This morning on Facebook, I saw a silly post that said: When I was a kid there were no tablets or phones. We read cereal boxes at breakfast.
That gave me a good laugh and brought back some memories. In the mornings my dad read the newspaper and listened to the Today show on the radio while drinking his coffee. In later years, he would have the TV on with the Today Show. I'm not sure how much he really paid attention to the news, but he did want to catch the weather report. My brothers and I would have our coffee/milk and a bowl of cereal before school. And yes, we read the back of the cereal boxes. Sometimes we fought over who got the cereal box to read.
Recently my sister and I talked about breakfast cereal being a comfort food for us - probably because we had it for breakfast almost every day or as a snack later in the day. My parents would let us pick out our own cereal at the grocery store. Some of us chose things that were fairly good for us, but sometimes we had to try whatever had the best commercial advertisement. I remember wanting to try Lucky Charms, but then the reality of the dried marshmallow was not so great. Pretty much cereal is sweet, so we liked it. I can remember my mom putting even more sugar on cereal, but not me. That was just too much!
Up until my sister went off to college, my dad would carry her to the breakfast table (well, when she got too big, she walked on her own). He put a pillow in her chair, set her there, and tucked a blanket around her. Then he set a bowl of cereal in front of her. Without saying a word, like a princess, she would eat. This routine was okay when she was little, but when she was about to go off to college, it was a bit ridiculous. I was visiting Mom and Dad one morning the summer before my sister went to Texas Tech. When this breakfast routine happened, I told my sister that at the dorm, she would have to at least point at what she wanted for breakfast.
As I look back to our breakfast routine, I realized that lots changed over the years. When I was young and at home, mornings were crazy. Mom and Dad both worked. They had to get ready and get all of us kids off to school. Mostly I remember walking to and from school. I do remember Mom dropping us off occasionally, but we always walked home. Breakfast was whatever you could make on your own. Cereal - we could all do. Often, both of our parents left the house before we did, and we got our own breakfast and got ourselves to school. Later when Kathy was little, my brothers and I would share walking to the babysitter's house and getting her after school. It was much easier when my brother and I started driving, but then we had even more responsibility for the younger kids - picking them up and dropping them off. Cereal was often and afternoon snack.
Because of all the rushing around in the mornings, most of the time we had cereal. I do remember my dad making soft boiled eggs now and then - it was a real treat and probably only a weekend breakfast. I do remember Dad teaching me to fry bacon and sausage and how to fry an egg (I think I was 9 or ten years old). After my dad retired, one of the things he did every morning was to fry up a pan of bacon. Then later, he would make his own eggs, but not necessarily eggs for everyone. Maybe Mom was not such a morning person, because I don't remember her cooking much in the mornings. I have a memory of her setting me on the kitchen counter and telling me to stir the eggs, but not to let them stick. She went off to the bathroom or something. I stirred those eggs until they were soup, but they did not stick! I don't think that was what Mom meant for me to do, but I was probably only 5 or 6 at the time. I was long gone from home by the time Dad and Mom retired and things changed quite a bit from the craziness of my childhood.
Toby, on the other hand, had a stay-at-home mom. He had real breakfast. To this day, he likes a real breakfast of eggs, meat, and bread of some sort. He loves to make white gravy to put over biscuits, and he is good at it. Since he works, we have a big breakfast of some sort on weekends, but not through the week. Dieting - don't ya know! That could all change this week. Halliburton is making major cuts on Thursday. We will see if we make the cut. Could be early retirement, and that is not such a bad thing.
6 comments:
I don’t remember breakfast until I started school. I never liked breakfast food. Mom worked and was gone in the a.m. My dad was at a ranch. My older sister would make a fried egg, 1 strip of bacon and 1 slice of toast. I refused and had a cup of coffee, half milk or cream if we had it, and toast with butter. I didn’t like cold cereal, we usually had Post Toasties and they would get soggy. Never ate cold cereal until we had kids. At Gene’s house they ate cold cereal with canned milk. I didn’t like that for sure although I like to drink canned milk with sugar in it. Hmmm.
Living now and wondering what tomorrow will bring is stressful. Larry has no work being a sports photographer and David was laid off last week. The others are working from home, but how long?? Sigh. We need to take the risk!
Oh my! I would get my cereal and sit down. My older brother would sit at the table, and my mother would put a bowl and spoon in front of him, then pour the cereal in his bowl and pour the milk! I couldn't believe it.
Once, I went canoeing in the Everglades for a week. I learned to eat cereal with air temperature water mixed with dry milk powder. At first I thought I would throw up. Now, I wouldn't think anything of it.
And yes, I would read the back of the cereal box. I think it was the juvenile equivalent of reading the paper in the morning.
FF
I never fill up my 5 gallon gas container. But gas is so cheap now, I went and got the no-alcohol stuff and poured some stabilizer in it. That should be enough gas for the lawnmower all year.
Can't see how this is good for the oil and gas industry...
Jo,
I know how you are about breakfast - your rice cakes with cream cheese(?). That doesn't sound bad to me. Some days, I just need a little bit of something and other days I need the full meal deal. Toby scrambled eggs with sausage and a green chili for supper the other night. The green chili had been left over from tortilla burgers the night before. The green chili that I had put on my burger was SO HOT that I took it off the burger, and the burger was still hot. Well, that green chili in the scrambled eggs was just as hot. Toby said, "You better call Gene and tell him we had green chilis that were too hot to eat."
FF,
Yes, "the juvenile equivalent of reading the paper" is exactly right. Canoeing in the Everglades sounds interesting and maybe a bit scary - so does cereal with water and powdered milk - Ha!
Your extra hot chile sounds perfect for Gene's brother, Roger. Not for me!
None of our kids like milk after drinking powdered milk in South America.
Etienne,
No, the oil and gas business is pretty bad these days. Mow your grass as often as you want and takes some drives around the countryside.
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