They still sell this stuff...Bazooka Joe

The gum in which this micro comic strip was wrapped around, was the treat of my childhood.

The pink substance we thought was bubble gum was hard to chew, lost it's flavor in a few masticating milliseconds, and probably contained more chemicals to make it taste sugary, than it did of actual sugar.

However since my brother and I didn't get sweets of any kind very often, nor did we even get real potato chips, pop, Little Debbie or Hostess treats in our 5-day a week lunch boxes, Bazooka Joe was the one treat we were given access to on a semi-regular basis, courtesy of our friendly neighborhood barbershop.

Imagine my surprise when C came up to me while making the rounds at our small town's Dollar General store (not to be confused with Dollar Tree, Dollar Store, $.99 Store, Family Dollar or Hollar Dollar -- okay, I made that last one up) with a multi-pack of the treat of my youth, and asked me if she could bring it home to "share" with her little sister (note, as of late, whenever my 8-year old wants something of questionable price and sugar content, turning it into a "shared" item makes it all the more appealing in her mind...clever girl).

I being the sucker for retro items from my youth, immediately grabbed it from her and thoroughly examined it for authenticity, aroma, and expiration date. We were at Dollar General after all.

Knowing that she had scored a major coup in finding a sweet consumable that both she and I were now jonesing for, my daughter covertly produced a second package from out of thin air with all the flair of David Copperfield and announced that she had procured another one for Mommy to share in.

There's that share word again.

Little did C realize that to consume the chewy pink bubble producing substance, she would have to endure me droning on and on and on about how Bazooka Joe bubble gum was a minor, yet important component in the happiness of my childhood and why the miniature comic printed on wax paper and carefully wrapped around each individual wad of gum was akin to the greatest fortune cookie fortune ever given.

Had she known there would be endless reminiscing and multiple tellings of Bazooka Joe tales, I think she would have gone for some Bubble Yum instead.

Oh wait, remember the rumor about spider eggs encased in the pioneering soft and chewy Bubble Yum...now that's a story. It all started back in 7th grade...

Go here and hit the History link for a quick trip down memory lane.

Note to readers post-bazookajoe.com visit...yeah, I know..."Tha Heights" are embarrassing, in a Katie-Couric-using-the-word-"bling" kinda way. But I chalk it up to just another bunch of adults trying to market to kids and failing, and hope they'll figure out that the old market for this stuff is a much more viable target for their advertising dollars.

Seattle to Oklahoma...or bust

Didja hear it?

The other day when money finally did all the talking and the path was cleared for the Seattle Supersonics NBA franchise to make the move to Oklahoma City, there was a stirring of the atmosphere unlike anything I've felt before.

It wasn't the excitement of the NBA bigwigs in finally settling the question of whether or not OKC deserved a pro team.

Nor was it the excitement of the 11,000 would-be fans who lined up and logged online within 24-hours of the announcement to buy season tickets.

It wasn't even the excitement of the Seattle fans to be rid of their beloved team whom they've lost much faith in these past few years.

No, it was definitely more in line with what Obi Wan felt on the fore deck of the Millennium Falcon when the Death Star was test fired on Alderaan and a billion or so Alderaanians were wiped out along with their planet...a great crying out of agony, followed by stunning silence.

I'm referring of course to the Seattle Supersonics staff and general office workers who learned they either had to move to Oklahoma, or lose their jobs.

A great crying out, then stunned silence.

I imagine this blog may be getting a few more search engine referral hits in the coming months as Seattilians contemplating the move may start googling for info on topics previously discussed here at YASTM.

As an uncooth and uncultured So Cal native, I say welcome oh' drinkers of fine coffees and originators of grunge rock. Come on in, the water is just fine...be sure to check for alligator snapping turtles though. And please don't try noodling with a Starbucks caramel macchioato on your breath...our channel catfish are more partial to Folgers crystals.

The wafting aroma of homemade bread

My Mom was a working Mom, a symbolic icon of her generation that carried the torch of Rosie the Riveter into the present by demanding to have it all - family, career, investment portfolio and pension plan with her social security # on it.

