Day 21 = The Amazing Adventures of Beat Up Old

In recent days, it seems like my two-year old son would like to take every single toy that he owns outside in order to play with them there. It's as though somehow toting his pile of playthings out into the great outdoors will make them even more fun than they already are in the comfortable confines of the house. If I have said, "No, you may not take _____ outside with you to play." once in the last two weeks, I have said it forty-seven times. I am not so old that I am unable to understand the allure of dragging all your cars and trucks and trains and playing cards, and playdoh, and crayons, and plastic livestock out into the backyard in order to play with them.  It's true that our yard is a much more interesting locale than our boring old living room. That being said, I am old enough to realize the unfortunate consequences of exposing your toys to a bit of fresh air from time to time.

Playtime al fresco will result in metal matchbox cars that desperately need a new paint job after speeding through the scratchy sand. Trucks will be forgotten in a shady corner of the patio. Their once working parts will quickly rust solid, rendering your once rolling big rigs completely immobile. Trains will also begin to seize and sputter on their tiny tracks after only a few hours of exposure to the salty sea air. Paper playing cards will grow damp if accidentally forgotten on the dew covered lawn. Like some kind of specialty prop for half-rate magicians, your carelessly forgotten jack of diamonds will magically separate into four distinct layers of wrinkly weathered card stock. Your pristine pots of playdoh will become hopelessly polluted and pocked with pebbles, pollen and potting soil. And, any colorful crayons that you leave lying around on the back porch will be slowly seared by the sun until they eventually become melty, molten pools of weather beaten wax. And this, my dear, is not even the worst of it.

At some point, it is inevitable that you will leave a piece of your plastic livestock behind after sending the whole herd out to pasture in the tall weeds.  For a bit, this careless oversight by a distracted herder will go unnoticed, only to be accidentally rediscovered by the trusty old lawn mower in the weeks to come. I can say with one hundred percent certainty that your poor father will not be happy when his right front shin is shockingly assaulted by an out of control spinning plastic sheep that has been kicked out of the weeds by the whirling blades of the push mower. And you will be super sad when you discover that despite miraculously surviving a life-threatening lawn trimming accident, your sweet little sheep now only has three legs instead of the usual four.

I know about these things because when I was a little girl, we had a three-legged sheep who used to spend his days limping around our holiday manger scene. He was never the kind of sheep that ventured outdoors, but I believe an unfortunate fall from the treacherous edge of the dining room table was responsible for the loss of his right rear lamb limb. Despite his unfortunate disability, he is a hearty little creature who to this day continues to trot out to his special place under Pop Pop and Grammy's Christmas tree each and every December. Inevitably, the delicate condition of his right rear appendage is often forgotten from year to year. After setting him in place, only to have him fall over several times, whoever is responsible for arranging the holiday stable eventually remembers why this poor little sheep is so unusually unsteady. One of his little lamby pals has the luxury of being carried on the shoulders of a shepherd. Another of his baa-ing barnyard buddies was carefully carved in the prone position. Unfortunately, the same cannot be said for the only remaining sheep in the flock. Instead of becoming the last sheep standing, proud and tall at the heels of one of the three gentle shepherds, this poor little pile of wobbly wool has to be inconspicuously propped up against one of the rear walls of the stable. If this precaution is not put into place, the poor little three-legged lamb falls over at even the slightest vibration, threatening even greater catastrophic damage to his three remaining shaggy sheep shanks.

Sheep in need of prosthetic limbs aside, I really do understand where my son is coming from. As a child, I clearly remember relentlessly pestering my sweet mother in an ongoing attempt to persuade her to allow me to drag all of my favorite playtime pals out onto the lawn with me. It was lonely out there with only a bunch of sticks and weeds and rocks to play with. Practically living off the grid without access to a bunch of playmates meant I was desperate for a little buddy to accompany me on my exciting outdoor adventures. I mean who was I supposed to share my outdoor experiences with if no children my age lived within a six mile radius of our home? I at least wanted to be accompanied by a pretend pal whenever I dug in the sandbox, played on the swing set, rode my big wheel, walked on stilts, played hopscotch, twirled baton, ran through the sprinkler, splashed in the kiddie pool, or hurled my body down the slip and slide. (Okay, I have to admit that the last item on the list never actually happened as the in house safety committee would have never, ever signed off on the purchase of something as inherently dangerous as a slip and slide.)

If I couldn't get my hands on a real live kid, it was only fair that I be allowed to arrange for a temporary stand in until other kids my age were available for a prearranged play date. Stuffed animals were right out as their ability to suck up moisture and grow swiftly soggy was glaringly obvious even to an overoptimistic preschooler like myself. The family dog was actually willing to go along with my outdoor antics for quite a while, but even she had her limits. Her patience and endurance often began to flag after being continuously tortured by countless hours of chic doggy dress up and distinguished hair styling for hounds. Eventually, no amount of milkbone bribery could keep her by my side for yet another luxurious bout of puppy pampering in my imaginary backyard beauty parlor for discriminating doggies. She much preferred a more solitary, less hands on, existence. After a long, harrowing morning of permitting me to work my magic in the form of yet another signature mutt makeover, the family dog spent the remainder of the afternoon laying on her side, sprawled out in the shade, snoozing. She could be observed occasionally squinting in the direction of her tiny human charge, through one half closed eyeball, in order to make sure that the mean neighborhood German Shepherd wasn't attempting to take my tiny arm off while she caught a few much deserved doggy zzzz's.

