Afternoon Delights

After an aborted attempt to take Minchy for a walk on our favorite South Hill Recreation Trail (a disgustingly dirty stray came flying out of nowhere as we walked toward the trail, probably only wanted to play but Minchy read it as fighting and I hate having a dog on a leash around one who's off-leash), we headed down toward the lake to the dog park, then a walk down by the water. Thanking our lucky stars that most of the flooding missed us, and hurting for those folks who lost everything or even almost everything to the east of us.

Terriers wrestling at the park

"Hey, newbie, come this way!"

Hi.

What? Where?

Hi.

Ithaca College towers seen on the hill over the marina

It's not that you can't go home again; it's just that you shouldn't. Often.

As readers of this blog may well know, I recently spent several days in my hometown, ostensibly to help out after my dad had surgery. In addition to my adventures bat-hunting, here are some highlights of my time at home:

But with oxycodone

Being a hobo ROCKS

• My parents' sheltie, Jack, brings a bottle of pills out to my dad in his recliner every morning. He's like a pharmaceutical St. Bernard.
• My sister's consistent state of nomadism has led to various rooms in my parents' house being designated for storage of her belongings and furniture "until" she gets her own place/ gets settled in said place/ finds a new place etc. Hence my brother's old room being referred to as the "Hobo Room."
• My parents do not recycle. I was kind of shocked at how much this bothered me. Granted, I do live in Ithaca, NY, a place so crunchy it practically snaps, crackles and pops when you enter the city limits. But I found myself cringing as I put cardboard boxes into their trashcan. (Confession: we're fairly rabid recyclers at home as much to save money on garbage tags as to save the environment.)
• I learned the true origin of my childhood nickname, and it wasn't all cute & fuzzy bunnies.
• I was reminded of my family's deepest, darkest, most horrible secret:  (are you ready?)  We are related to Dick Cheney. Yup. Ol' Uncle Darth Cheney.

  

  Who invited this D-bag to the family reunion?

  My paternal great-grandmother was named Josephine Cheney; our family genealogist, Aunt Marnie, has confirmed that she and the Dark One were cousins or some such garbage. Go ahead. Shudder and shake your head like you just did a shot of Nyquil. You may want to do an actual shot of Nyquil to help you process this information or at least numb yourself. I know I did. We have decided to deal with this ugly fact by quoting a wall plaque I gave my mother one Christmas:  "If you can't be a good example, you'll just have to serve as a horrible warning."
• Leaving my mother's house can easily turn into her version of a "Favorite Things" episode of The Oprah Winfrey Show.

She will literally turn the house upside down to find things for you to take away with you. As she was rooting through the kitchen cupboards, I kept hearing in my head, "And YOU get a package of lemon jello!" "EVERYONE GETS A CAN OF GREEN BEANS!" "Would you like this dress that I bought that doesn't really fit me?" "DO YOU NEED WASHCLOTHS?" "Would you ever wear those fringed moccasins that you had in eighth grade again? THEY'RE IN MY CLOSET IF YOU WANT THEM." (Note: it just occurred to me that this may be a deliberate effort on her part to cut down on the piles of stuff that have driven us to name rooms in her house after homeless people. It may be some kind of hoarder preventative mechanism.)

Now, imagine the opposite of this.

I also went out one night with some girlfriends. I met my friend Aimee of Raimen Pride out at the one bar in our hometown besides the American Legion. It's a little one-room place with maybe five barstools. She was getting her ear talked off by the owner, who thought for some reason that it was acceptable and a good idea to tell her just exactly how he ripped off customers by charging more for drinks than they're worth. This fine gentleman greeted me and asked me what I wanted. I was honest.
I shouldn't have been.
I asked for a martini.
"A what? Honey, what the hell is that?"
I'm pretty sure my face went blank. "Oh, never mind, I'll just have a beer."
"Nah, we're gonna figger this on out! Jolene, get the book!"
The Book. What have I wrought?
Jolene opened "the book" and began reading, "2 1/2 ounces of gin..."
"Oh, hey, could I make that vodka, please?" I interrupted. Got a scowl from Jolene for 'fancyifying' things up even further.
"... 2 1/2 ounces of vodka, 1/4 ounce of vermouth- do we even got vermouth?? Yeah? Okay, if you say so."
Jolene began assembling the ingredients for my drink, and BarKeep told me, "Now it says here to add cocktail olives or a lemon twist. Well, honey, I ain't got no olives, so you'll have to make do with the lemon."
"Not a problem."
"No, Jolene, don't use the plastic cups! Get out the martini glass!"