The only downside to her grand plan that I can see, looking back on it now, was that I almost never got to wake up to the "wafting aroma of homemade bread" permeating the house.

Don't mistake my total recall of my childhood...my Mom made bread, lot's of it. She just didn't make the baked kind all too often.

I can count on the phalanges on my right hand the number of times she pulled a loaf or two of the yeasty, soft and chewy good stuff out of the oven. Unlike her penchant for taking half of her toll house cookies and freezing them for later, she'd allow us to slice and butter the warm bread then and there, not waiting for an organized meal to consume it.

And consume it we did. With real butter. Lot's of it. Didn't matter that the stick of Land o' Lakes was rock hard out of the fridge, the heat of the bread and the steam stream rising from the just offed slices would melt the yellow pads in 1.08 second flat.

As fast as Mom could slice and butter, we'd consume.

Now, granted, I'm pretty sure very few of the kids that I grew up with had fresh, homemade bread cross their tables on a daily basis, so it's not like we weren't keeping up the Yamashiro's or Chang's down the block. But as an avid reader of books and avid viewer of the boob tube, those Rockwellian images of fresh bread loaves populating the "supper table," strike hard chords in the mind of an LA suburbanite and leave impressions so indelible that even today, they are as tangible to my mind as my first real fight and my first real kiss.

The smell of 3-cups of rice steaming up in the Sanyo 5-cup rice cooker, that's an aroma that brings it all home for me. And while my girl's will no doubt have sensory memories of our own rice cooker, I wanted to give them the benefit of that "wafting aroma of homemade bread" permeating the 2x4 studs and 113-year old plaster in the early morning hours of our own abode.

So, I turned to an expert, who luckily for me, works across the street at the donut shop.

Yes, the donut shop.

The resourceful couple who lost their donut shop to flooding last year, only to relocate and reopen their heavenly bakery of the round and long confections in an empty pizza joint mere months later, have now reopened their original donut shop (less all the flood damage) as a drive-through beer joint.

I've seen drive-through convenience stores before, but only in Oklahoma have I seen drive-through beer stores.

It's amazing there aren't a line of cops sitting across the street, their eyes trained on the pick-up drivers pulling out of the drive-through beer joint as they pop open the can nearest to the top of the sack and take a quick swig before heading down the road.

But I digress. At this drive-through beer joint, they also serve up homemade sandwiches.

Hmm, that doesn't seem to quite cut it as a descriptive element for these $4 concoctions named for the great Earl of Sandwich himself.

No, these are "crack-wiches," since there must be crack in them because they are so good and so addictive and had I been reincarnated as a chicken and come back to this earthly plane of existence, I would gladly sacrifice my feathered behind to become one with the epicurean delight known as the chicken salad at this joint.

It's that good.

Oh, and what puts these sandwiches over top of the heap of even the best dagwood you could make for yourself at home is the homemade bread they serve them on.

Homemade bread that is pulled fresh daily out of the ovens of the donut shop across the street.

On special days, donut eating patrons are treated to slices of "right out of the oven bread" to tempt them even further down the path of over-carb'd indulgence.

Slathered in butter and sliced twice as thick as mandated by the robotic loaf slicers at Wonder Bread, the old folk and young alike voraciously scooped the samples from the offered tray and almost immediately start waxing poetic about the bread their wives, or aunts or grandmas used to make and the healing qualities that the wonderful "wafting aroma of homemade bread" would offer.

All I know is, I'll be making bread this weekend. And if it turns out bad, we'll just walk across the street on Monday morning and get a few wafting aromas to go.

Why teenagers shouldn't be parents

My wife's grandmother was a twin, born to a 13-year old bride.

Life and responsibility for teenagers was just a tad different back in the day in rural Oklahoma when farm hands were needed by the buckboard full and the easiest way to acquire them was to marry and impregnate the nearest freckled face teenager.

Heck, even as a pre-teen, I recall reeling with horror when the beloved tv crush of my youth, Laura "Half-Pint" Ingalls was all fired up to be a June bride when she was barely 14 -- Pa wouldn't hear of it until she was at LEAST 16.

