rest is history. I now have my new own car--and it's not yellow! 

UPDATE: Once my siblings and I finished college and moved away, my parents immediately moved to buying only expensive premium cars. 

Summer is here

The season we all live in Chicago for is here! I hope everyone is having a great one, thus far. I promise to write a few more blogs before summer ends, have a few topics in mind. Until then, I hope this finds everyone healthy and happy.

Ciao for now,

Barb(ie) 


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Sunday, April 5, 2020

Celebrating the Beauty of Love Amid Dark Days

Hi, I'm back. Yes, I'm trying to keep this a weekly exercise both for my own mental sanity and hopefully for the amusement of a few of you. This week a lot of shit has happened, none of which was particularly good. Not to me personally, just all this stupid virus stuff. Don't worry; no dismal recap coming. I'm not even going to attempt to blow sunshine and rainbows up your ass. No one wants to hear the positive spin on it, even if I could. This shit has gotten real. Enough said.

One awesome thing that did happen this week is my parents celebrated 55 years of wedding bliss. People say that a lot, but I would doubt the word "bliss" really applies to most marriages. It certainly did not apply to mine. With my parents, however, it's true. And, I have born witness to it my entire life. My parents, who met in high school, are truly as in love now as they were five+ decades ago. Maybe more.


Now, don't get me wrong. They have had fights. The last significant one was in 1977. It started on the drive home from church over whether Missouri was considered a southern or northern state. I'm not sure exactly how it escalated, but I vividly remember them shutting their bedroom door when we got home and arguing. My sister and I both cried, questioning if we would be kept together or separated in what was obviously going to be the end of our parents' marriage and our family as we had known it. 

We had quite literally never heard them raise their voices to each other, let alone fight. Well, fortunately there was some type of resolution. I never asked what the answer was and Google was not around to end these types of ridiculous debates. Perhaps an encyclopedia was consulted to get to the bottom of it. Remember those?

I would say that my parents' marriage was very conventional. Dad was the money maker and mom was the kid raiser. Worked pretty well actually. If my parental unit was the government, my mom was the executive and legislative branches. She was largely the leader of the family and established policy and kept us following the rules. My father was the Supreme Court. Only issues of the highest order ever made it with him. And, in what was not a particularly well-balanced court at the time, there was a 99.9% certainty that the answer was going to be a solid no (no RBG to keep the parenting fair and balanced). My Mom's "Go ask your father" was the equivalent to "no way in hell you're doing that" but I'd rather not be the one to tell you.

My dad retired very early and my parents spent many years traveling around the world; golf trips, wine trips, ski trips, etc. Then 15 years ago my dad had a massive stroke, spent two months in hospitals and is pretty significantly physically impaired as a result. Really sucked. Big time. That next year was full of challenges as he had to learn how to do everything again, speak, eat, walk, dress himself, drive, everything. And the whole time, my mom was there, tirelessly cheering him on and doing the heavy lifting of taking care of him. And, never once bemoaning her situation.

Watching them as they navigated this strange, new world of theirs was like watching a damn Hallmark movie. They never complained, not to themselves and not to others. My dad never had a day he wanted to give up, not that drill sergeant Barb Jones would have let him. My dad once told me that he knows that this is "bonus time" and he was going to make the most of it. They saw every day as a blessing. A blessing that they are both still here, still in love and still feeling super blessed to have each other. (BTW, for someone who isn't particularly religious, that was a lot of blessing though it is Sunday, after all).



Every day, they could somehow see the good and how lucky they were, despite their newfound challenges. When others would throw their hands up in frustration, they persevered. When the majority of people would have found solace is just bitching about their situation, they didn't.  One story really stuck with me: they were both walking in the park, fairly soon after he could walk again. Two women were approaching them and she said she could see the look of pity on their faces. She said it was so ironic because all she could think of was how lucky they were to be outside walking in the sunshine and enjoying the beautiful day. That pretty much sums up my mom in a nutshell.

Now I'm not going to lie. There have been times her constant perkiness have been annoying. There were many years growing up when I definitely thought a "pity party" was in order; like try changing schools every 3-4 years your entire life. But she would not have it. Every move was a new adventure. "Exciting news, kids, we're going to get to explore Iowa!" Oh boy. Just being awoken by someone so cheerful and full of positive energy in high school could be viewed as cruel and unusual punishment. I'm probably still not a morning person because of her. But it's also instilled in me that life is good, sometimes despite everything.

She sent the video below to my siblings and I a few days ago to let us know they are ok. Coronavirus isn't keeping her down.


 

Don't worry, most of my blogs are not going to be sappy shit like this. But today, I felt it was good to reflect on something positive and how lucky I am to have parents who truly love each other. It shows me every single day that I can't give up on finding love, despite the pitfalls of online dating (many blogs coming on this topic).  Because it truly does exist and when you do find it, be grateful. Even when you think that listening to your spouse chew loudly or (add annoying habit here) for another month might send you over the edge, be thankful you are not alone.

It is also a great lesson to us all that while this shit really sucks, we all still have things in life to feel lucky and fortunate about. Might take a little digging and soul searching these days, but they are there. Tap into what's good, focus on your own well being and happiness and those around you. Appreciate each other, even when you also want to slap them upside the head. Good Lord, I'm starting to make myself sick with all this positivity so I better close.

Until next time, everyone. Namaste.

Barb

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