Just add dust!

The martini glass.
"It's back there behind the bottles. The nice one."
The single martini glass in this establishment was so dusty that Jolene had to give it a vigorous scrubbing, thus sending my eagerness to taste this drink concoction right out the effin' window. Barkeep was going on about seeing people in the movies using a cocktail shaker with the ice then straining it into the glass, but karaoke had started by this point and drowned out his philosophical musings. Aimee named my drink a "Steuben-tini" after our home county of Steuben. I switched to vodka tonics after my one Steubentini. I think Barkeep & Jolene were relieved to return The Glass to its place of safety and honor.

The bar had an overly aggressively fruity air-freshener in the ladies' room, so much so that Aimee came out of the bathroom at one point and said, "I felt like I was peeing in a giant cantaloupe."

One of the girls' boyfriends picked us up and gave us a ride to the next town over where we proceeded to do shots. Now, maybe I hang out with a harder element, but in my corner of the world when someone refers to "shots" it means a small glass of either tequila or whiskey or possibly a speedbump (jager and red bull). In the Southern Tier, however, "shots" means wee fun-sized cups of fruity alcohol-infused mixed drinks. And are apparently the cue for the person designated in charge of the music to play some dreadful vocoded dance song whose lyrics, to the best of my deciphering ability, are "shots, shots, shots, shots, shots." Repeated. Repeatedly.

Must be the "before" pic

So thus concludes my adventures in Steuben County for this summer. In spite of my whining, I did enjoy it. After the bat-adventures died down, I got some rest and relaxation; sat out in the sun and swam in the pool, took long peaceful walks, read books, slept well, wrote a little, got treated to a long-overdue haircut (at a salon where Bill Pullman got a haircut- they still have a little baggie of his hair!), and was able to play the good kid by doing some of the cooking and cleaning and giving my mom a temporary break.

But I must admit, I've been dying for a real martini since I got back.

Hamchunkles? In which I have an identity crisis.

I may have to rename this blog.

Ham Chuck's the one on the right.

I just found out from a good friend of my father's that my dad's nickname for me, Hamchuck, is actually taken from the movie The Green Berets. (My dad has confirmed this.) There is a character named "Ham Chuck," (or in some places, "Ham Chunk") a Vietnamese orphan who is taken under the wing of one of the main characters. His journey is not exactly a laugh riot: During this period, Petersen befriends a young native boy named Ham Chuck, a war orphan who has no family other than his dog and the soldiers at the basecamp. As the battle rages, the dog is killed and the boy tearfully buries his faithful companion. Symbolically, the boy uses the stick he had used to dig the dog's grave as the tombstone. As the soldiers rush to their defensive positions, the stick is knocked away, leaving an unmarked grave.

Babies LOVE strung-out Diana Ross.

Jumpin' hot cats in a bamboo steamer! THAT's where my childhood nickname is from? A war orphan whose only family is his dog, who is also killed? Criminey, that's dark. I guess it fits in with other aspects of my childhood: my mom told me that my very first movie, when I was only an infant, was Lady Sings the Blues.

So I've spent all morning trying to figure out if my namesake was Ham Chuck or Ham Chunk. I kinda like Ham CHUNK better, because I instantly had this vision of a combination of the forlorn Vietnamese orphan and the chubby kid from The Goonies. Maybe Ham Chunk would do the Prosciutto Waddle instead of the Truffle Shuffle?