Despite my campaign for a partner in crime that I could happily drag with me around the yard, I continued to come up empty handed. I occasionally suggested that my parents solve the problem of my solitary existence by providing me with a new sibling. Surprisingly, they were not the slightest bit willing to get on board with my exciting plan to add an additional child to our existing family of five. Truth be told, I never pushed too hard for this particular option.  After all, I was sharp enough to recognize that adding another baby to our brood meant that my preferred status as the spoiled, bratty youngest would be rather quickly compromised.

If my parents wouldn't agree to go out and rustle me up a new baby brother or sister, I would have to make do with the next best thing, a precious little baby doll. In fact, I already owned two little dolls who were dressed in beautiful white christening type gowns that my grandmother had given to me as gifts. Surely, one of these two baby beauties could accompany me out into the wilderness. Unfortunately, their willingness to be dragged around the lawn by yours truly was intercepted by my mom, who vetoed this plan as well. Despite her flat out refusal to allow me to ruin two perfectly good dolls, she understood my plight and offered up an alternative in the form of the perfect outdoor companion, a unique creature, aptly named Beat Up Old.

I'm not quite sure where exactly we obtained dear Beat Up Old, but I will always remember her fondly no matter what her mystery origins happened to be. She may have been a secondhand castoff passed down from my older sister. It was also entirely plausible that she was an unbeatable bargain picked up at a neighborhood yard sale. I was too young to remember how we acquired her, I only knew that I loved her to pieces. She came by her name honestly as my mom would gently remind me that the only indoor toy that I was actually allowed to take outside with me was my "beat up old" doll. This sentence was uttered so frequently that eventually the entire family just began referring to my grubby faced outdoor doll as "Beat Up Old".

I am uncertain if Beat Up Old ever actually had any doll clothes of her own. If she once owned some kind of frilly doll-sized frock, it was long ago sullied by bright green grass stains and accidental fallout from extra sloppy mud pies. I can't speak to the fact if she ever owned a wardrobe as the only way I remember her was as a proud little nudist. She had a pinkish-beige cloth covered body and her plastic arms, legs, and head were carefully sewn onto this stuffing-filled, flesh-toned frame. Of course, my sister and I had lots of spare doll clothes tucked away in our toy box, but unfortunately, none of them were the perfect match for poor Beat Up Old. Unlike Goldilocks, there was no outfit in our joint possession that fit just right. The giant pile of doll clothes that my sister and I owned were either way too big and constantly fell off or way too tiny and didn't fit over her super sized noggin. So, Beat Up Old was left to roam the yard in her plain old birthday suit.

Speaking of her noggin, let's have a chat about delightful dolly hairdos. A few of my female cousins and childhood friends used to proudly own a collection of beautiful dolls. These dolls came with special stands so that they could be elegantly displayed on dressers, shelves, or tables in bedrooms and playrooms. I am quite certain that most of these dolls were far too expensive to ever venture outside of the room where they were carefully placed, let alone the house. Their delicate dresses were arranged just so and their unbelievable up-dos were salon worthy styles. Every curl was perfectly pinned in place with beautiful ribbons and baubles. This was not the case for poor Beat Up Old. Just like her original outfit remained a mystery to me, so did her original haircut. I only remember her post modern makeover. I am sure that when I acquired her, she had long lovely locks of silky synthetic hair, but you can only drag a doll around the back forty for so long before her hair starts to look a wee bit bedraggled. After one too many irremovable tangles, unfortunate chewing gum and lollipop incidents, and well-meaning organic mud bath hair treatments, Beat Up Old developed the kind of bad hair day that was chronic and incurable.

There was only one thing that could be done to save her hair and that was to give her a seriously short shearing. I was hoping that when my mom was finished furiously lopping away at her once lovely locks (not that I personally ever remember her having a beautiful bouffant but I'm certain she once did have one, just not when I owned her) that she would end up with a cute little pixie cut just like me. That was not exactly how it turned out as her plasticky doll hair was far too damaged to warrant keeping very much of its original length. My mom made a valiant effort, but after numerous attempts to successfully save her with a sweet little short cut, she was left with a single, less than desirable option.

Beat Up Old ended up sporting a spiky, bleach blonde crew cut, looking like she would fit in better at the annual convention of a somewhat androgynous gang of female bikers than at the local playground. Despite her edgy new hairdo, I loved Beat Up Old all the same and continued to carry her almost everywhere I went on my daily adventures in the great outdoors. Others might have thought it a bit odd to see a little girl toting a nekkid doll around that was a dead ringer for that nineties fitness guru Susan Powter, but my whole family and I had become oblivious to the fact that Beat Up Old was quite unlike any other doll on the planet. Unless you were in the business of combing through old garbage dumps and abandoned out buildings in search of antiques and long forgotten treasures, you had never seen a doll like Beat Up Old. Even if you were into junk picking as a hobby, and seeing dolls like Beat Up Old was a routine occurrence, it was still extremely rare to observe a doll in this kind of atrocious condition that was still tightly attached to the arm of the little girl who loved her.

