I brought Red Hair Girl to the new Lucky Oven Bakery this morning, which has about 20 of these toy ovens mounted on one wall. My parents did not approve of plastic toys like these--we always had tasteful, educational toys.
They taught me something all right. They taught me envy.
I envied all the girls in the neighborhood who had Easy-Bake Ovens, and Barbies, and portable record players that played 45s, and comic books, and who got to watch daytime TV and eat Twinkies and bologna sandwiches, while I had to memorize Shakespeare sonnets, eat leftover lamb-and-garbanzo bean stew in the school cafeteria, wear linen dresses, and other improving stuff like that.
I liked those things well enough, but I've always wished my parents had given me both worlds:
why couldn't we have watched Death in Venice AND Bugs Bunny?
I've made up for that imbalance since.
They taught me something all right. They taught me envy.
I envied all the girls in the neighborhood who had Easy-Bake Ovens, and Barbies, and portable record players that played 45s, and comic books, and who got to watch daytime TV and eat Twinkies and bologna sandwiches, while I had to memorize Shakespeare sonnets, eat leftover lamb-and-garbanzo bean stew in the school cafeteria, wear linen dresses, and other improving stuff like that.
I liked those things well enough, but I've always wished my parents had given me both worlds:
why couldn't we have watched Death in Venice AND Bugs Bunny?
I've made up for that imbalance since.
2 comments:
RHG's clothes mirror the colors and styles of sportswear from that era. Think Sandra Dee and Annette Funicello* in capris and boxy, cropped blouses in colorways of aqua, avocado and tangerine.
RHG is 'killing' that wall of plastic ovens! (My younger sisters had to share one, which melted when they tried to make brownies - or something using a chocolate-looking batter. They used the wrong wattage light bulb. The melting plastic stunk something awful!)
*Did I spell Annette's last name correctly?
Stinky! No wonder my parents didn't like plastic.
We did help our mother cook all the time, so we got that.
RHG is very pleased with you comparing her to an avocado & tangerine!
I had to look it up--you did spell "Funicello" right.
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