PS- In a Google search for images of Ham Chuck, I found this brother-in-arms:




Someday, perhaps, we shall meet.

I have given a name to my pain, and it is Batman.

I'm home at my parents' house this week, helping out as my dad recovers from surgery.
It's only been one night & it's already been a ride from hell. Allow me to explain.

My dad lost a leg in a brutal ambush in Vietnam. Almost all of his SEAL platoon was killed in the attack. My dad's left leg was blown off and his right was so badly burned that they weren't sure they would even be able to save that one. Nearly forty years of one leg taking the burden for two had bowed his leg and destroyed his knee. He went to his doctor for a knee surgery, but the doctor wouldn't do it because the leg was so badly scarred and still full of shrapnel. At which point my dad announced to his family that he wouldn't rest until he found someone who would do the surgery, which incited fears of him going to some quack south of the border who replaces kneecaps with avocado pits or whatnot.

But he found a very legit and highly recommended orthopedic surgeon at the Syracuse VA Hospital to do his surgery. He passed all the vascular tests and it was scheduled. (A main worry had been that he would throw a clot and stroke, due to possible vascular damage to the leg.)

My sister and I talked and divided up the family duty: she got pre-op and I got post-op. Kate went to the hospital with them, waited around with my mom and shuttled her between the hospital and the hotel where she was staying. I elected to drive them home after he was discharged and stay at their house for a couple of days to help out. I think she got the easy end of the bargain.

Yesterday morning, Brett drove me up to Syracuse and dropped me off at the hospital where I met up with my mom and my very agitated dad. He'd spent nine days in a hospital with excellent surgical, physical therapy and nursing care, but which was not exactly a paragon of cleanliness and hospitality. He'd shared a room with 2 other guys, shielded by a curtain that didn't completely block out the fluorescent light from the hallway. My dad is not a patient man to begin with; his hospital stay had frayed his nerves. He was rather brusque and curt as we loaded him into the car and began the three-hour drive home. It was a beautiful day and the scenery and the calmness my mom and I were struggling to project started to calm him down.

We got him home, settled him in a chair to nap, and I went out to get groceries to make dinner. I put the rosemary chicken with roasted vegetables in the oven and went out to the porch room to chat with my folks. Wasn't there but five minutes when my dad muttered, "Was that a big bat that just flew by?"
Pause.
"Yep. SH!T!"

My mother, who is terrified of bats, ran outside with their dog, Jack. I had to do recon. I went into the basement and checked around, no sign of him there, but while I was there, I spotted my old hockey stick and grabbed it. Upstairs, the first floor rooms were deemed clear. My mother shouted from the sidewalk out front, "Get the tennis racket in your father's closet!"  In my father's closet, all I could find was a ping pong paddle. I ran back out with it. "THIS is what you call a tennis racket?"

"It worked before!"
Oh hell.

While I was in there, looking at the ping pong paddle in my hand, I scanned the room and deemed it clear, so I closed the door and moved on.

The room I was staying in, my sister's former room, was clear, so I shut that door.

Bathroom, clear.

Office, clear.

Which left my brother's old room (known as the "Hobo Room" because my mom was storing stuff in piles and heaps in there) and the third floor attic loft, my former bedroom and now my brother's room. I peeked into the Hobo Room and saw an enormous black bat circling the ceiling fan. Kevin had been in bed, taking a nap, just a few feet below the bat.

I quietly called out, "Kevin?"

He said, "Kerry! I'm scared!"

"I know. You listen to me, okay? Slide out of bed to the floor and crawl over to the door. Close it when you're out. Okay?"

"Okay."

He ran past where I was crouched in the hall and shut himself up safely in the bathroom.

(Disclaimer: I was not aware that my brother is the assigned bat-slayer in my parents' house and has regularly dispatched several bats. Needless to say, I was ticked to find out that he abandoned me and left me the job.)