Despite her outward appearance, I never gave up on Beat Up Old. I still had precious pretty indoor doll babies that I played with in the house, but none of them compared to Beat Up Old. The whole point of having a doll like Beat Up Old was that you could take her absolutely anywhere and you didn't have to worry about getting her dirty, messing up her hair, or ruining her clothes. All of those things had already happened, so she enjoyed complete and total doll freedom. There wasn't anywhere you couldn't take her. (Except maybe church, by all accounts, that one was right out.). If you accidentally left her hanging on the swing set and she got caught in a terrible thunderstorm, it was no big deal. If you forgot her in the woods during a game of hide and seek and your dad found her a few days later, you didn't get in trouble. Dad just brushed her off and handed her right back to you. (After a quick once over to check for fleas, ticks, and other outdoor vermin, of course.) If she flew off the back of your bike as you were pedaling at top speed down the driveway and landed in the middle of a mud puddle, there was no stress. You didn't have to endure the trauma and separation anxiety of waiting for your mom to run her through the washer, you just rinsed her off pretty good with the garden hose and went about your business with a slightly dampened dolly. If her left arm was accidentally dislocated in a freak tree climbing accident, no tears were necessary. A band-aid and some Bactine for your banged up elbow, a few quick sewing stitches for the lost limb of Beat Up Old, and the two of you were back on track in no time.

That was the beauty of a super sturdy, completely dependable, already well-broken-in doll baby like Beat Up Old. You just couldn't ruin her, no matter how hard you loved her. Just like her factory original hair and clothing, I can no longer recollect when and where we eventually parted ways. Not surprisingly, Beat Up Old was not found among the other beautiful dolls that my mom had carefully packed away to be someday handed down to her future grandchildren. Besides the fact that Beat Up Old was probably a walking petri dish of germs, who smelled a bit funny, and looked far worse, her somewhat rough outer appearance would probably be a bit frightening to any small child who didn't know her and love her from the beginning. Even my own family grew so accustomed to seeing me with this somewhat scary looking, slightly dingy doll, who lived life au naturale, that they were often shocked when outsiders publicly mentioned her deplorable condition. Even when faced with outright criticism from strangers, no one had the heart to separate me from the disheveled doll baby that I so clearly adored. I imagine that Beat Up Old was eventually retired after my mom found herself on the receiving end of one two many snarky comments in the checkout line at the grocery store. "Someone should buy that poor little girl a proper doll instead of making her carry around that hideous beat up old thing."

Little did they know, I was the proud owner of plenty of other pretty dolls in pristine condition. The flawless appearance of my other dolls was able to remain "just like new" because they usually never made it into the regular toy rotation. No doll could compare to Beat Up Old and she was the only doll I ever needed, even if she did look like I dug her out of a garbage dumpster. Besides, who wants a doll that costs so much, you're not even allowed to play with her. And, as for those perfectly coiffed dolls in designer duds that some of my friends and family owned and displayed for all to see, that kind of thing just wasn't for me. It's true that they were beautiful to look at and admire during the daytime, but once you turned off all the lights, I always thought those things turned a little creepy. I never enjoyed the feeling of all those perfect little dolls standing around the room staring at me all night long.

You never had to worry about that kind of thing with Beat Up Old. I didn't usually take her into bed with me. Despite the fact that I showered her with unconditional love during daylight hours, even I had my limits. We weren't completely blind to the fact that Beat Up Old was a dirty old outdoor doll, we just looked the other way most of the time. This did not include snuggling her little stinky body as you drifted off to sleep. Some things are just gross. I mean you wouldn't put your filthy, grass-stained little feet straight under the covers without at least pretending to rinse them off in the tub first, would you? I preferred to sleep with my little brown and white teddy bear, who played "Rock-a-bye, baby" when you wound up a tiny metal key on the left side of his fuzzy bear butt.

Besides, if you've ever tried to sleep with one of your baby dolls, you know it is not without its potential hazards.  It's rather unpleasant to wake up somewhat disfigured with the extremely painful outline of a rock hard plastic baby doll arm permanently imprinted into the middle of your shoulder blade. Beat Up Old never minded being given the boot from the tiny bedroom that my sister and I shared when we were little girls.  You could always count on Beat Up Old to be cool like that. She was perfectly content to spend her nighttime hours snoozing under the corner of the living room couch with all those cuddly little dust bunnies, lounging in the muddy garden next to a pretty green tomato plant, or sleeping in a cozy pile of sawdust, half-slumped over the radial arm saw table, out in the garage. She was too busy resting up for all the amazing adventures that we would have the following day to care about exactly where she sacked out for the night, and let's face it, it's not like she could have gotten any dirtier.

P.S. Thanks mom for allowing me to have at least one doll that I was actually allowed to take with me whenever I went outside to play. Sorry about those nasty people who threatened to call children and youth services on account of Beat Up Old. It was totally uncalled for and completely unfair. After all, it's not like I was the one running around the lawn naked as a jay bird, sporting a slightly crusty crew cut, with a two-inch layer of dirt caked on my face.

