Pancakes and Panty Girdles

by Suzanne Lieurance

What does anyone remember about growing up? Hard to say, for the mind hangs onto the oddest of things sometimes. Memories of my own youth revolve around pancakes and panty girdles; pancakes for the the enjoyable times, and panty girdles for certain rites of passage that were not always the most positive experiences.

When you think about it, what a culture wears and what everyone eats, just about tells the whole story, since that information tends to relate whether or not the people of a particular time and place were happy and comfortable.

As a child in the 50’s and early 60’s, I grew up in a world that judged a person by her underwear. At least that’s how I felt, since around the fifth grade or so, my girl classmates seemed part of a private club whose uniform was a white, sleeveless undershirt.

The undershirt was quite plain, except for a pink bow at the neckline, and a girl had to have this piece of fabric, because in gym class locker rooms it was the only thing between her budding womanhood and the world around her.

For some woman nowadays, I suppose the undershirt brings fond memories. For me, however, it simply serves as a reminder of how I was never in sync with the rest of the girls my age. Just as I began wearing the correct undershirt, complete with pink bow, everyone else had acquired a new contraption with straps and hooks and cups. Not only did I shudder at the sight of anything with “cups”, I definitely didn’t have the necessary body parts with which to fill one of these items. As it was, I barely needed the undershirt. I suffered in silence for a few more years, quietly ignoring the snickers of the other girls and the teasing of the boys who would try to snap the back of a bra that wasn’t there.

Eventually though, my body allowed me to move to this next step in the sisterhood of underwear. I thought I could rest easy at this point, but just about that time the girls upped the stakes with an even more uncomfortable deviced called the panty girdle. This was a few years before the invention of pantyhose, so the panty girdle or a garter belt were the only options if a girl wanted to wear hose.



A garter belt looked rather perverse, so I opted for the panty girdle. My mother seemed thrilled that I had at long last become a woman. She immediately went out and bought me a panty girdle. It had its own pink bow as well, right at navel level; I guess so the wearer could feel feminine as she was being constricted to death.

My only fond memory involving a panty girdle is the time I helped my mother apply false fingernails for a special party. We glued every nail in place, polished each of them a bright pink. Mother’s hair and makeup were perfect and all she had left to do was get dressed. I had gone out to the living room to watch tv when I heard my mother scream from the bedroom. I ran to see what had happened. Mother stood there, the dreaded panty girdle pulled halfway over her hips, the false fingernails dangling from the waist of the girdle.

Fortunately, it wasn’t long before some person sent from God liberated us by creating pantyhose, and while most women would never be burning their bras, at least a few of us were burning our panty girdles. Pantyhose weren’t perfect back then, however. They would usually “run” if you pulled them up too quickly, and more times than not, when I got up from a chair, the pantyhose didn’t get up with me but remained at my ankles.

No, I don’t long to return to my teenage years, thanks to the panty girdle, and its sister, pantyhose.



Pancakes were another matter altogether. I may not have liked the way we were expected to dress in those times, but the food was certainly delicious. Maybe that’s because my grandmother was the best cook around, and the fact that she didn’t even own a panty girdle probably had something to do with it. With her it was “take me or leave me.” No size ten was she, no dainty little lady unable to eat a bite because her panty girdle was too tight!

The best thing Grandmother ever cooked was pancakes. No one in my family since has been able to duplicate her buttermilk culinary works of art. Thick and fluffy they were not. These pancakes were thin and flat and barely stayed in the pan long enough to get brown. But piled high on a plate and smothered with butter, they were the only pancakess worthy of the best corn syrup around. Maple syrup wouldn’t do for these pancakes. They had to have the finest white Karo.

If I test my memory, I can recall other delightful dishes from my past, but none more memorable than those pancakes. And, if Grandmother were still around, I’m sure we could enjoy reminiscing together about the good ole’, bad ole’ days, when she watched me grow up amidst pancakes and panty girdles. And while we’d share a fondness for days gone by, I’m sure she would agree with me about one benefit of modern day life. While hardly anyone mentions panty girdles anymore, you can’t go very far without crossing paths with someone in our culture who still enjoys a good pancake now and then.

MEN ARE NOT FROM MARS

by Suzanne Lieurance


Men are from Mars and women are from Venus. Or so they say. But sometimes, I think my husband is from Uranus. Not that he's dumb or anything. Far from it. But his behavior certainly baffles me. It's just so far out there! Take last night. I was baking cookies when I suddenly noticed the time.

"Yikes! Can you take these cookies out of the oven for me when they're done?” I asked him. “I was supposed to be at an online workshop 10 minutes ago!"

"Sure...no problem," he said.

And I went dashing off to the computer to log on.

I left the cooling racks out for the cookies, along with a plastic storage bag to put the cookies in once they had cooled. It wouldn't take a brain surgeon or a rocket scientist to finish with this job. I was confident he could handle it.

Now here's where Uranus comes in. When my workshop was over I went back downstairs to see if my husband had remembered the cookies. He remembered them all right. He even baked the rest of the batter that was left in a bowl in the refrigerator. But the cooling racks and the plastic storage bag were setting on the counter, while the cookies were all stacked on top of each other on two plates, covered with aluminum foil.

