Reliving an Embarrassing Moment from My Youth

How many people can say they never had an embarrassing moment when they were young? I'd wager that pretty much everyone has had at least one or two (if not dozens or hundreds). Once you grow out of the days of diapers, cribs, car seats and strollers you become more aware of your surroundings and start to realize that the world, in fact, doesn't revolve around you. I believe that has something to do with the whole idea of the development of the id, the ego and the superego. But what I'm mostly concerned with is what happens when you realize that there are other people who have their own point of view, and, more importantly, that THEY can see YOU doing embarrassing or stupid things. And when you do have an embarrassing moment it can feel (especially when you reach the teenage years) like, once again, the world DOES revolve around you--in the sense that everyone is aware of your embarrassing moment.

This story is about one small, rather isolated embarrassing moment that happened to me when I was a kid which unexpectedly came back recently to haunt me in the present. The funny thing is that there's certainly no reason that I NEED to share this here. I could simply never tell anyone about this event and it would just go to the grave with me, never to be known by another person. But what's the fun in that? For the sake of future history I will now tell you about my formerly private embarrassing moment memory!

That's kind of a big build-up. Now that we're at the point of laying things bare I have to confess that this is indeed a VERY minor moment that probably won't seem very meaningful (or even embarrassing) if you weren't there--and if you weren't a kid at the time. But I WAS there! And I WAS a kid!

When I was in middle school I used to have to walk down our street and then another street that went down a hill to the little convenience store that was at the bottom of the hill to catch the school bus. Thanks to the magic of Google Maps I can show you the exact site of this embarrassing moment--or at least the moment it started anyway. This "moment" actually lasted for an entire school day. Perhaps "moment" isn't really the right term for this experience, but we'll stick with it. And it's also possible that the extreme length of this particular embarrassing "moment" is a big part of the reason it has stuck with me through all these years.

Anyway, as I mentioned, I was in middle school at the time. I don't remember the exact year, but it was probably around 1980 or '81 and I was probably in 5th or 6th grade (give or take a year). Since I had to walk a pretty good distance to get to the bus stop I always seemed to be in a rush to get up, get dressed, eat something for breakfast and get out the door to make it to the bus stop on time. This day most likely wouldn't stand out from all the others and I'm sure I wouldn't even have any recollection of it at all if I hadn't made one minor but embarrassing mistake while rushing to get ready. Unfortunately I didn't notice that mistake until it was too late. I was already at the bus stop and certainly didn't have the time to run back home and fix it. And, here's the spot where I noticed that mistake:

This is Charlie's Variety, the little convenience store located close to my home in the little town I grew up in. There was actually a Cumberland Farms store/gas station on the opposite side of the street too. It seemed like a luxury to have two such convenience stores so conveniently close to us. Anyway, around this time the school bus would pick us up right at the corner where Charlie's was located. I remember sitting or standing on or near the concrete steps you can see on the side of the building. At one time there must have been a door there (or maybe it was a pedestal of sorts for an ice machine or vending machine or heating/cooling equipment?), but for as long as I could remember (not a terribly long time, as I was only about ten) they were simply steps to nowhere--a convenient place to wait for the school bus.

Here's a view of the hill that I'd walk down to get to Charlie's:

 At other times I recall the bus stop being on either side of the road at this little bridge just before Charlie's. You can see the fence on left side and the old railing on the right, as well as the concrete decking of the bridge under which a little stream would run.

But in this case the bus stop was right at Charlie's Variety. I remember that because this is where I made the discovery of my mistake. As I stood or sat on that little "stoop" waiting for the bus I happened to look down at my feet. Not expecting to see anything out of the ordinary I was mortified when I realized that I had managed to put on TWO DIFFERENT SNEAKERS when I was getting ready for school! I couldn't believe my eyes, or my stupidity! There were my two feet, just where they should be. But on each one was a different sneaker. And they were noticeably different too. I don't remember the brands (maybe one was a KangaROOS and one a New Balance?), but the colors and styles were certainly different, and it was quite plain to see that they didn't match.

