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Favorite Skinny Dipping

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The past couple of blogs have been a bit heavier in content.  Let’s take a look at a somewhat lighter topic today!  OK.  It’s true confession time!  How many of you will actually admit to having gone skinny dipping?  You do know what that is, right?  It is swimming butt-naked, usually with the connotation of doing it secretly.  Now I guess we have all done things that our parents didn’t know about.  This was one of my little adventures.

Camp Kiwanis YMCA

Somewhere in my mid-teens, my best friend June and I decided to give skinny dipping a try.  Now we were both strong swimmers and often participated in summer swim meets and classes.  She lived about a mile or two from me, and we often spent the night at one another’s house.  She lived in a somewhat more upscale neighborhood than I did with tall shade trees in the back yard and lush, green St. Augustine grass where you could actually walk barefoot outside.   I think I have mentioned before that our yard was a mix of weeds, a bit of Bermuda grass, and lots and lots of goats-head stickers just waiting to puncture anyone stupid enough to go barefoot in the yard.

Camp Kiwanis Grounds

June and I were inseparable buddies from the fourth grade all the way through high school,  What one of us didn’t think of, the other usually did.  I don’t recall whose idea it was initially, but we decided that we would sneak out of her house in the middle of the night and go swimming.  Her house was about a mile from Bachman Lake in Dallas.  One of our favorite activities was to hike all the way around the lake.  There was a YMCA camp next to the lake, called Camp Kiwanis.   Built in the twenties, it served decades of young kids and teens until it was finally closed and torn down in the nineties.  We used to go to summer camp there.  Activities included games, crafts, canoeing, and my favorite, swimming. We even had occasional swim meets with our peers and other Y groups and camps.

So, it was only natural that when we decided to go swimming au naturel, we should pick the familiar pool at Bachman Lake for our escapade.  I don’t recall the exact time, but somewhere about 2:00 AM or so, we donned our clothes and sneakers, and out we went.  To get over to the lake, we had to cross Northwest Highway, a busy four lane highway even in those days.  Luckily for us, it was very quiet with no traffic in either direction at that hour of the night.  Across the highway we went and then strolled along the grass and under the trees to the Y Camp and pool.  There were no street lights or any kind of security guards on duty.  Once again, lucky for us!

Once there, we quickly scaled the tall fence around the pool.   We discarded our clothes and quickly slipped into the dark, still water.  The total feeling of freedom with the cool water flowing along your body was a delight.  We swam leisurely back and forth the length of the pool multiple times, enjoying the darkness and the water.  When we had our fill of swimming, we dressed again.  We hadn’t bothered to bring any towels, so we just scrambled back into our clothes still dripping and retraced our steps back home again—over the fence again, along the dark quiet lake shore, across the highway, and back to bed.

Site of the old pool

I suppose if her parents had happened to look in on us, they might have wondered why our hair and the pillows were wet!  We didn’t do it again, just the one time.  Those were no doubt safer days with less to worry about!  As the adult looking back several decades later, I am somewhat surprised at myself that we actually did it!

Interesting side note to this story—as I was looking on the internet trying to see if the camp still existed, I actually ran into a Camp Kiwanis Alumni Facebook page with some old photos of that old camp.  Like my old elementary school that I wrote about a couple of months ago, it too is long gone.  The photographs that I have attached show the big old, white camp building, some of the tree-shaded grounds, and the outline of the now filled-in old pool where June and I did our infamous skinny dipping!

Ah!  The wonders of Google!  Isn’t it interesting that google has actually evolved into a verb in today’s lexicon!!

©The Eclectic Grandma, 2017

 

 

 

 

 

Who is John Galt?

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Most of my friends know that I am an avid reader.  Every now and then someone will ask me, “What is your favorite book?”  That question is enough to send my brain into overdrive!  My favorite book?  Fiction?  Literary classics?  … Continue reading →

Thoughts on Meditation

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Do you meditate?  I have meditated off and on for about forty years.  I always envision meditation as a total calmness of the mind like the still surface of a Maine lake at dawn.  The dark glassy surface of the water is broken only by an occasional ripple, and the very air is suffused with a golden glow.  My meditation, on the other hand is more like a rainstorm hitting a giant mud puddle!  Splat! Splat! Splat!  My mind just cannot seem to be still.  “I need to buy dog food.”  “Did I mail the insurance payment?”  “Where did I put that new tee shirt,” and on and on.