Then there are the teens of the type that C had the misfortune to run into while at Campfire Kids (previously known as Campfire Girls...don't get me started) Camp recently.

You know the type. Swarmy, know-it-all, why in the world would they be put in charge of little kids in the first place kind of teens.

Seems a conversation was begun and in the throes of discussion on the existence of Santa Claus, the Easter Bunny, and the Tooth Fairie, when my little 8-year old believer happened upon the indepth conversation. Not having actually been there for the meeting of the pre-adult minds, I'm not exactly sure what transpired. I was, however, made fully aware of the result after picking up C and PK from camp that afternoon.

In the middle of a block of NPR filled silence, C blurts out, "When were you going to tell me that Santa Claus and the Easter Bunny weren't real?"

To which my Wife and I slowly turned to each other - that look of abject fear in our faces - and quietly responded, "What are you talking about, sweetie?"

At that point, she proceeded to relay the meat of the conversation she had overhead between the group of irresponsible (my word) teen camp counselors and impressionable 5-8 year olds about the true existence of the fabled childhood characters.

We managed to retain our composure and come up with some lame-o answers about believing what you want to believe and the importance of not letting anyone else tell you what to believe.

Inside, I was slightly panicked, knowing that our 5-year old, a true believer to the nth power, had heard the entire exchange from the safety of her booster seat. To my right, Wifey was fuming with capital F & U.

We were always told that the moment the kids went off to school, the other kids would break the back of the childhood fantasy icons and we'd only have to deal with it at a secondary level. So we've been prepared for several years, sorta.

Somehow, our 8-year old has managed to hold onto her belief in St. Nick, the furried egg delivery guy, and the money-for-enamel exchanging fairie'd one, bringing her little sister along for the ride.

It's been parentally fun, but with this most recent "teen-verified" Santa debunking, convincing them to "pay no attention to the man behind the curtain," we feared was going to prove fruitless.

Since the episode, however, we've yet to have another conversation about the topic, hoping that our lack of attention on the subject matter and wholesale dismissal (outwardly) of the ridiculousness of the claims would somehow diffuse the entire topic. At least, neither of the girls have brought it up.

Inwardly, Wifey is still fuming and as a member of the "surely there must be something I can fix" male species, I had to take some sort of action.

So, I wrote an email to the Senior Program Director of Camp Fire USA-Heart of Oklahoma Council. Here are a few excerpts......while I understand the importance of involving the youthful teens in supervising the campers, I find myself wondering why they found it necessary to engage in a conversation with my 8-year old on the existence of Santa Claus and the Easter Bunny.

Surely this is an inappropriate topic for teenagers to be engaged in with impressionable youngsters who are looking for role models and mentors to emulate and trust.

Imagine the disappointment my wife and I felt when C asked us point blank on the drive home today, "Daddy...Mommy, when were you going to tell me that Santa Claus and the Easter Bunny weren't real?" Today some kids told me so and both my Counselor and the Counselor Aide said they were right."

And all this in front of our 5-year old.

While we've been able to extend our 8-year old's childhood fantasy world to what some might consider a ripe old age, fending off "truth tellers" her own age is one thing.

But when a "big teenager" who seems wizened to the ways of the world in the eyes of an 8-year old, shatters their bedtime tales and holiday fantasies with an ignorant and arrogant flap of a teenage tongue, the battle for their belief system becomes a harder fight indeed.
Now, while many of you reading this may agree that 5 and 8 is plenty old to slough off the childhood fantasies of old and bring the kids into the world of reality and cold hard facts, and that the camp teens provided us with a relatively painless method to introduce the world where the red, round jolly one and his cohorts of while-your-slept present giving don't actually exist.

Who knows. It may come to pass that as the summer months wane and my favorite season of the year in Oklahoma approaches, when Halloween decorations start making their way into the Dollar General and Christmas lights begin doting the Main Street landscape, we find that our daughters are no longer believers in the commercially symbolic icons of the season.

I'll be fine with it, but I'm a guy. My Wife may have to go out and punch a few random teenagers to make her feel better.

A pair of firsts, on the 4th

PK was resplendent in her $8 blue with white polka dots Target dress and $7 red/white/and blue hair piece as she stood up on stage and belted out her version of "God bless America."