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Day 20 = Dealing with the Dreaded Clam Cough

Once a year, my dad's entire, enormous, extended family got together to enjoy a giant clam bake hosted by my great aunt and uncle. While family gatherings of this style may be common place in coastal towns throughout the country, I feel it is noteworthy to mention that this gargantuan family seafood festival actually took place smack dab in the middle of Ohio. One of my grandmother's younger sisters had married a mountain of a man who chose to pursue a career in agriculture there. Together, with their children, they owned and maintained acres and acres of sprawling farmland. They specialized in raising pigs, but they also kept some big, old brown cows in their barn and a few other farm animals made special guest appearances from time to time.

Out of all the regulars that hung out in their little barnyard, my personal favorite was a curly-coated hound named Clyde whose shaggy fur was once jet black until he got old and it gradually turned to salt and pepper. Clyde was a friendly pooch who spent his days lounging near his little dog house conveniently located in my aunt's side yard. From this particular vantage point, Clyde could easily observe the whole of the farm and alert his owners to any unforeseen changes in the surrounding environment. Clyde the dog loved his job and he prided himself in doing it well, but from time to time, he may have gotten a bit carried away with his self-appointed responsibilities. He barked in order to announce every single activity happening on the farm from guests arriving, to lose pigs on the run, to clunkety tractors passing by. Unfortunately, his ability to prioritize proved to be to somewhat problematic as kids on bicycles, oinking pigs who were safe and secure in their pens, and corn stalks blowing in the breeze garnered the same exact response as unwanted intruders. In fact, Clyde liked to bark so very much that he eventually developed chronic doggy laryngitis. Despite his unfortunate health condition, he continued to bark at everything in sight, ignoring the fact that no sound came out anymore. Clyde was the unofficial head of the clambake welcoming committee, silently greeting all the hungry guests as they arrived at the farm.

When you first arrived at my aunt and uncle's farm, it didn't go entirely unnoticed that it was a bit of a stinky business raising pigs. It was a working farm after all, but if the breeze was blowing in the right direction and even when it wasn't, after awhile you just didn't notice the smell quite so much. This was especially true if you wadded up bits of paper napkin and stuffed them inside each of your nostrils, however, if you happened to be older than seven, this technique was probably not for you. Through some rarely understood social phenomenon, the very moment you turn eight, you immediately become far too cool to walk around a family gathering with brightly colored party napkins sticking halfway out of your nose. This was difficult for the under seven crowd to understand as they found their unique stink-stopping technique to be both effective and highly entertaining.

No matter what camp you actually belonged to, it was virtually indisputable that getting to see all those adorable little piglets up close, made the sometimes smelly situation much more tolerable. Unfortunately, every single one of those cute little pink piggies with curly-q tails eventually grew up to big, honking, hairy hogs covered in mud and who knows what else from snoot to hoof. Why my aunt and uncle hosted a clam bake instead of a pig roast remains somewhat unclear, but for me, this clam-centered occasion was the event of the season, something that I eagerly looked forward to all year long. I constantly pestered my parents throughout the spring and summer months, demanding to know if it was time for the highly anticipated clam bake yet. I began to bother them about it as soon as the winter weather broke as I was certain that meant clam season was just around the corner. 

I absolutely adored spending time with my aunt and uncle, although it wasn't likely that we would spend a ton of time with them on the day of the big clam bake.  They were far too busy hosting their own party to spend too much time lingering in one spot. However, we did get to see them on a fairly regular basis. Despite living a few hours away from each other, they used to stop by our house quite often. You see there was a high quality livestock auction just down the road from my house where specialty swine could be bought and sold at reasonable prices. Whenever my aunt and uncle were in town on official pig purchasing business, they used to pop in for a quick visit prior to acquiring their new piggies of course. These sometimes surprise visits were always a pleasure and the whole family was always excited to see their car turn into our long, bumpy driveway. The thing that I remember most about the two of them was their hearty sense of humour. They were always so kind-hearted and they both shared a contagious kind of laughter that could completely fill a room. I can appreciate this, because my own laugh often comes out at a ridiculously loud volume. It doesn't happen all the time, but if I find something particularly hilarious, you can easily identify my ear-splitting ha-ha-ing from half a mile away. Some people I have known have found this trait of mine to be a bit overwhelming, but my best friend has always been a fan of my king-sized chuckles. The way she sees it, it always makes her look like the most entertaining person in the entire joint.

This very same aunt and uncle who knew how to laugh and graciously doled out clams every single September, also taught us how to be complete corn snobs. I never purchase ears of corn at the grocery store, not without totally regretting it, and please do not bother to offer me any kind of hog corn. Just because it's yellow and it comes wrapped in a bright green husk does not mean it is fit for human consumption. If an ear of corn wasn't freshly harvested the very same day it was to be eaten, my aunt wouldn't touch it. I grew up to practice and enforce the same strict corn policy in my house. In fact, we still import our corn from the nearby farmlands of Pennsylvania as I have yet to discover a single high quality ear of corn anywhere on the whole of Long Island. Despite the fact that there is a fairly active farming community out east, the farmers there must save all the good corn for themselves.  They pawn off their lousy, old field corn onto the city billies who don't know any better but I'm no green horn when it comes to corn.  Therefore, I will continue to smuggle my freshly picked Pennsylvania sweet corn across state lines.