I read somewhere that prayer is when we talk to God, and meditation is when we sit quietly and listen to the reply.  “Be still and know that I am God.”  (Psalm 46: 10).  Deepak Chopra and the late Wayne Dyer, two of my favorite writers, often spoke of being the observer or the watcher of your thoughts and just gently nudging the stray thoughts aside. On those rare moments when you succeed in transcending your own chattering mind, it is indeed a feeling of total peace and oneness with the Universe or the Divine, whatever term you prefer.  I can only liken it to the sensation of peacefully floating in an endless, dark space.

Over the years I have tried any number of meditation methods and techniques, some effective and some not so great.  There was the candle meditation where you sit in the lotus position and stare at a flickering candle.  While it is somewhat hypnotic, I figured I was probably going to singe my hair or burn the house down.  I’ve tried repeating a mantra over and over, but always got bogged down in the words!  I always lost track of the complicated Indian mantras, and the ones I made up myself never quite worked.

Then there was the sound meditation using the ahhhh’s and ohmm’s.  Now that is somewhat satisfying as the sounds echo internally through your head; however, it is hard to do nice resounding ahhhh’s and ohmm’s at home.  Your family thinks you are crazy, and even the dogs are concerned!  “Mom, are you OK?  Here, let me lick your face to make the owie go away.  Maybe I should crawl into your lap?  There, isn’t that better?”  Some people have great success with a rhythmic motion sort of meditation, so I tried the walking meditation.  This is very relaxing with a one-two-three rhythm somewhat like a waltz.  While walking you can do a short mantra.  I liked Peace-Light-Love, nice cadence and movement.  Alas, when you are walking in the woods being tugged along by a 100-pound dog, it can be hazardous, not to mention fallen trees and rocks just waiting to trip you!  I guess the walking meditation is best for people who live next to a golf course or a city park, not for those of us who live in the Colorado mountains.

I’ve tried the breathing sort of practices where you breath in through one nostril (while closing off the other nostril) to a count of four, hold it for a count of four, and then exhale through the other nostril for a count of four and so on.  I always felt as if I were going to suffocate and was never quite coordinated enough to master the opening and closing of each side.  Unfortunately, this method is also not overly effective if you happen to have a stuffy nose either.

So, what do I like and practice today?  I really like the chakra meditations where you focus on the seven chakras.  I may have to do a blog on this sometime in the future; it is too long and complicated to go into in today’s blog!  I also like what is called EFT, the Emotional Freedom Technique, better known as Tapping.  I find that Tapping works really well if I am not feeling well or am in some sort of intense emotional state, but it is not something I practice on a daily basis.  If you find this intriguing, check out Nick Ortner’s great book, The Tapping Solution   This technique has also been adopted by many psychologists and psychotherapists.  (www.thetappingsolution.com)

My favorite these days is what is called binaural sound meditation, also referred to as brain entrainment.  This involves listening to two different sounds in each ear using stereo headphones.  Although you are not consciously aware of hearing two different beats, your brain recognizes the two levels and moves to deeper brain waves.  While you consciously hear only gentle rain or ocean waves, your brain moves to deeper levels, from alpha waves to theta waves, and ultimately to delta waves.  The nice thing here is that the changes in brain waves can actually be shown and documented via EEG readings.  As you may know, our normal wide awake brain state is beta.  Alpha is that half awake-half asleep dream state,  Theta is associated with REM sleep, and delta is deep sleep.

Unfortunately, I don’t have my own EEG machine at home to measure my own waves, but no matter, the feeling of relaxation and serenity is amazing!  And the changes in the neuro pathways in your brain are permanent, so the benefits continue.  Since I always like to share what works for me, I would encourage you to take a look at Holosync (www.centerpointe.com) for more info.   In almost two years of using Holosync, I have only missed a handful of days doing the meditation, which for me is very unusual, so something must be working!

©The Eclectic Grandma, 2017

 

Big Tex

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big-texWhat little kid doesn’t like a fair?   The Texas State Fair is the Grand-daddy of them all!  Texas always boasted of having the biggest state fair in the U.S., and I suspect this is a true claim. I was fortunate as a little kid to get to go to this attraction every year.  I don’t think my husband, who grew up in west Texas, ever even made it to the fair.  Located on a sprawling, 277 acre campus in southeast Dallas, appropriately named Fair Park, the fairgrounds include the livestock pavilions, museums, exhibit halls, the world-famous Cotton Bowl, and every kid’s favorite, the Midway.   Visitors to the Fair are greeted by Big Tex, a 55′ tall talking and animated statue dressed, of course, in blue jeans and a western shirt.  Imagine a Howdy Doody puppet on steroids, and you get the idea!