 

Whatever brand, style and color they were I was flabbergasted. How could I have done something so dumb? Surely the entire school would notice my mistake and laugh at me all day long! Did I have time to run home and fix my mistake? Not without missing the bus. I didn't dare try. Apparently having to walk to school and being very late was not something I was willing to do. I just sucked it up, got on the bus when it showed up and...waited to be humiliated.

To be honest, I don't really recall many specific details from that day, other than sitting at a desk (in math class?) and crossing my ankles hoping to keep my mismatched footwear as unnoticeable as possible. I probably did that in every class. I spent the day petrified that I'd be called out for my ridiculous and unintentional fashion statement. But, in the end I don't think that ANYONE even noticed. Or at least nobody said anything to me. Somehow I survived what I thought was going to be the most embarrassing moment of my life! Needless to say, there were plenty more that followed over the next few decades.

After making it through that long day the memory of the incident stayed with me for a long time. Over the years the sharpness of it dulled and it receded further toward the back of my mind--but it never quite left altogether. Which brings us to the present. The title of this post refers not only to that old embarrassing moment, but also to "reliving" it. I've written quite a few times about "Resurrecting the Past", where I attempted to bring some part of my youth into the present. Sometimes it was a specific object, like an old drive-in speaker or a rotary dial telephone. And other times it was more elaborate, like when I attempted to recreate a specific night from 1983 (Resurrecting the Past: January 21, 1983). That one took two parts to fully tell the story.  But why would I want to "resurrect" a memory like this embarrassing moment? Well, I wouldn't! But sometimes life has a way of surprising us.

The old adage says that "those who do not learn from history are doomed to repeat it" (or something to that effect).  I think this saying is mostly in reference to major events in history--stuff like World Wars and other conflicts, controversial and dangerous political decisions and stances... As mortifying as my little embarrassing moment felt to me at the time, it certainly didn't rise to the level of being something "historic". And I do believe that I learned from it--at least as much as one can from such an incident. I certainly never completely forgot it. But for whatever reason, the universe decided that it was time for me to repeat my past. And here's how it happened...

We currently live within walking distance to our  church. It only takes about ten minutes to walk there from our apartment. The Wife is in the church choir. She will sometimes take the Little Monsters with her for Sunday School while she goes to choir rehearsal at 9:00AM. This gives me an extra 45 minutes or so to relax a bit and get myself to church in plenty of time for the 10:00 service. But some things never change. Just as I did as a kid when getting ready to head out to the bus stop, I always seem to find myself rushing out the door at the last minute to make it on time. One recent Sunday was no exception. I grabbed my jacket, put on my shoes and headed out the door. I was able to get to church just in time to take a seat and settle in a bit before the first hymn started. I stretched out my legs, looked down and...realized that I had managed to put on TWO DIFFERENT SNEAKERS! In this case I was lucky that I don't have a very diverse wardrobe, and both of the pairs of sneakers I picked from looked very similar in color and style. But I knew the same mistake had been made once again, and it felt like everyone else around me would know it as well. What a familiar feeling, dredged up from so long ago.

 

Without having any intention to do so, I had unwittingly managed to resurrect that same uncomfortable feeling of embarrassment that I had felt when I looked down at my feet at the bus stop all those years ago! I wasn't sure whether to laugh or cry at the realization, but I was quick to cross my ankles and put them as far under the seat as possible to prevent people from noticing my mistake. I'm pretty sure that nobody else realized anything was amiss. But that did little to make me feel better about the fact that I had managed to do it once again, some forty years later! The more things change the more they stay the same I guess. At least this time I was able to take some pictures and save the embarrassing moment for posterity. Why? I have no idea. But there it is, for all to see.

Nothing to see here!

Draclea vs. Frakenstein

Let me start off by answering a couple questions that the title "Draclea vs. Frakenstein" might understandably raise. First off, no, the title is not misspelled or a typo (even if I'm seeing the little red lines under the words as I type them, indicating that I need to fix them!). And, no, this is not a post about the 1971 movie "Dracula vs. Frankenstein". And, to be honest, this post actually isn't even about either Dracula OR Frankenstein at all! I'm sorry for any confusion and I apologize if anyone feels misled or is concerned that this entire post might be some sort of clickbait. So, let's get to what this post really IS about, shall we? Hopefully all will become clear very soon...