Upon moving to this area, I was shocked to learn that when hosting a summer shindig in this neck of the woods, it is common practice to only prepare a single piece of corn per invited guest. I learned this the hard way after accidentally consuming someone else's ear of corn at my neighbor's backyard barbecue. My embarrassing faux pas wasn't even worth it. The first ear was lousy and I was hoping it was simply a dud and that the second one would prove to be delicious. No such luck. I tried to explain to the guy whose ear of corn I had accidentally pilfered that I had just saved his palate from being assaulted by corn that was only fit for animals to eat, but it was no use. I have now been forever labeled in our neighborhood as the local corn hog over an icky old ear of hog corn that I regretted ever bringing to my lips after the very first bite. Instead of being able to discretely dispose of the slightly nibbled bit of compost-worthy corn, I was forced to eat the whole stinking ear.  The already awkward situation would have been made even worse if I had stolen some guys highly-anticipated singular ear of corn and then heartlessly chucked it into the trash bin after only consuming three crummy kernels. I would like to go on record among the corn connoisseurs of the world, that I would have rather eaten a well buttered napkin than that rotten old ear of field corn, but I had little choice in the matter.

Back to the family clam bake, where delicious, fresh-picked sweet corn was always served up in abundance. I could hardly contain myself in anticipation of this annual family gathering. I couldn't wait to get my hands on a few ears of that super yummy corn, chow down on some clams, and hang out on the farm. You might find the third and final part of that statement to be slightly out of character for me, as I am not typically a huge fan of the whole farm scene. I grew up practically assaulted by agriculture as nearly every third student in my class lived on a farm and my dad actually sold and repaired farm equipment for a living. One of my older, city dwelling cousins used to tease me by saying "Hey, Farmer!" every time that I saw him. It instantly infuriated me because I was NOT a farmer, nor, for everyone's information, did I ever plan on becoming one at any point in the future. Luckily, when you are five, blind seething rage is only sustainable for about two minutes. After that, you just get over yourself and scurry off to play with your Barbies.  By the way, despite our extremely rural locale, I want you all to know that my Barbies always spent their afternoons having lunch at trendy restaurants and going to museums. Not once did they ever milk cows, muck stalls, ride horses, bail hay, or put up vegetables. (For those of you who may not be familiar with that expression, that's country talk for canning the stuff that you grow in your garden.). Despite not being a big fan of all things agricultural, I truly couldn't wait for this clam bake. It wasn't the farm itself that made the event, but it did provide loads of entertainment options and my dad's family was always a rowdy, fun-loving crowd.

As previously mentioned, the farm where the yearly clam bake was held was located in northern Ohio, not too far from the bustling metropolis of Cleveland. Given the interior location of the venue, I am not entirely certain where they sourced their seafood, but I do know that they purchased a boatload of cherry stone clams or quahogs if you prefer to call them that. The preparation process was quite time consuming as the zillions of clams had to be fed cornmeal in giant plastic kiddie pools in order to ensure that they were clean and sand free. As a kid, there was a whole shroud of mystery surrounding the process of layering the food in a certain way in special pots with spigots so that the precious boiling hot broth could be carefully drained out of the pots and all the food was guaranteed to turn out amazing. Besides the main dishes provided by my aunt and uncle, the rest of the family members brought side dishes, dessert, or both. Since my dad's side of the family is chock full of amazing cooks, the table was always covered in delicious dishes and everyone usually brought their personal culinary specialty. What a scrumptious feast!!  Even if you weren't particularly fond of seafood, it was guaranteed that you would never walk away from their house hungry on the day of the annual clam bake.

My dad has always been a fan of seafood, but unfortunately fresh fillets of ocean fish and other varieties of shellfish weren't always readily available when you were marooned in the middle of Ohio. Fortunately, in the early years of my parent's marriage, my dad did a lot of traveling for his job, so whenever he found himself in an area that specialized in seafood, he would readily partake. Another issue with the availability of seafood back in Ohio was that my mom didn't personally enjoy snacking on either snapper or shrimp.  Growing up, every single Friday in my mother's house was fish night. She used to conveniently and discretely dispose of her foul fish bits in the joint where the leg of the dining room table met the underside of the table top. She lived in constant fear that this little hidey hole would eventually become so crammed full of fish flakes that she would be left with no choice but to actually consume the funky fish that was polluting her plate. Oddly enough, every week, the previous Friday's fish had mysteriously disappeared. They did not own any pets at the time, so where exactly that fish went continues to remain a mystery to this very day. Needless to say, when I was growing up, every Friday in our house was rechristened homemade pizza night. I've mentioned the cardinal rule of our family kitchen once before, but in case you missed it, the cook never has to serve any vittles that she herself does not personally enjoy, unless said dish has been requested as part of someone's favorite birthday meal, then it is an unavoidable requirement.