The State Fair was so important to Dallas that we even got a day off from school in October to attend.  When we were younger, my parents dutifully took us every year.  By the time I was in 7th or 8th grade, my parents let me take the bus to the Fair.  This entailed a lengthy bus ride from northwest Dallas to downtown and. Transfer to another bus to southeast Dallas.  As I look back at this, I must admit that I am somewhat surprised that they allowed that.  In today’s seemingly more dangerous society, that might be a high risk kind of adventure!

Nonetheless, when my friends and I arrived at the Fair, we dutifully traipsed through the various exhibit halls.  We looked at the cows and horses and even the pigs!  We surveyed the handmade quilts, jars of beautiful jewel toned jams and jellies, and yummy looking pies.  I would have loved to be one of the judges for the pies, but, alas, they never asked me!  One of the first things that used to greet visitors near the front entrance was a little “house” where Elsie the Borden’s Dairy cow lived with her husband Elmer, and their offspring Beulah and Beauregard.  I assume, like Borden’s Dairy, they are all long gone.  It never occurred to me then, but I have to wonder if Elmer was actually a steer rather than a bull? midway

The Midway was, of course, our favorite place to stop.  All of those glorious rides! For .10 or .25 a ride, you could ride endlessly or so it seemed.  Besides the rides, the Midway featured a number of booths where you could win an array of cheap prizes like stuffed animals and little plaster “stuff” of various kinds.  There were also a larger number of side shows being hawked by the carneys!  I wonder if they are still around today as by today’s standard they were so politically incorrect!  There was the bearded lady (Poor thing probably just needed some hormone therapy!), the tattooed man (Today he wouldn’t even get a second glance; just look at professional athletes or many of the visitors in any US mall for tattoos!), and the sad animal examples of anomalies in nature like the two-headed snake and so on.

On one memorable occasion, my little sister was on the kiddie ferris wheel, the kind with little closed cages, when the ride stalled out.  Soon the entire air was permeated with the sounds of wailing little kids!  Much to the consternation of the operators of the ride, my Dad and my uncle, who was visiting us from Philadelphia at the time, climbed up the outer structure of the little wheel and proceeded to hand down the bawling little ones to other father who jumped in to help out.  These days in my adult mode I always wonder if the operators of these rides are sober and haven’t had a few puffs of weed or a quick hit out of a flask and when was the last time the ride was thoroughly checked out for safety!

Then there was the food, of course–sticky cotton candy, greasy corn dogs, drippy ice cream bars, and hot pretzels.  It was a wonder that we didn’t all go home with an upset tummy, or maybe we did, and I just blotted out that memory!  I probably haven’t had cotton candy or a corn dog in over 40 years, but in those days it all tasted pretty good to me.  One of my favorites was a stand that sold a box with a couple of pieces of fried chicken sitting atop some soggy French fries and a very flat slice of white bread.  This delicious box came with a couple of packets of honey, ensuring that we were completely a gooey mess by the time we finished.  Remember this was before Colonel Sanders became a household name!

Does the mystique of a State Fair still enchant new generations of kids who have grown up with Disney World, Universal Studios, and Six Flags over Texas?  I hope the fun of going to a State Fair still entrances them!  This is truly a little slice of the American heritage that we need to hang on to!

©The Eclectic Grandma, 2016

The Moments of our Lives

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Have you ever looked back at your life and the monumental events therein?  We all have the personal events–the weddings, the births, the deaths, the crises, the tragedies of life– but we also have the massive overlay of world events … Continue reading →

Popcorn Balls

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After my last somewhat somber blog about the election, it’s time for a lighter note!  Today’s blog is dedicated to my wonderful, loving husband.  A couple of weeks ago I wrote a blog recalling the Halloween celebrations of my childhood.  A friend of mine mentioned that it made her recall her Mother’s yummy popcorn balls when she was a kid, which in turn reminded me of a long-forgotten (or suppressed) incident.

popcorn-balls

When we first got married, my hubby used to rave about his Mother’s popcorn balls.  One day I decided I would surprise him with some homemade popcorn balls.  I bought popcorn, white Karo syrup, sugar.  I was ready to roll!  Now today I would just google “popcorn balls” on my iPad and up would pop 20 or 30 recipes for popcorn balls.  In those days, of course, no one had ever heard of iPads or smart phones!  How difficult could it be?

