Killed by chips and toast

[Beestie]

OK, so me, wife and the ankle-biters are at the local all-U-can-Eat (at my request). We let our 5 and 6 yo get their own food and "help" them make good decisions - fries and mac-'n-cheese are fine but maybe some carrots and broccoli would be good too. So, they choose some of what they want and some of what "their body needs" to fight germs and grow up strong and smart, blah, blah, blah.

A nice looking family sits at the table next to us: mom, dad, grandma, grandpa and l'il "Mary" who we guessed was about 4. As soon as they sit down, mommy asks Mary if she wants an ice-cream and of course she says yes. She swallows it whole. Then, mommy asks, do you want a brownie, darling? She knocks out a brownie like a starving vulture wolfing downing fresh roadkill. Sorry to be graphic but while the family is having pretty normal food, l'il Mary is on a fastrack to being a 300# diabetic. Grandpa, sensing that Mary's diet could use some balance, suggests that Mary have some real food. Mary freaks like her legs are stuck in a crocodile's mouth while mommy scolds grandpa and reassures Mary that she can have ice cream and brownies anytime she wants to. Grandpa slinks.

I make a mental note to relate our observations in this thread.

[xoxoxoBruce]

Originally Posted by footfootfoot

When I was a lad my dad took me to all the places in NYC that he sensed were "going out" so I could experience them before they were gone. I really appreciate that.

You're very lucky to have a Dad that had his shit together.

[Trilby]

*aside*
In the latest GEICO commercials, a friendly little gecko (with an adorable British accent) tempts us to buy his insurance by comparing it to free PIE AND CHIPS.

sounds like a British problem to me, monster.

[footfootfoot]

Originally Posted by xoxoxoBruce

You're very lucky to have a Dad that had his shit together.

I did a lot of research before I was born

You're right, though I am reminded of that quote supposedly by Mark Twain about how ashamed he was of how ignorant his parents were when he was younger and how surprised he was at how intelligetn they became as he got older.

[xoxoxoBruce]

Oh sure.....my parents were pretty dumb when I was a wee'un also.

[elSicomoro]

"I was young and foolish then. I feel old and foolish now."--They Might Be Giants

[monster]

Originally Posted by Brianna

*aside*
In the latest GEICO commercials, a friendly little gecko (with an adorable British accent) tempts us to buy his insurance by comparing it to free PIE AND CHIPS.

sounds like a British problem to me, monster.

Don't watch TV, but pie and chips is good (meat and two or more veg in a reasonably low fat pastry, what more could you ask from takeaway food?)

[monster]

Originally Posted by sycamore

"I was young and foolish then. I feel old and foolish now."--They Might Be Giants

They Might Be Giants!

Birdhouse -excellent track, even made it to the UK!

[Tonchi]

Originally Posted by marichiko

I think the first time I ate a french fry, I must have been15 or 16 when I bought a plate of them at the local Woolworth lunch counter (don't tell the momster! )

Same kind of history here (as if twins wouldn't know!), except the first pizza I ever had was as a junior at the University of Colorado, when some dorm mates and I went to the student grill in the (then) brand-new Kittredge Complex. They also explained to me what an enchilada was, so I tried that too and got completely hooked on college-student junk food

I have a Geezer Lunch Counter story too. When I was a senior in high school in 1962, we had a class trip to Raleigh to visit the museum and planetarium. The group was divided for lunch and I ate at a Woolworth lunch counter in downtown Raleigh. Almost immediately after we got home, it was on the news that this same lunch counter had experienced a sit-down protest by negroes (as black people were all called in those days), and the police and media were all over the place. My family just about had a fit that we had almost ended up in the middle of that. I didn't understand all the horror about it, I was actually very sympathetic to the black people's efforts to be able to use the same facilities that we did, even though public schools in North Carolina were still segregated at that time. We were very fortunate in the long run, because integration was accomplished almost painlessly in my state compared to the terrible things that happened in the "Deep South".

Oh, man! The Kittredge Complex! That was swank back in the day! If you had to live in the dorms, that was THE place! Remember the Alfred Packer Grill? Speaking of strange eating habits! OOh, and the sub sub basement of Norlin Library! What a bizarre spot. Were you at CU when the flasher used to hang out down there? Yep, we're both geezers alright!

[Tonchi]

Of course I was there! The Alferd Packer grill was where we hung out inbetween classes, but in those days the Sink Burgers were to die for. My classmate was Paul Danish, although I didn't know him personally, and he is the one who named the grill after the notorious Colorado cannibal The Kittredge Complex had just opened and I lived in Hallett Hall, so we decided to walk over and take a look at how the better half lived. That pond was brand new, didn't even have any plants yet, and some guy tossed one of my friends into it and hurt her feelings so we went home again. And I used to work in the basement of Norlin Library, when I could stay awake after being up all night, that is

Do you remember when Joe Coors was a Regent and he tried to strong-arm the University into letting him sell his beer in the Alferd Packer Grill? The fanciful rumor was that a pipeline would be built to supply the campus. The students hated Joe Coors more than they wanted to have beer on campus, an astonishing development considering the temprament at CU in the '60s, and demanded that the University reject the proposal. That was when I began boycotting Coors beer and never bought another drop of it even 40 years later. The students rightly felt that a man who stated that the National Guard should shoot student war-protestors without a second thought, yet wanted to have exclusive access to the same students' beer money, was a hypocrite of the worst order. This hatred of the Coors family as opposed to their beer still runs so deep at CU that the University refused to name the stadium after them even after million-dollar contributions over many years, and it was only recently that they reached some sort of compromise on that. I think they allowed the Coors name on the extension built in front of the stadium, didn't they?