Today is The Little Monster's birthday. As some long-time readers may recall, the biggest impetus for the launch of this blog was to share my experiences raising our two daughters as a stay-at-home dad. In June of 2010 (when Monster Dad went online) The Little Monster was actually little. She was only five years old at the time, with a lot of growing and life experiences ahead of her. We've had a lot of adventures since then and she has already done a lot of growing. She has had quite a few birthdays since then too. What makes this particular one special enough to write about? Well, it's actually a pretty major one, and one that I'm finding a bit scary to think about and even kind of hard to fathom. Today The Little Monster turns THIRTEEN! Today she is a TEENAGER! Where has the time gone? How has this happened? And, what the heck does all this have to do with "Draclea" and "Frakenstein"?

Well, I've chosen to celebrate The Little Monster turning into a not-so-little teenager by remembering something she used to do when she still WAS little. Since a big part of being home with her for me was to share some of my childhood interests in movies, music and TV shows with her, it's probably not too surprising that she would gain a certain knowledge or awareness of both Dracula and Frankenstein. Most of that knowledge came from the movies "Abbott and Costello Meet Frankenstein" (which featured Dracula and the Werewolf in addition to Frankenstein) and "Young Frankenstein". We used to watch films like those pretty regularly back in the early days.

But, as happens to many kids, my Little Monster had a tough time pronouncing some words when she was young until she figured out what they were supposed to sound like. One of her little quirks was that for some reason she had a tough time with certain words that featured a "U" in them. And another thing she would sometimes do (also not particularly uncommon for young kids) was to randomly drop a letter or two from some words.

I noticed both of these traits pretty quickly after she started talking. When a word had a "U" in it she would skip the "U" and then change the sound of the word after where the "U" should have been. I think she must have just thought she had heard some of these words a certain way and stuck with that as her pronunciation. After all, she wasn't spelling or reading yet, so it's not like she'd say "Wait, this isn't how the word is pronounced, it's spelled completely differently!" Everything was pretty much based on sound at that point. The most obvious example of this quirk was when she'd mention "Dracula". Instead of saying it the familiar way, and how it's spelled, she'd pronounce it as... "Draclea" (Drak-Lee-Uh). And this wasn't the only word with a "U" that this happened to. She also pronounced Regular as "Reglea" (Reg-Lee-Uh), and Ambulance as "Ambleance" (Amb-Lee-Ance). Those are the only examples that I can think of, but you can probably get the point.

The dropping of letters when pronouncing words also seems like a common thing for young kids just learning to speak. I can imagine that the word Frankenstein would most likely be pretty intimidating for one of those new-talkers. It's a rather long word that has many letters and three syllables. And if you saw that word spelled out on a TV or movie screen it would probably look kind of scary (even from just a pronunciation standpoint), especially when you don't even know how to read yet! The Little Monster would drop the "N" and pronounce the word as... "Frakenstein" (Fray-ken-stine). I don't have too many examples of other words that she would do this to, but the one that I can think of is very similar. I used to always read books to her at bedtime (a ritual that I really miss, though at the moment I'm still doing it with the Tiny Creature--at least until she decides she's too old and grown-up to be read to). Some of the books we used to read included the series that featured Franklin the turtle. You can probably guess where this is going. Yes, The Little Monster pronounced Franklin's name as "Frakin" (Fray-Kin). She went ahead and dropped both the "N" AND the "L" for that one.

Here's our copy of the book Franklin's Halloween:

In which Franklin goes to the Halloween party as "Franklinstein"

Time passed and The Little Monster continued to grow, learn and experience life. She eventually found herself in Preschool and then Kindergarten. By that point she was starting to really learn her letters and words, as well as how to read. I was constantly surprised that as she aged she continued to use her "Dracleas" and "Frakensteins" in conversation. When I first heard them there was an impulse to correct her. But it just sounded so cute that I didn't want to "ruin it" by making her grow up too fast. However, after a while I did start to get a bit concerned that she wasn't figuring out the correct way to pronounce certain words. It didn't seem like too big of a deal (like a learning disability or something like that), but I was kind of wondering why she hadn't grown out of it. And I was getting worried that maybe I should have stepped in earlier to correct her. But in the end it STILL sounded kind of cute to hear her talk about how something was "Reglea" and that an "Ambleance" was coming down the road.