Humming happily in the kitchen, I popped the popcorn, mixed up the Karo and sugar, and got ready to form those tasty, crunchy balls.  I had squares of cellophane ready to wrap them up.  But wait–something was wrong!  The balls just weren’t holding together properly.  Finally in desperation I took Bill a large bowl of very sticky popcorn along with a spoon to eat it with.  Somehow, he wisely managed to keep a completely straight face and asked me if I had cooked the sugar-syrup mixture long enough.

Cook it?  Slowly the light dawned.  I had left out one very crucial step in the process!  I must confess that was my first and last venture into homemade popcorn balls.  I don’t even particularly like them anyway, and if we get the urge for some Halloween popcorn balls today, there is always the Popcorn Factory!

©The Eclectic Grandma, 2016

Reflections on the Election

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This time last week we were all awaiting Election Day, probably with a mixture of apprehension and anticipation.  Now at long last the seemingly endless campaign is over, and we have the results.  Sadly, we remain a divided nation with … Continue reading →

Why I Write

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Why now, at my age, do I suddenly have this compulsion to write?  Actually, I’m not sure why.  For better or worse, the words just keep swishing around in my head, sort of like the waves pounding on the beach.  … Continue reading →

Happy Halloween

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I recently saw a news story saying that Halloween is the second largest holiday in terms of money spent, about six billion dollars annually.  It is right after Christmas in terms of dollar volumes.  Now I find that to be quite interesting!  October 31 has certainly morphed from just a little kid’s holiday into an adult holiday.  It does make you wonder why so many adults go all out for Halloween with decorations, elaborate costumes, parties, and bar crawls.  Of course, there is the old idea of any excuse for a party!  I suspect that much of the attraction of putting on a costume for Halloween may be due to the desire to slip into some sort of alter ego, at least for a period of time.  Why else would seemingly sane adults suddenly become the naughty upstairs maid, Darth Vader, a super hero, or even a presidential candidate for an evening?  It is reminiscent of the masked balls of past centuries at the English and French courts.  If no one knows who you are, perhaps you can get by with acting in ways you normally would not do.

halloween-jackolantern-ab

Historically, Halloween was the night before All Saints Day, the night when ghouls, goblins, and the spirits of the dead were thought to roam the earth. Over time All Hallows Eve evolved into the holiday we know today replete with lots of tricks or treats.  I think I was fortunate to have experienced Halloween as a little kid before the evening got hijacked by the adults.

In my childhood we didn’t have the plethora of ready-made costumes to choose from like you see today.  We actually had to make our own.  These could be fairly simple or elaborate, depending upon your creativity and your Mom’s sewing skills.  An old sheet could quickly become a ghost.  Highly popular among the little boys were hobos and scarecrows.  An old worn out jacket of your Dad’s and some black smudges on your face, and you were all set.  For girls it was usually the princess or the gypsy queen.  As for me, I was always the gypsy.  A long flowing skirt and a white ruffled blouse with elastic sleeves that you could pull down off your shoulders constituted the basic costume.  Add some of your Mom’s make-up and lots of dangly jewelry, and you were all set.  Oh, I was so glamorous and sexy!

When my boys were little, I tried a couple of times to make their costumes.  One year they went as ghosts with giant jack o’ lantern heads out of felt.  I thought they were quite adorable.  Unfortunately a few of my neighbors wanted to know why my kids were dressed as tomatoes!   I guess my felt wasn’t quite orange enough.  Another year we had great success with the head on the plate.   We covered a large box with a small tablecloth and cut a hole for the kid’s head to stick out.  Then we cut a large paper plate to go around the his neck.  Next we glued on some silverware, salt and pepper shakers, and a nice parsley garnish.  Finish with some ghastly facial make up complete with blood trickling out of the corners of the mouth, and you’ve got it!

In the days when I was a child, people actually felt free to hand out homemade goodies—popcorn balls, cookies, or caramel apples.  Today, any cautious parent quickly disposes of any treat not commercially packaged and intact, and many hospitals offer free x-rays of the little ones’ candy to ensure that it is free of needles or razor blades.  What a sad commentary on today’s society.  I don’t recall any sort of serious vandalism when I was little.  A trick might be turning over a garbage can or leaving a burning paper bag full of dog poop on someone’s porch, not wreaking havoc in the computer lab in the local elementary school.

So whatever your plans for Halloween, enjoy the evening and watch out for those evil spirits.  I have to run now and go plan my gypsy costume!

©The Eclectic Grandma, 2016

 

Blind Dogs See with Their Hearts

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In all the years of our marriage (Notice I’m not saying exactly how many!!), we’ve had six dogs, one miniature dachshund and five Irish Setters.  I guess you could say that this is the long and the short of it!  … Continue reading →