[Urbane Guerrilla]

Tonchi, beer-wise, that was one hell of a loss you inflicted on yourself. My mother still lives in the west-of-Denver area, and Coors gets better the nearer you get to Golden. I keep checking on this during my very occasional visits back there.

I'm not the sort who would boycott Coors just because the guy said he's not even slightly broken up about the antiwar movement taking casualties -- that lot was entirely too sympathetic to the cause of one of humanity's most lethal totalitarian abominations to get even a moment's support from me. The antiwar movement was composed of Communist dupes -- talk about being profoundly stupid! I had this figured at age nine -- what were people twice my age doing being hoodwinked?

We see here the reason I never logged any time as a hippie.

Okay, good food that's good for you... I do have a little trouble enjoying my vegetables, to the point where I might as well mostly eat fruit. I don't dislike the vegetables the way I dislike cooked beef liver -- the stuff needs to be seasoned up as Braunschwieger, though chicken livers for some reason aren't nearly so objectionable -- but there's a real tendency to leave them off the plate unless I can do fatty/cheesy veggie bake things with them -- that includes quiche. I'll go out of my way for a good Joe's Special, and its spinach must be fresh. Canned spinach is how to mess a Joe's up.

Blech, UG! Anyone who thinks Coors is a drinkable substance should have his head examined. The stuff is beer flavored water and the beer flavoring leaves much to be desired. I'd rather drink the water from the pond across from the Hale Science building on the CU campus. I have drunk Coors smack in the middle of downtown Golden, and I can assure you the quality of the stuff showed no improvement. I remember very well the outrage over Joe Coors' remark and the resulting boycott. It was not difficult to avoid the stuff since I preferred Tecate, anyhow.

So you were 9 when Kent State happened? And you think its valid for American kids who were exercising their constitutional right to free speech to be shot dead by members of the Ohio National Guard? A US citizen has every right to climb up on a soap box in the middle of town and yell, "I love Osami Bin Laden!" As the saying goes, I may violently disagree with that person's sentiments, but I'll fight to the end for their right to express them. You keep posting about democracy and totalitarian governments, and you don't have a clue. Are you sure you're not really 9 now?

Tonchi, I shouldn't be surprised that my non evil twin worked at Norlin. I was a student assistant on the circ desk there. When the library would stay open all night during finals week, I'd volunteer to help staff the desk all night and then stumble bleery eyed over to the Packer grill for a cup of coffee before hitting the exam hall. I did a lot of last minute cramming at the Norlin circ desk between the hours of midnight and 6:00am.

Yep, the Sink was THE place for burgers and Tulagi's was THE place to go hear bands like Dusty Drapes and the Dusters. I was friends with their drummer, Brian Brown. I got thrown into the fountain in the courtyard outside the student union and attended a rally in that same courtyard when Jessie Jackson came to make a speech when he was running for president. Some UG type actually yelled "Nigger" at him and the hapless bigot was saved from mob justice only by the presence of campus security who whisked him away from the enraged crowd.

You gotta come back to Colorado when you escape Fresno and do coffee with me (or drink a beer that's not Coors ). Say, did you know that Alfred Packer was Swiss?

[Tonchi]

I just wish they'd quit digging up those poor folks' bones ever couple of years, trying to prove the dirty deed one way or the other. My archaeology publications follow the latest analysis with great glee and Mr. Packer is defamed again. I do, however, always appreciate the quote from the judge on the case: "Mr. Packer, there were only 7 Democrats in all o' Hinsdale County and you just ate 5 of them!"

UG, eat your broccoli. It's good for your colon, which has become soft from drinking the diluted stump water which Coors sold for beer. Because of laws allowing 18yo students to buy the lighter brews on "The Hill", a generation never developed any taste buds. I've toured the Coors plant several times, in the days when the draft beer was free, and the "free" part was its main appeal. Even if I hadn't boycotted Coors for his radical right-wing opinions, I would have boycotted him for the disgraceful way he treated his Mexican employees. He treated them to slave-labor conditions and lost a major lawsuit for discrimination. Joe Coors was even too radical for Ronald Reagan, and that is saying plenty; he was quietly brushed off when he tried to claim an abassador position as a payoff for his monetary support.

Mari, we definitely have a date to drink SOMETHING one of these days at the ol' alma mater

You're on!

Shall we meet halfway in the town of St. George in the parched state of Utah? The first round of soda pop will be on me!

UG, BTW, is beyond even the help of broccoli. May his fondness of Coors be for him what Al Packer was for the democrats of Hinsdale County!