30 minutes later she was elated and honored to be crowed Miss Firecracker of our small towns 4th of July Parade festivities.

A first for her.

What makes these kinds of victories difficult is the small town conundrum -- your victory equals someones else's defeat -- someone you know and like and would normally be cheering for.

In this case, PK's only other competition were the daughters of two well liked and well respected couples in town. The first one being the daughter of C's first softball coach and a popular 4th grade teacher. The other was the lovely daughter of our local Fire Department Chief -- and nationally known for the totally YouTubed video of his hanging-off-a-helicopter-skid-while-pulling-people-to-safety heroics.

PK took the crown with pride and I'm sure in her mind, was promising to only use her power for good and to help solve world hunger

The resulting flurry of activity last night found her sitting 4 abreast on the rear deck of a vintage VW beetle with the three other little Firecracker-royalty during the annual 4th of July Downtown parade this morning.

Big sister was surprisingly supportive and excited for her younger sibling to be receiving the bulk of the attention for the evening, but I'm sure she'll more than make up for it when she takes to the parade route at the wheel of her decked out and bespangled Plasma Car, as she accompanies me in the parade.

Huh?

Apparently, someone nominated the walking trails non-profit board of directors I have served with for 3 years running, to be the Grand Marshal's of this years parade and wouldn't you know it, we got it.

My first parade as co-Grand Marshal.

3+ years from LA-immigrant to small town 4th of July Parade Grand Marshal. Scary to think what the next 3 years may bring?

Reading at dusk, rolling in the dirt

The other night I took the girls to a little poof of educational effort during the summertime hiatus known as "Lanterns for Literacy."

Sponsored and led by the litany of librarians from our public elementary school, a free hot dog, drink and cold treat await any and all school aged children who want to bring a blanket to a local park as the sun is setting and be read to by selected members of the community.

For "bigger" kids such as my 8.5-year old, it was merely a chance to hang out with buds in a safe and secure setting, get a few microns of outdoor time when we'd normally be indoors avoiding the biting bug rush at dusk.

However for pre-readers and the young-uggers that still dig a good readin'-to, it's a must attend event.

Unfortunately, July in OK means the sun doesn't completely set until sometime past 10 p.m., and the need for actual lanterns is nullified by the brilliant violet, gold and sienna sunsets of the season. But press on we would and read on they did.

After the books had all been read and the hot dogs were happily digesting in stomachs aflutter on the nearby playground equipment, the big people gathered in small clumps of parental pockets and discussed matters of heightened importance -- such as who the new elementary school principal would be, how your trip to Branson was with all the kids in the Suburban, and whether or not it's going to rain on the upcoming 4th of July celebration at the park.

Just another small town moment, I'm afraid.

Me? I excused myself from the gib and gabber to participate in a tried and true tradition whenever I get near a park with one of these whirling deathtraps of doom populates the playground.

While the chanting kids scream out their own name for the game, "MAKE US PUKE, MAKE US PUKE!", I've always called the tradition, Danger Roll.

See, as a kid, my Pop loved watching old war movies. John Wayne, Richard Widmark, Van Johnson, all grunts in black and white, shooting up a storm, storming up a beach, beaching a Normandy half track, and tracking the enemy wherever they lay.

Sure, guys still like watching old war movies, but unlike my Father, I don't really see myself sitting down with my pre-teen daughters and firing up a good afternoon viewing of The Longest Day, or the Sands of Iwo Jima anytime soon.

None-the-less, of all the life lessons those war movies taught me, the simple "roll away from danger" held fast to my psyche.

Out in the open and you start taking enemy fire, drop and roll away from danger.

Motar shells starts raining down at you, roll into a nearby fox hole...away from danger.

Parachute deploys too late and you are coming in for a hard landing, bend your knees and roll away from your drop zone...and away from danger.

Basically, there didn't seem to be a danger in war you couldn't roll away from, at least from my adolescent point-of-view.

I took that very same lesson to the playground as a kid, and it served me well, especially when I found myself flinging off the merry-go-rounds of death as they approached supersonic speed and massive negative g-effects.