I ran back down to my dad and told him I had the bat secured in the Hobo Room.
"Okay, good," he nodded. "Now take these toy butterfly nets and catch it."

"What?"

"Turn off the ceiling fan, sit on the bed, wait it for it to come to you, and catch it in the net."

Excuse me. I did not sign up for this.

But I had to, because my dad had just gotten out of the hospital, he still has the stitches in his knee and was weak from the travel.

I put my hair up under a baseball hat and went upstairs.

I just could not bring myself to sit on the bed and wait for the bat to come within two feet of me. I tried. I managed to get the fan turned off. I've since requested a pith helmet and full-length safari jumpsuit for future endeavors as I feel if I had the proper uniform and equipment, I might have been more successful. In past bat operations, I've been more than willing to wield a large stick and help smack it along its way outside. (My crowning glory was a line drive hit to a bat with my mom's ceiling fan duster, in my underwear, without my glasses or contacts, at about 4am. Knocked that sucker right out the door onto the porch.)

As it stands, my dad had to come upstairs and sequester himself to take care of the situation. And it turns out, he wasn't able to catch the beast in the toy butterfly net, nor shoo it out the open window. He knocked it out of the air with one of his crutches and killed it. I was summoned (with gloves) to come dispose of the body.

An enormous glass of wine was required after this.

It's only day one. By day five, I may be crouched in the bottom of a closet, muttering inanities to myself in a language I created that only I know.

I'll keep you all updated.

Calling all campers ...

So I'm doing Camp NaNoWriMo (National Novel Writing Month) to have the inspiration to perhaps finally finish this damned novel I've been writing. It's got me thinking about camp.

I've only ever been to swim training camp. When I was little, I was terrified my parents would send me to the Young People's Day Camps that were advertised on TV. (Although I grew up in what is commonly referred to as the Southern Tier of NY- the yellow part on the map, we received two channels out of New York city, which exposed us country kids to all kinds of local ads really only meant for the five boroughs.)

Maybe my fear of "camps" had something to do with my early interest and terror of the Holocaust and the meaning that the word "camps" meant in that context.

I'm not sure where or how (or frankly, why) I learned about the Holocaust so early.  I have a suspicion I saw something on television and it required an explanation. I think it honestly was just too horrific a thing for a kid to be able to completely comprehend all at once, which was why I was so fascinated by it and always searching for more information about that horrible time in history. I remember reading the Diary of Anne Frank very early on, maybe when I was eight or nine years old. Something about that little girl who had to hide with her family from "the bad people" really struck me, in ways that proved none too healthy later on.

Years ago, I finally confessed to my mother that for a very long time, I thought the Jehovah's Witnesses were modern-day Nazis. (No offense meant to any Witness readers of this blog- we're an equal opportunity offender here at Hamchuckles.)  Let me explain.

My mom stayed home with us until I was about 15. Which meant when I wasn't in school, she was home with us, usually doing housework in between watching snippets of soap operas or Sesame Street. The phone would ring- my mother would answer it and I would hear a conversation similar to this:

Jehovahs? No shit!

MOM: Hi, Carol. How are you?  What? Here? They just left your house? Then there isn't much time! Thanks, gotta go!

My mother would hang up the phone, grab my baby sister and take my hand and drag us into the basement where we would crouch on the cellar steps. "But what about Kevin?" I would pipe up. My brother was upstairs, taking a nap.
"Shh! They'll hear you!"
And then, the knock at the door. I held my breath. Katie gurgled and start making her chirpy baby noises. My mother covered her mouth with her hand in an effort to silence her. The television was still on in the living room, but it was too late to go turn it off.

Another knock.

My heart beat so fast I could feel it in my ears. It was clear to me- we had to stay perfectly quiet or the "bad people" would come get us. After what seemed like hours, my mother would finally deem it safe for us to emerge from the cellar steps. She would follow protocol and get on the phone with the next neighbor to warn them of their arrival.

