Barb and I have been participating in an email “to and fro” regarding our pre-teen children. This brought back a particularly sour memory from my adolescent years. Who hasn’t heard the story from the parents or grandparents about how harsh their life was? If it wasn’t my mother continually retelling the tale about how she had to go to school with just mayonnaise sandwiches because they were too poor to afford anything else to put between the bread, it was my Grandfather proudly proclaiming his family existed on nothing but cornbread and beans during the Great Depression.

As I look at the current state of my own children, I finally understand what the “old coots” were talking about. My boys live a pampered existence compared to my own humble beginnings. They’ve got several video game systems, plenty of toys, decent and fashionable clothing & a wide variety of food at their beck and call.

In my youth, video games required quarters which were extremely difficult to come by. If I got a bag of plastic army men from the Dime Store it was “Christmas Come Early” & one had to be creative after returning home ravished from school. I recall plenty of meals having to spread peanut butter on saltines because there was no bread, or mixing that nasty condensed can of milk with water to pour over the mashed up crumbs in the bottom of the Cornflakes box.

The food, toys & video games a resourceful pre-teen such as myself could deal with. It was the clothes that invoked that sour memory. During that crucial period of hormone development when females started to look like something other than a “bad pick” for the kickball game, my mother let me down in a cruel and unusual way.

The 80’s saw the rise of Levi’s button-fly jeans, Nike high-tops, Vans shoes, Adidas & Reebok sport shirts, Izod, Polo, Chams, docksiders & parachute pants. To be a marketable dating commodity, one strove to adorn his attire with such labels.

Remember me, the boy with no toys? Boys with no toys tend to search for other means to entertain themselves, I found sports. On any given day, I could be found playing football, baseball or basketball. This is all good and well except that sports have this nasty habit of putting holes in the knees of pants.

To this day, I will not shop at Sears because they invented the “Tuffskin Jeans”. You ever see a pair of these things? Do you know what I’m talking about? Think denim times ten! Dear old Mom loved them because they were indestructible. I think this material had to be the only thing left after the nuclear blasts on Hiroshima and Nagasaki. After removal, folding the jeans was impossible so your best bet was to stand them in a corner. I won’t even start on shoes and shirts. Suffice it to say, Tuffskins are solely responsible for my social downfall.

So my mother has her mayonnaise sandwiches, my grandfather his cornbread and beans, his father ate rock soup & was happy to get it… I suppose I’ll be telling my Grandchildren about the Tuffskin jeans!

Stephanie sent me this pix and I just had to blog it. I’m not sure if it’s for real or maybe folks with a sense of humor “staged” it. In any event, there are a lot of characteristics one can associate with the “Redneck” culture. Let’s see who can point out the most Redneck stereotypes. 10 NightOwl points to the winner.

It seems like I get continuing education as a parent every day. Jennifer sent me a link to a story that happened close to where Barb lives near Baltimore. A popular fad with the kids nowadays is to make homemade bombs. Apparently, this can be accomplished by mixing some common household chemicals into a soda bottle and dropping in a few strips of aluminum foil. A chemical reaction ensues and eventually the bottle will explode. The culprits find it particularly amusing to place these “bombs” into people’s mailbox where the eventual explosion creates shrapnel. In this instance, a 17 month old baby found a bottle and drank before his Grandmother could stop him. he’s still alive, but in critical condition.

I guess I’ll be keeping my eye’s open for bottles lying around at the playground from now on!

In other news, my favorite “Trailer Trash” pop star Britney Spears is making headlines for a couple of reasons. First, it’s rumored that there is a Paris Hilton - like sex tape in existence of her and Federline (Cletus) in their pre-baby days. I’m thinking this might be a hoax cuz it’s difficult for me to place faith in news deriving from a dot com that ends in (.za).

Second, msnbc is reporting that there is already trouble in paradise as Britney is allegedly complaining about the paternal qualities of Cletus. Umm… considering Federline’s track record, this story gets my Captain Obvious tag. Apparently, all her riches never prepared her for the “Bad Boy”.

I give it another month… tops!