She did continue to grow though, of course. As her age was reaching double-digits and she was learning all kinds of new things at school something happened that I managed to miss in the hustle and bustle of day-to-day life. Somewhere along the line she did indeed correct herself and started pronouncing the words correctly. I have no idea exactly when it happened or how it happened. Did she realize her mistake and correct it on her own when she was able to read? Did a teacher or friend at school correct her? Did she simply "grow out of it"? Whatever happened, the days of "Draclea" and "Frakenstein" were suddenly over and she was just that much less of a Little Monster. I'll always be her Dad of course, but I do find it kind of sad to think that at this point she's closer to things like college and getting married than she is to the days when we'd hang out and watch stuff like "Draclea" and "Frakenstein" movies together.

HAPPY 13th BIRTHDAY LITTLE MONSTER!!!

...even if you're not so little anymore!

Marking a Minor Milestone for Monster Dad

2018 has become the year of The Return of Monster Dad, to some extent. I have made a lot of noise about the fact that I have NOT been making a lot of noise around here for some time now. While I never intended to stop writing Monster Dad posts, it just kind of happened. As chronicled in many posts over the past year (including "The 2018 State of the Blog Address") Monster Dad has always remained in my mind, and I've have many, many post ideas in my head over the years--even if they've never managed to get out of my head and posted here.

So what "milestone" are we marking here? Well, it's admittedly a pretty minor one, but one that I think is a good sign for things to come. On Halloween (October 31) I posted the blog "My Favorite Halloween Costume of All-Time (Ben Cooper Star Wars Stormtrooper)". It was the fourth post of October and the 11th post of 2018. Those aren't very impressive numbers by any means, but those numbers are exactly what the minor milestone is all about. Please allow me to explain why those seemingly meaningless numbers mean so much to me.

Monster Dad started in June 2010. I was new to the world of blogging and didn't really know what I was doing at that point. But I considered it a success that I was able to write 23 posts over the last six months of that first year. 2011 was the highlight year of Monster Dad. I kind of got into a groove and ended up writing 62 posts that year. My unofficial goal was to average a post a week, so with 62 I was actually over that target by ten posts! But then things began to change...

I was still writing regularly at the beginning of 2012, but my YouTube channel really began to take off. The focus of that channel (mostly videos reviewing military rations) was quite different from the kinds of things seen at Monster Dad, but I really got caught up in the numbers and statistics there (video views, subscribers, comments, likes...) and ended up spending a  lot more time filming, editing and posting videos than writing blogs. Then in September 2012 we moved to a new town and I just couldn't seem to find the time to write any more--despite the fact that the ideas for blogs kept flowing. 2012 ended with 35 Monster Dad posts. That was a huge drop-off from the 62 in 2011, but still the second highest monthly total to that point.

By the time 2013 rolled around it probably seemed like I had pretty much completely abandoned Monster Dad. That was never the intention, but it certainly did appear that way. In 2013 I wrote a grand total of four posts. 2014 saw a complete year without a single post (I still find that kind of hard to believe). There were three posts in 2015, followed by two each in 2016 and 2017. So after totaling 23, 62 and 35 posts over the first three years, I was only able to muster a total of ELEVEN posts total over the next FIVE YEARS combined. That's an average of barely over two posts per year--a far cry from the one-post-per-week target from a few years earlier.

So now perhaps the reader can start to see why I'm celebrating the fact that I've written eleven blog posts this year (2018). That number--while pretty lean by any account--actually equals my output over the past five years combined! And, the four posts from October equals the highest number of posts for any complete YEAR between 2013 and 2017. I'm certainly not suggesting that those numbers are good or acceptable, but it definitely counts as a good start--or should I say a good "re-start" (and there's still two months left in 2018). In Hollywood this might be considered a reboot of Monster Dad. Or, in computer terms, maybe I should think about re-naming the blog Monster Dad 2.0? However it might be classified, I think the bottom line is that the blog is finally moving in the right direction for the first time in a long time. And that makes me very happy!

The totals for each year that Monster Dad has been online

And the output for the month of October 2018 (which equals or exceeds the total for any year between 2013 and 2017)