One time I was bold enough to run to the front door to try catch a glimpse of them. I saw no jackbooted, swastika-wearing, goosestepping storm troopers, only a handful of couples in ill-fitting suits and off-brand Laura Ashley dresses (with their hair inevitably french-braided) climbing into a slightly rusty windowless van.

While unknowingly scaring the crackers out of me, my mother's secretive technique had a hidden benefit of bolstering my little fantasy life and way of coping with historical facts that were just too horrible to reconcile with life as I knew it. Every time the "bad people" went away from our house empty-handed, it was a win for the "good people." I imagined myself there with Anne Frank, but in my version, the "bad people" gave up and went away forever, and the Franks, Van Daans and Mr. Dussel were able to come out of hiding and live normal, long lives. I've read that it's a common coping mechanism to want to rewrite history with a happy ending: Anne Frank escapes to America, the Titanic avoids the iceberg, no one goes to work at the Trade Center that day.

Of course, my mother had no idea I had been going through my own personal Nazi occupation until I told her many, many years later. She just shook her head and tried to figure out how she'd ended up with such a whacked-out kid.

Anyone going door-to-door still elicits my suspicion and a knot of fear in the pit of my stomach. Whether it's kids selling candy or evangelicals looking for a moment of my time for Christ, my first instinct is to gather up my loved ones and head for the staircase. I suppose it's good training for the Zombie Apocalypse.

Welcome back, plotter.

So, I had my 20th high school reunion this weekend, and it was ... weird. And not just because I had some major stomach malfunction from the unbearable heat/humidity and a viral bug that had been going around at work. It was surreal how quickly whatever kind of identity you've built for yourself as an "adult" goes right out window and you feel just like that scrawny, four-eyed fifteen-year-old geek again.

Don't get me wrong; it was great seeing a lot of the people I'd been in school with since kindergarten. We didn't have a ten-year reunion, so for a lot of us, we hadn't seen each other since graduation.

Mrs. Schmenkman, front row, center

The first night was a casual cocktail hour sort of thing that only maybe a dozen or so people attended. It was really very lovely. I saw my best friend from my high school days, Mrs. Schmenkman (not her real name, but what we called each other), a person I hadn't seen in nearly 15 years. We were inseparable from about ninth grade on. Mrs. Schmenkman was (and still is) a beautiful, petite blonde with freckles and big hazel eyes and she could make me laugh so hard I'd lose all control and dignity. We spent our high school years trying desperately to get rides to parties out in the woods where we'd sip lukewarm, foamy beer out of plastic cups and inevitably have to pee out in the woods somewhere, hoping beyond hope that one of the either of us would have a tissue or something in her pocket. We were sidekicks who gloried in our immaturity and with her by my side, I felt justified in my oddity. We grew apart in later years; she had a baby right after graduation and I went off to college where I found a world that not only tolerated but appreciated and valued my unusualness.

So it was wonderful to catch up with Mrs. Schmenkman Friday night and relive all our adventures.

I was nauseated most of Saturday- from hangover, from heat, from the aforementioned stomach bug, I'm not sure. It was unpleasant, to say the least, and the nausea did not go away when we walked into the Saturday night reunion festivities. How strange to see people you'd known from age five and feel awkward making small talk about where they live, what they do for a living, their families! Even more awkward to see an ex you hadn't seen in about fifteen years whom you did not think would be attending.

My stomach settled after awhile and I found another friend to hang out with, we'll call her Raimen here, after her fabulous blog. Raimen was another geek friend who had felt isolated in high school (she was also pals with the fantastic Mrs. Schmenkman). We wrote a soap opera together in early high school called As the Nose Runs. She too was apprehensive about revisiting the past. Fortunately (for us, not her, really) Mrs. Schmenkman had to work during the reunion at the bar next door. Raimen and I decided we'd sneak out and say hi to her. Mrs. Schmenkman's bar had a kick-ass Irish rock band (think Flogging Molly with a touch of Dropkick Murphys- awesome cover of The Wreck of the Edmund Fitzgerald, BTW). Needless to say, our visit wasn't our last. I was so grateful Raimen was there- someone else who didn't necessarily think high school was the best years of our lives and felt silly pretending it had been.

