I saw a kid with a dirty shirt the other day—probably he dripped Ice cream on it or something, because I could see a few of the partially melted chocolate chips clinging on the yellow-smeared material and the chips bounced as he walked with his mom.  Interestingly, my keenly trained peripheral vision couldn’t help but notice his mom was bouncing too—a little differently than the chocolate chips.

Wouldn’t you know—this scene brought back memories from years ago.  No, not the bouncing but the food on clothing scene.  Quite a few years actually.  Funny how a brief scene can bring back details of childhood memories, and silliness that just isn’t very common any more, unfortunately.  Now, I won’t give too many details about my childhood, but some of my throngs of avid blog readers will recall a few details.  You know, like lunch in prison, Dick Tracy, and playing baseball on the school roof.

Now, I always listened to what my parents said, but that doesn’t always mean I Interpreted the words correctly, if you know what I mean.  For example, my mother, God rest her soul, had some wonderful phrases to impart to my young ears that I remember to this day.  Sometimes, when I was getting on her nerves she would say, “Carson, go out and play in the traffic.”  So, being the obedient boy I was, I would go out and play on the streets, usually riding bikes through those attractive mud puddles, especially if they had worms, or perhaps sitting on skateboards, racing them down the middle of hilly streets, forcing cars to dodge us. Now mind you, these were not state of the art skateboards, but actually were kind of roller skates screwed onto a piece of wood.  And then, she would say, “don’t come back until it’s dark.”  So, again, I didn’t’ come back until it was dark.  Really dark.  We didn’t have cell phones back then, thankfully, or I would have always been in trouble.  Sometimes I would hear parents, at dark, call for their kids who were somewhere, hopefully within a couple mile radius and they would stand on their porches, cup their hands around their mouths and scream: “Roger!”  or “Jerry”.  Well, you got the picture.  But I knew if I ever heard my mom screaming “Carson”! I was in big damn trouble.  No kid every wanted his or her name called.  Some of her other phrases I can’t forget are: “children are to be seen and not heard.”  And, “You’re in good shape for the shape you’re in.”  Or my favorite: “hell’s bells.”  She was tough, but a good mother and I miss her.

Now, sorry for the digression, and my mind is now concentrating on the subject at hand.  It was a rare occasion, actually, as I recall, it only happened once outside of Christmas gatherings with grandpa and the uncles and cousins, but my cousins came to our house with my uncle to eat dinner.  Now these cousins were my heroes!  One was two years older and the other was four years older and they knew how to drive at twelve and learned how to work on cars and things like that.  Yeah, they were cool guys that I respected.  So, at dinner, I remember the two of them were not eating something on their plate.  I don’t remember after all these years if it was broccoli or spinach or maybe liver, but my uncle did not take kindly to that.  He looked at both my heroes and said, “You guys better eat it or wear it!”  They both looked at each other, very seriously, then stared at their broccoli and starting eating it, slowly and painfully.  You see, for some reason these cool guys did not want to wear their food home.

My mother and father might have chuckled a bit, I don’t know, but they looked at me and of course, I started eating my broccoli for fear of the clothing punishment that might also come my way.  But then, my mother said something like, “that’s a nice idea Uncle Ed.  But you see, it won’t work with Carson here because Carson is always wearing his food, even if he likes it!”  In fact, she used to say that you could not take Carson anywhere because of his messiness.  I am sure my face turned crimson quickly, because I was a little shy, but then, I smiled and laughed because it made sense.  After all, if you are wearing your food, it comes in handy if you are out somewhere in the woods or out on the streets and you get hungry, you can just grab some of the morsels that remain, maybe in your pants pockets or pants cuffs. And here’s an interesting fact: The singer Lady Gaga once performed on stage wearing a costume made of meat. So, maybe my style was before it’s time and could’ve made me some money, if I could only sing!

So, those cousins at the time, were my heroes, but who knows — maybe I became their hero that night, because I was always wearing my food, no matter what and the punishment had no effect whatsoever on me.

For those of you who are interested, you can take me many places now if you want, and I am usually presentable and not wearing my food much anymore.  I do like beer and wine and good food.  Any volunteers?

© SRCarson Publications, 2022