As I was flung off the spinning apparatus, I would hit the ground and instinctively roll AWAY from the point of contact...away from danger. What may be common sense to most was a life lesson learned from hours of war movie viewings with my Dad and brother.

And as I attempted to explain to the kids on the merry-go-round that I was about to push, pull, and manhandle to supersonic speeds, the theory and practice behind "rolling away for danger" if they should happen to fall off, I realized that without the benefit of this most important lesson in common sense self-preservation, the resulting accidental injury could be life changing.

So instead, I gave the aging, decrepit go-round a few sturdy common sense pushes for good measure and walked away, amid jeering boos and hisses from the spinning crowd of go-rounding kidkins.

Who says men never really grow up.

While my status as a "fun Dad" may have taken a few hits for the sake of safety, the twisting motion of the few go-round pushes I did manage, had a surprising side effect of actually alleviating some of the back pain I've had these last few days.

Trim work and detail painting in the mudroom (almost finished and ready for the big reveal) always tweeks my back in the oddest places.

Nothing a few harried moments pushing an ancient off-kilter mild steel kiddie playgroud-go-round wouldn't fix right up.

And not one kid had to roll away from danger.

The House has one seat empty

Put the words "State House Representative" and "obituary" together and my SoCal born and bred brain conjures up images of gnarley 15 car pile ups on the 4-level interchange, death by law enforcement suicide, speed ball overdoses and chopper crashes in federally declared FEMA disaster areas -- hey, I'm from LA remember.

Then I move here and three years later something like this crosses my smog-clearing eyeballs...

I don't know anything about this guy, and couldn't care less about whatever political machinations he had in the works, however the fact that he was a duly elected official in one of the highest governmental bodies of the state...and he died while working his farm, well, that just blew me away.

A good portion of the population out here make their living working the land and living off of it's bounty and it seems they like people representing them who live and work in their muddy work boots right alongside them.

Reason # 4,892 why I'll never run for office here in my adopted home state. My credentials just don't hold up to the honorable Mr. Hyman.

Okay, the fact that he was a card carrying member of both the NRA and Democratic party kinda cracks me up as well.

Raising a geek for a daughter

Just returned from taking the girls to see Wall•E at our local theater.

Hopefully you'll dig it as much as they did. I dug it as they did, and then some.

Here's why.

A simple sound. This sound actually...or at least it's one of these sounds in the medley of Macintosh startup sounds...

During the flick, the little Johnny-5 inspired robot emits this particular sound when he recharges via his solar panels, or reboots from his overnight slumber. When my eldest daughter (8) first heard this sound emitting from Wall•E, she turned to me and gave me a knowing smile -- the one that instantly communicated to me that she recognized the sound and was smiling because she knew that I knew what the sound was.

This was my first brush with a "familiarity-of-shared-experience-while-watching-a-movie" type of moment between an offspring of mine and I and I'll treasure it always.

Thanks Wall•E.

Following are a few nerd herd wink-winks contained in the flick as gathered by a Times-Picayune critic.

"The bleeps-and-blips-heavy "voice" of robot WALL*E is provided by Oscar-winning sound designer Ben Burtt, who did the same for R2-D2 in the "Star Wars" films.

The art-history-flavored closing credits are as sit-throughable as they come, including a nod to impressionists, to 8-bit computer graphics, and to everything in between.

Paying tribute to the film's sci-fi inspirations, "Alien" actor Sigourney Weaver -- who dealt with an overzealous onboard computer in that sci-fi classic -- provides the voice for the ship's computer in "WALL*E."

In-house, Pixar animators referred to WALL*E's cockroach friend as "Hal, " a dual tribute to legendary comedy director Hal Roach and the computer in "2001: A Space Odyssey."

As always, Pixar's "good-luck charm, " John Ratzenberger, voices a role in "WALL*E, " that of a newly awakened human named, appropriately, John."

Bonus points for the faithful Mac-heads out there if you can pick out which Macintosh model line that Wall•E's start-up/reboot sound derives from. (Personally, my dineros on either Jake, Mr. B in NYC, or Kmodem on this one).