Apparently all kinds of bonding took place while we were gone, including the class picture, which we laughed about missing, but now seems like one of those little kind of ice-breaking activities that brings everyone together. From that point on in the night, I felt eerily like I did in high school: on the outside looking in.

Me, bottom row, right. Shades.

Let me clarify: I wasn't shunned or bullied. I certainly didn't have it as hard as some kids and I think I was relatively well-liked. There was a tendency by classmates to regard me as younger than them, but I was tiny with a round face and looked about 12 years old during my senior year; it was fairly justified. I did spend most of my time with kids either older or younger than me. The older group was more ambitious- they would have little contests to push each other to get better grades. I remember being asked by a classmate of mine after a test, "What did you get?" "98," I replied. "What did you do- try?" she sneered. Uh yeah. That's the point, right? The younger group just had different interests than the people in my class. I remember coming into a shared study hall one day and seeing several of the girls in grades below me that I knew from my dance classes and the school musicals looking just as bleary-eyed as I was. One of them came up to me and said, "Did your mom let you stay up to watch all of Gone With the Wind on TCM last night, too?" No one in my particular class had any idea of what that movie was when they were 16, let alone would've begged their parents to let them stay up until 2am on a school night to watch an Oscar-winning epic about the Civil War.

My class seemed to have a fairly set list of prescribed "likes" that I just didn't agree with: Motley Crue's Dr. Feelgood was the album everyone had and was played at every party. I was desperate for new music- I'd had a subscription to Rolling Stone since I was in ninth grade and I used to buy albums no one had ever heard of based on the reviews. I loved what little punk music I could get my hands on. (See this post.) I used to hide my Social Distortion tape in a Dr. Feelgood case so I wouldn't get ragged on. (This was precipitated by my boyfriend looking over the cover art on the Social Distortion album I was listening to during the midday break at a swim tournament and asking me "What the hell is this junk?") Everyone loved Julia Roberts and Pretty Woman. To this day, I cannot stand that movie, and I find Julia Roberts fairly off-putting. I was a fan of Audrey & Kate Hepburn, Grace Kelly, The African Queen, West Side Story, Louis Armstrong in High Society. I remember hiding Alice's Adventures in Wonderland behind a copy of 17 magazine in the school library. I just always felt like I didn't belong. Everyone just "got" something I didn't; they seemed to be sure of themselves in a way that I wasn't.

1st grade. Bottom row, left. Red tights. Saddle shoes.

And here it was again. They were dancing and laughing and carrying on like they'd known each other their whole lives. WHICH THEY HAD. WHICH I HAD. But I still felt so apart from them.

It probably helped that most of them had been at the family picnic with their kids earlier in the day that I didn't attend. I imagine that the common experience of being parents bonds you with people somewhat easily. Being one of the few (maybe only at this gathering? I didn't ask) people without offspring does set you apart from the group like nothing else can. I felt disjointed and discombobulated the whole next day, until I had our usual Sunday night dinner with my usual gang. I began to settle down, feel like I was in my own skin again, and yes, feel right with the choices I'd made in my life, even if they were very different from the choices my classmates had somehow all made together.

My first year of college I came across a quote on a Celestial Seasonings teabox. (Do you know they don't print quotes on their boxes of tea anymore? It's a travesty, if you ask me.)

It said: Persons of genius are .. more individual than any other people- less capable, consequently, of fitting themselves, without hurtful compression, into any of the small number of molds which society provides in order to save its members the trouble of forming their own character. - John Stuart Mill.

