Is there one person in your teen years who really changed the course of your life by something they said or did? ~Family History Tuesday~

My mom never liked cooking.  She did it because she understood and took that responsibility to feed her family seriously.

I understand now that her dislike for cooking kept her from having any patience with us in the kitchen.  It was easier and faster for her to just do everything herself than to try and teach us.

One afternoon, my mom had invited some guests over to eat with us.  She called me in to the kitchen to cut up a tomato for a salad.  It was a task I had never really completed.  My Mom would usually call us in to help her because the guests were already there and she had fallen behind. It probably didn't help that we had the smallest kitchen ever in our home. Two people felt crowded in there. 

I reluctantly took the knife she handed me and tried to cut the tomato without smushing it with every slice I made.  It wasn't working too well.  My mom caught a glimpse of what I was doing and raised her voice to me asking "Don't you know how to cut a tomato?"

This immediately unnerved me and I stopped cutting just as one of the guests, Milagros, stepped in the kitchen.  I'm sure she saw my exasperated look and caught my mom's tone in the question she had just asked me.

Milagros calmly asked my mom to be more patient and then said that even though I may not be good at this right now, one day I would and that she was sure there were a lot of other things I was good at. Then she stood next to me as she took the time explain to me how to cut the tomato for a salad.

Milagros' comments that day did have a great affect on me. As any teenager I was hyper aware of all my faults. Her words that day helped me realize that even though I may not be good at something right now, some day I would be.  And even if I wasn't good at something, there were other things I was definitely good at.

Thank you Milagros! Today I am a good tomato cutter. No more smushing!

veggiegardener.com

{Family History Tuesday prompt found at designzbydede}

Did you ever pretend to be sick so that you could stay home from school? ~Family History Tuesday~

NO, but there was this one time that I refused to take our High School's Physical Education swimming class.

I am and have always been hyper-modest. I didn't want to be in a bathing suit around my classmates. I didn't tell my parents that, but told them that I didn't want to take the class.  They didn't question why.  I told them that I'd rather wake up in the wee hours of the morning and swim alone in the school's pool (which is what they required from me to pass the class), than appear in a school-issued swimsuit.

My father wrote a note to please excuse me from the class.  His reason was because I was sick.

The school accepted it and for two weeks my poor Dad took me at 5:00am every day to the pool, then brought me home to change and then took me back to school AND then he went to work.

What won't our parents do for us?

blancovintage.blogspot.com

{Family History Tuesday prompt can be found at designzbydede}

What do you recall as an important historical event during your lifetime? ~Family History Tuesday~

Elvis died on August 16, 1977 at Graceland. After being found on the bathroom floor, Elvis was rushed to the hospital where he was officially pronounced dead. (about.com)

This may seem like a strange event to remember, but I include it because I still remember it to this day.  It was the summer before I was to start first grade. I wonder if I knew then that my Mom was an Elvis fan.

We were sitting on the brick wall in the front yard of our neighborhood friends. We usually sat there when we played the game where we would shout "One way!" to the cars driving down our street the wrong way. It was loads of fun for us and we giggled the whole time. All of a sudden the teenage sister, of one of our friends, is frantically running down the street and she starts yelling "The King is dead, the King is dead!".  She looked so distraught, I wondered if this King (which happened to be her last name) was a family member.

The Space Shuttle Challenger disaster occurred on January 28, 1986, when the Shuttle broke apart 73 seconds into its flight, leading to the deaths of its seven crew members.(wikipedia)

I remembered the seven names of those crew members long after the tragedy. 

I was in my American History class in High School.  Suddenly we hear a commotion outside our class and a student pokes their head in our door. You could see he was upset.  He blurted out "The Challenger just exploded!" and then left.  Everyone knew what he was talking about.  It was big news that a School Teacher had been chosen, trained and prepared for her first flight into Space. Through daily news reports we had come to know Christa McAuliffe and her family. So, the first thing I remember thinking about were her two children, a boy and a girl, I believe. They had just lost their mother.

Erected in 1961, the Berlin wall separated eastern and western Berlin, Germany. After the Soviet Union fell  the Berlin wall fell as well on November 9, 1989, marking the end of the cold war.(blsciblogs.baruch.cuny.edu)

This was a glorious event! The Wall seemed to have lasted forever since it was all I knew in my lifetime.  At first, televison crews focused on one area, in particular, where a hole was being opened up through the wall.  It was mesmerizing to watch the crowds of overjoyed people helping to tear down the graffiti-covered cement walls. 

It was a time to celebrate the reunification of a country. Maybe more importantly it was the celebration of the reunification of families torn apart when the Wall was built.

On the morning of September 11, 2001, 19 terrorists hijacked four commercial airplanes. They crashed the first two into the twin towers of the World Trade Center complex in New York and a third plane into the Pentagon in Arlington, Virginia. A fourth hijacked plane, Flight 93, was crashed into an empty field in western Pennsylvania when the passengers fought back after hearing about the previous planes. The attacks killed 2,977 people. (911memorial.org)

I had just woken up to get ready for work. My roommates had the TV on and said a plane had just crashed into the World Trade Center.  I saw the far away image of the tail of a tiny plane smoking out of the side of the Tower. Not long ago, an aircraft had crashed into a building,  but it had been too small to cause any serious damage.  I left to take a shower. I finished my shower and started my usual routine of getting ready as I listened to the news on TV. I poked my head out just in time to see the second plane crash into the second tower! This was real. This was a passenger plane full of people. Someone meant to cause serious harm! 

My mind was reeling by the time I reached work.  Televisions were pulled out of storage and placed in public areas so our patrons could watch what was going on. I saw both Towers fall. I saw the Pentagon on fire.  I saw the burnt gash in the Pennsylvania field. I saw people running for their lives.  For the first time in my life I felt so unprotected and vulnerable along with everyone else that day.

 

from 911memorial.org

{Family History Tuesday prompts are found at designzbydede}

What one thing seems to make life hard for you? ~Family History Tuesday~

Quiet.

Yep, being a quiet, mild-mannered, behind-the scenes kind of person, I have found, can be uncomfortable for others.

Every so often there will be someone bold enough to tell me this.  I have no explanation for it. It is just the way I am.

There was a time in my life (i.e. High School) where this kind of personality was not to my liking. I wanted to be different.  I wanted to be like the others. My efforts to do so became so distasteful to me that I eventually stopped trying.  I went back to being me.

I have learned that being quiet can be misinterpreted as being stuck up --thinking you are better than others. Mild-mannered can be misconstrued as hiding something (think Superman except there's no hero here) and well, being behind-the-scenes will get you overlooked and unremembered every time.

There's a scene in the movie, PRINCESS DIARIES (the classic Ugly Duckling story), starring Anne Hathaway, between Anne's transformed character and the boy who always admired her from afar: 
(you only need to watch the first 17 seconds of this)

I always wanted to say that to my husband :)

(and that's why I always say it's a miracle I got married, for it truly is)



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{Family History Tuesday prompts are found at designzbydede every Tuesday}