Given my mom's compete lack of interest in preparing any fish related foods, whenever my dad had the opportunity to get his hands on some quality seafood, he would jump on it, happily sucking down all sorts of salty, savory, sea creatures. This routine was repeated in countless cities across the eastern seaboard, until one day my dad's free pass to gorge himself on seafood unexpectedly expired. He happened to be flying on an airplane, when he popped some sort of little seafood snack into his mouth. Obviously, this was way back in the day before airplane food became unidentifiable, preservative-laden blocks of artificially flavored I'm not sure what. Anyway, shortly after ingesting this little snippet of seafood, my dad started to feel a bit funny, a little tingly. His throat grew scratchy and he developed a mysterious cough that he hadn't had just a few minutes before. While his symptoms were slightly concerning, they were about to reach a whole new level of frightening. As time slowly passed his symptoms grew worse and worse. His ears began to ring so loudly that he could barely hear and he began to see spots in front of his eyes before his vision suddenly went completely black.

Not sure whether he was having a stroke or if someone had slipped him a mick, my wheezing, totally blind, and nearly deaf father flagged down an air hostess and tried to act completely normal while he requested a shot of whiskey. Don't tell the lovely lady that you are in need of medical attention because you can't hear, can't see, and can't breathe because it feels like your windpipe is in a vice grips, just casually request a bit of booze. Excellent emergency plan. Perhaps she simply thought he had developed a bit of anxiety during the flight. Whether he thought the alcohol would help to ease his scary symptoms or whether he thought he would drink a toast to a life well lived in his last few moments over Earth is unclear, even to my father. Perhaps, in reality, it was a bit of both. Either way, the shot magically relieved his symptoms. By all medical accounts, this should never have worked as alcohol is a depressant that should have slowed down his system, keeping him wheezing, sightless and half deaf for even longer, but for whatever miraculous reason it actually worked. My father regained his ability to see, hear and breathe moments after throwing back a generous mouthful of throat-burning whiskey. This was long before the widespread availability of the Epi-pen, so people had to simply make due with whatever tools they had. If a swig of Wild Turkey kept my pop from unexpectedly expiring mid-flight, so be it.
 
To be fair to my dad, it is a well-known fact that we don't always make the most logically sound decisions in times of extreme crisis. Even my own mother, who is normally quite a rational lady, fell victim to extreme panic and illogical actions when she found herself in a moment of danger at one of the family clambakes. She was standing in the middle of the kitchen inside my aunt's farmhouse and I belief she was helping to prepare an enormous batch of coleslaw to be consumed by the hungry masses, except for me, as coleslaw is the one thing on Earth that I abhor. In fact, I am comfortable admitting that I would rather starve than put a single spoonful of that putrid stuff into my mouth ever again for as long as I live. Anyway, after successfully shredding no less than sixteen bags of carrots using an old school box grater without slicing off a single fingertip, my mom was feeling particularly proud of her work. After shredding the final carrot into the big bowl of slaw, she absentmindedly popped the last remaining bit of carrot into her mouth as it was getting too risky to shred it anymore without inadvertently removing the whorls of her fingerprints. Her happy little toss must have been slightly more vigorous than she initially intended as that little piece of carrot had suddenly become unexpectedly lodged in the back of her throat.

My mom knew better than to excuse herself from the room, but she did not let any of the thirty-five other ladies crammed in the kitchen around her know what was happening. She never made the international sign for choking. She never beat her fist on the table to get someone's attention. She never jumped up and down and waved her arms in the air to alert the other women that she needed help. She never attempted to give herself the Heimlich maneuver over the back of a chair. Despite carefully lecturing each of her own children on what to do if they ever found themselves choking and in need of help, she just stood there frozen in disbelief over the fact that she was about to tragically expire in the middle of the annual family clambake. She hoped she didn't take out that colossal bowl of coleslaw that she had just spent three hours making when she collapsed to the floor.  Seconds before she was about to lose consciousness, her final plan of action was to fruitlessly attempt to yell for my father. Nevermind that even if she had been able to squeak out any sort of sound, my dad was a quarter mile away helping to tend the coals with the rest of the guys over at the clam pit.  Miraculously, in her voiceless attempt to shout my dad's name, the little chunk of carrot that had been clogging her airway was forced to move along and she was finally able to breath again. Although it didn't make sense, it did save her life. I wouldn't recommend her technique to anyone else anymore than I would recommend a shot of Jack to cure an allergic reaction to seafood. She might as well have been relying on good old silent Clyde to alert my dad to the fact that she was about to choke to death on a leftover chunk of coleslaw carrot.