Now, I am certainly not claiming myself to be a "person of genius" but the part about hurtful compression really struck a nerve with me. Both my parents, my mom in particular, had always (albeit gently) tried to convince me to put some effort into FITTING IN. In other words, stop writing stories about vegetables with superpowers and be more like the popular girls. I did try. Or, well, at least, I tried to hide my oddness behind the bland veneer of what everybody did or liked. I thank whatever gods may be for college- and for my having chosen a school with vigorous music, media, and theatre programs, therefore being plentiful in artistic, creative nutjobs. College was such a revelation- being driven was respected and appreciated; having an off-color, absurdist sense of humor was a plus. I didn't have to pretend to be like anyone else anymore. Standing out was much better than fitting in.

So reunion's over, and I can go back to my life. If we have a 25-year one, well, yeah, I'll probably go. I wanna try again, remember who I am this time, be proud of it even if my life is vastly different from everyone else's. And hopefully next time I won't have an upset stomach.

Free Wee-Wee Pad with Each Purchase

So a few nights ago, someone mentioned The Poconos and we realized we all know the jingle for "beautiful Mount Airy Lodge" no matter where in New York state we grew up. Beyond religion, race, creed or hot dog preference, the most common unifying element in a NY state childhood in the 70s/80s were the 'local' commercials broadcast from the New York city channels that we were able to receive.

WOR & WPIX were apparently such powerhouses that they broadcast all throughout the state, exposing us backwoods upstate kids to such wonders as Petland Discount Stores, Crazy Eddie, Beautiful Mount Airy Lodge, and Young People's Day Camp. More so than favorite tv shows, movies or music, these commercials were our shared language, something that ingrained itself into our collective unconscious in such a way that 30+ years later, we're all still able to repeat them word for word.

My college roommate, dear friend & dyed-in- the-wool Brooklynite Robin was stunned to discover that I knew the same local tv commercials she knew by heart, even though we had grown up on different ends of the state. In fact, she was so impressed with my familiarity with Petland Discounts that she sent me a commemorative wee-wee pad from the actual store. (I was clueless for years as to what a wee-wee pad was. They never explained or demonstrated in the commercial, and our dog growing up would never have done something so wussy as take a leak on what was apparently a stretched-out flattened diaper.) I couldn't find one from the 70s, but here's one from the 80s that'll give you the basic flavor.

"Beautiful" Mount Airy Lodge in the Poconos was all I knew of adult glamour for far too long. So this is what adults did without their kids! They rode horses, ice skated (in professional ice-dancing costumes, nonetheless), drank cocktails after skiing, stalked tennis players from the sniper seats in some kind of indoor arena while innocently holding rackets, soaked in bathtubs filled with bubbles and framed by red velvet curtains, WAIT- was that a stripper pole in the "beautiful rooms"??? See for yourself:

What's funny is that all of my friends (and myself) insist that there was a shot of the infamous 'champagne glass hot tub' in the commercials. Turns out THAT fine piece of architecture was at Caesars Poconos Resorts:

Ewwwwwwwwww. For starters, how the hell do you get up there? And back down? Do you have to get a bellboy to bring a ladder by? How embarrassing! What a cocktail of microbes that thing must be.

And how about Carvel and Cookie Puss?? When I was little, there were still Carvel stores around. I always got a Carvel ice cream cake for my birthday, even though it was December 23rd. My mom still gets laughs out of the year I insisted on the "Home for the Holidays" cake for my birthday. They had scintillating commercials:

Just look at that thing! How frickin' scary is Valentine's Day Cookiepuss??? He looks like some kind of zombie Groucho Marx cake.

And last but not least, Young People's Day Camp. This place used to scare the crap out of me for some reason. I got it in my head that my parents would send me there if I was bad. (I think my mom might've jokingly suggested that. I was a serious kid- there was no joking with me.) Anyone else would look at all those happy, feathered-hair 70s city kids having fun playing games and think this was great, but it was the epitome of hell for me. There was just something ominous about the way the announcer said "LONG swims in the pool" that made it sound like you'd be forced to stay in the water and swim laps until you'd done your penance.