My mom's controversial, yet successful, anti-choking technique was a one time event. Not once did I ever hear her recommend it to anyone else. Unlike Mom, my dad continued to attempt to manage his adverse reaction to shellfish with a little nip of alcohol for many years. The truth about my dad's questionable treatment plan was that he did not initially attribute that medical emergency on the airplane to a seafood allergy. In fact, in what may have been a new-agey attempt at practicing mind over matter (or complete and total denial), my dad continued to consume small amounts of seafood over the years in the hopes that eventually his food allergy might magically resolve itself.  It did not, as evidenced by the hearty clam cough that he developed at the end of every summer while indulging in shellfish at the annual family festival of all things clam. My mother was personally not a fan of this technique nor were we kids. It always started with fits of sneezing so loud that you could easily hear them all the way across the farm. While standing inside the house in my aunt's kitchen, surrounded by a gaggle of chatty female relatives who were busy preparing party food, my mom could clearly her my father's colossal, clam-induced ker-choos. His highly-amplified, serial sneezes were followed by a wheezy asthmatic cough and yet my dad continued to consume a few more clams undeterred. Not only did this ongoing little dance with the devil irritate my mother, it made no sense to her whatsoever as she herself was no stranger to allergic reactions.

As a tiny baby, my mother used to break out in mysterious hives from head to toe. The origin of these itchy bumps was unknown for quite some time. It happened so often that my grandmother and the doctor were in constant contact. Finally, through the process of elimination, it was discovered that my poor mother was highly allergic to wool, a material that babies were constantly surrounded by back in those days. When she was eventually old enough to require bandages for boo-boos, it quickly became apparent that she also had an allergy to latex. Point being, she was well versed in her own allergic reactions and her method of dealing with them was to avoid the substances that causes her to develop intensely itchy sores and bumpy rashes like the plague. Not once did I ever come home from school to find her covered in a box of band aids from head to toe, wearing latex gloves on each hand, while tightly wrapped in wool blankets in an attempt to overcome the physical weaknesses that caused her to be allergic to said items. But unlike my mom, for decades, my strong-willed dad refused to give up hope. After thirty years or so, he has finally accepted that he does indeed have an allergy to shellfish. He is now the proud owner of injectable epinephrine in case of emergency, a more effective, yet admittedly far less enjoyable, alternative to taking a great big slug of firewater.

Not surprisingly, my father wasn't the only one in the family who was allergic to seafood. My parents were always concerned that one of their children would develop an allergy to shellfish as well. One of my dad's little sisters always served one of those fancy shrimp cocktail rings at her holiday parties. I loved the taste of shrimp and it was never served in our house because my mom disliked it and my dad wasn't supposed to eat it. While my dad would have happily slurped up shrimp drenched in cocktail sauce anyway, my mom preferred that he continued to breathe freely. So, given the lack of shrimp in our house, I used to eat all the shellfish I could hold whenever it was available. I wasn't aware until I was much older that my aunt was actually allergic to the seafood that she so graciously served. So allergic, that one time my uncle gave her a little kiss shortly after he had snuck a morsel of seafood off the freshly prepared shrimp platter. My aunt quickly discovered the rat when her lips swelled up to twice their usual size due to the shrimp laced smooch my uncle had planted on her moments before the guests arrived. If Botox lip plumping injections had been all the rage back then, she would have had a much cheaper, albeit somewhat risky, alternative! Although if you're willing to risk it all in the pursuit of beauty and youth, I suppose exploiting your own allergy to seafood might be a shade better than willingly injecting rat poison into parts of your face, but that's just my opinion.

What you may not realize about seafood allergies is that they often develop later in life. The compounds in seafood that cause allergies gradually build up in your system over time. While you once might have been able to polish off pounds of lobster, shrimp, crabs, and clams at your local seafood buffet with nary a wheeze, eventually your condition gradually worsens until you can no longer tolerate seafood at all. My brother spent his formative years by taking a weekly trip to the local dairy isle with my grandparents. A dairy aisle is a little seasonal snack hut that serves various types of ice cream along with little paper-lined baskets of fried food. Before indulging in an after dinner ice cream cone, my brother would stuff himself with a heaping, red, plastic basket of crispy, breaded, deep-fried shrimp. He often jokes that if he had known he would one day develop a shellfish allergy, he would have paced himself more carefully, not realizing that he would ingest his predetermined lifetime quota of shrimp before the age of nine.

His seafood allergy became apparent after munching on a tainted fish stick in our school cafeteria. Obviously somebody at the fish processing factory was sleeping on the job as some shellfish must have accidentally slipped into the giant vat of fish flakes that were carefully formed into little logs and flash frozen. This means of preparation allowed those unfortunate, land-locked folks in the Midwest without access to fresh fish to "enjoy" the day's fresh catch in the form of frozen fish sticks. Shortly after chomping one of those crispy cylinders of compressed cod bits, my brother began to feel funny, a little tingly. His throat grew scratchy and he developed a mysterious cough that he hadn't had just a few minutes before. While his symptoms were slightly concerning, they were about to reach a whole new level of frightening. As time slowly passed his symptoms grew worse and worse. His ears began to ring so loudly that he could barely hear. He began to see spots in front of his eyes before his vision went completely black. Since he knew the story of my dad's first allergic reaction, he knew what was happening, and he knew exactly what to do to save himself.

Unlike my father's incident on the airplane, shots of alcohol were scarce in the school cafeteria. It was common knowledge that one of the Math teacher's kept a secret flask hidden in his desk drawer, but attempting to obtain it would be too risky and drinking after Mr. Super Cigarette Breath would be too gross. It might save his life but them he would probably fail Algebra and his life would be over in a completely different way.  He would also need a lip transplant after sharing a flask with Mr. Chronic Mouth Stink. Seeing no alternative, he calmly turned to one of his pals at the lunch table and said, "Look, I don't want to alarm you unnecessarily but I've just gone blind after eating one of these fish sticks, could you do me a favor and guide me down the hall to the nurse's office without making a big scene?" Even under duress, no one wanted to be forever remembered as that unfortunate kid who got carted out of the cafeteria on a stretcher. After an emergency phone consult with Mom and Dad, the nurse knocked him out with a dose of Benadryl and sent him home. My brother and I are super sensitive to medication so Benadryl totally turns us into Rip Van Winkle. My brother probably slept for at least a week before finally coming around. Unlike my father, after that incident, my brother no longer dabbled in shellfish or fish sticks ever again. In fact, by the time I started school, fish sticks had been removed from the school lunch menu entirely. Some nasty rumors were circulating that they had made a kid go blind a few years back which greatly reduced their popularity among the lunch purchasing population.

Shellfish intolerance is more common than you might realize. A close friend of mine also suffers from a serious allergy to shellfish. One of my favorite shellfish disaster stories happened to her when she was enjoying an evening out at a really lovely restaurant. The gentleman she was seeing ordered a serving of crab legs. She mentioned in passing that she was allergic to them but as long as he didn't force her to eat one, she should be just fine. They had been enjoying a delicious dinner together until the evening came to an abrupt halt after what would have been disregarded as a minor dining mishap under normal circumstances. In the middle of their lively conversation, in an over zealous moment of crab cracking, a tiny bit of liquid from inside one of the crab legs shot directly across the table and hit my friend square in the eye. Aside from stinging a bit, it was nothing that a few quick dabs with her napkin couldn't fix. No biggie. Until rather suddenly, it became a really huge biggie, as in her eye exploded to three times its normal size, after which the entire right side of her face became hideously contorted. Not exactly the kind of impression she was hoping to make and her date felt terrible for inadvertently causing her to become temporarily disfigured. It's hard too look cute and act flirty when you have unexpectedly morphed into the likes of Quasimodo.

Knowing all of this is starting to make me ever more leery of consuming shellfish. I love it and I live on the water, so it is readily available. At least once a week in the summer, I can be found wielding a pair of tongs and wrestling a bunch of angry, feisty crabs into an enormous pot of boiling water. I've been lucky. I have yet to have one of them escape and run around my kitchen threatening to pinch my toes off, but I am sure that it is bound to happen one of these days. After steaming them, my husband and I sit down to enjoy our fresh caught feast. He dives right in and begins chomping on crab bits, while I am always a bit more tentative. It's not the business of crab cracking that slows me down, rather it's those little annoying questions in the back of my mind.  Is my throat getting itchy or am I imagining it? Am I developing the crab cough or did I just swallow down the wrong pipe? Are my lips getting tingly or did I just get a little carried away with the Old Bay Seasoning? So far so good, but I am ever on alert for those sneaky symptoms, wondering if I'm about to crash though my crab, shrimp, and clam quota never to be able to enjoy shellfish again for as long as I live. Will one too many childhood clam bakes take me out of the seafood game early? Only time will tell. In the mean time, on any given night, if you were to sail past my house on your boat, you could clearly hear me laughing like a hyena, while I crack crabs and shuck clams at my dining room table. I'll be reminiscing with my husband about fond family memories like clam bakes on the farm of my aunt and uncle, hoping to successfully avoid the dreaded clam cough passed down from previous generations before me.

While I don't currently own an Epi-pen, we do keep a bit of Benadryl on hand in our medicine cabinet just in case. I would only rely on it in an extreme emergency though, as I'd hate to turn into Sleeping Beauty and lose an entire week of my life over a false alarm in the food allergy department. Don't worry about me though.  I assure you that I have learned from the error of my parent's ways. If one unfortunate day in the future my ears start to ring and my throat gets all tingly after chowing down on a bunch of shellfish, I promise to actually seek some sort of medical attention. I won't just blindly stumble across the kitchen in order to suss out a bottle of booze from the bottom shelf of the pantry despite the fact that I hear, while somewhat unorthodox, it's a fairly effective cure for the dreaded clam cough. And, if I ever find myself choking on a morsel of food while standing in the middle of an entire flock of close friends and family members, I will actually let someone near me know about my near death dilemma.  I will forgo silently attempting to yell for help, despite the fact that my husband is out of earshot and I am unable to speak in favor of life saving measures that have been proven to work in a choking emergency.  Don't get me wrong, I am grateful for the fact that my parents have taught me an amazing amount of essential life lessons that have kept me on the straight and narrow for decades. However, by my parent's own admission, not every bit of parental guidance is a keeper and hindsight is always 20/20.  In retrospect, the alternative treatments of food allergies and choking are probably not techniques that my mom and dad would recommend that their offspring attempt to replicate in the future.  Therefore, I will be filing these two questionable emergency response techniques into the old "Do as I say, not as I do" category of parenting.  In these two particular cases, I feel fairly confident that this decision will not bother my parents one little bit.

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