Now my husband is the type of guy who plays chess to relax. He worked Rubic's Cube in about 10 minutes when it first came out years ago, and his favorite library book at the moment is called Conquering Calculus. So wouldn't you think he could figure out that hot, gooey cookies, oozing with melting chocolate chips, would stick together if they were piled on a plate, straight from the oven? Apparently not. Instead of several dozen chocolate chip cookies, we now have two (count 'em, two) chocolate chip cookie MOUNTAINS, firmly cemented to two of our good dinner plates.

When I saw the cookie mountains last night I didn't say anything.

My husband eyed me nervously. "What'd I do wrong now?" he asked.

"Did I say you did something wrong?" I answered.

"You didn't have to," he said. "You've got that look."

And he was right. I had the look. The one that says, "Women may be from Venus, but I swear, men are from Uranus!"

JUST WHEN I THOUGHT IT WAS SAFE

by Suzanne Lieurance



Just when I was finally beginning to believe my children were old enough to take care of themselves without me around most of the time, my younger son (he’s 14) planted new seeds of doubt in my mind when he volunteered to head a frozen pizza for dinner.

“Do you smell something, Mom?” he asked, quite innocently enough.

“Yeah,” I answered. “Something burning...smells like cardboard.”

“Uh-oh,” he said, with a sheepish look on his face as he raced to the stove and flung open the oven door.

“Tyler, you didn’t,” I said.

But it was quite apparent - he did!

He pulled the pizza out of the oven and placed it on top of the stove as I got a plate and handed it to him. He slid the pizza onto the plate, revealing a blackened circle of cardboard.

“You could have burned the house down!” I scolded, overreacting as I often do to any of his careless mishaps.

“How was I supposed to know the cardboard couldn’t go in the oven?” he offered in his own defense.

How was he supposed to know, indeed. We’ve probably only heated a thousand or so frozen pizzas from the time he was little. I just looked at him. Then I said, “Well, here’s a hint to always remember...never put cardboard in an oven...any kind of cardboard...any kind of oven.”

What could he say to that but, “Okay, okay. Geez, you always make such a big deal out of every little mistake.”

That made me start to wonder if he was right. Do I always make such a big deal out of every little screw up? Was cardboard in the oven just a little screw up? Sure it was, because we took it out. But if I hadn’t been there to recognize the smell, what would he have thought it was? Would he have looked in the oven? Or, would the cardboard have ignited and ruined the stove, or worse yet, actually burned the house down? I was deep in thought when my older son, who’s sixteen, came into the kitchen.

“What’s that smell?” he asked. “Smells like burning cardboard. Hey, I’ll bet Tyler left the pizza on the cardboard, didn’t he?”

“How’d you know?” I asked suspiciously.

“I did it once, too,” he said. “Almost burned the house down.”

I cut myself a slice of pizza and put it on a plate. “Just when I thought it was safe...” I mumbled.

THE WRITER IN THE FAMILY

by Suzanne Lieurance



I pride myself on being the writer in the family. But lately my husband has been threatening to write a book. He even has a title picked out - HOW MARTHA STEWART RUINED MY LIFE.

His newfound literary aspirations are due to my recent admiration for America's legendary queen of style and substance. The other day when I happily announced, "Just look at all the new foods we've been trying! We've broken out of our meat-and-potatoes rut," my husband pointed to the Martha Stewart Living magazine on the coffee table, and roared, "Yeah, and it's all HER fault!"

So he doesn't like change. Who knew?

The change started when I quit my job a few years ago to stay home to write. Writing eight hours a day isn't as glamorous as it sounds. Sure, you can sit around and work in your pajamas all day and never ever have to worry about combing your hair or wearing anything without an elastic waistband (my idea of heaven). But writing is hard work! You have to take plenty of breaks, drink numerous cups of coffee or tea, and snack several times a day just to keep your creative juices flowing.

I turned on the television one afternoon as I was making tea. There was Martha - demonstrating how to make lampshades out of string. I was hooked!

Now every afternoon I leave my computer, switch on the TV, and relax with Martha. Lately, she's been showing America how to "escape from the ordinary" with new taste sensations. As a result I've developed an intense fascination with root vegetables - my husband's worse nightmare.

"I refuse to eat anything with over five ingredients I can't identify!" he declared one evening.

I was ladling Martha's Fall Ragout (pronounced "Ragoo") into a bowl before him.

"Relax," I told him. "You've had these things before."

He eyed me suspiciously. "I only recognize the carrots!"

I decided to humor him. "Okay...let's just see what all is in here, shall we?"

He folded his arms across his chest. Our sons arrived at the table.

"What's going on?" asked Tyler.

"Nothing," I answered. "I'm just explaining dinner."

Tyler stared at his Ragout.

"Explaining it? We need directions or something?"

Our other son, Nick, sat quietly.

"No, I'm just identifying things for Dad," I said.

Nick piped up, "I see a carrot!"

"What's that round, yellowish thing?" asked Tyler.

"A parsnip," I said, "the white things are turnips."

My husband fished out two white lumps from his bowl. "What white things? I thought those were potatoes!"

"Those ARE potatoes, but these white things are turnips."

"What's this orange cube?" he asked with a frown.

"Butternut squash." I said. My head was beginning to ache.

My husband made a face.

"Uh...Mom, there's something lumpy at the bottom of my soup," Nick said sheepishly.

"It's not soup, dear, it's Ragout. And that's just the polenta."

Chairs scraped the floor as they all scooted back from the table.

"Po - what?" Nick asked.

"Just eat it!" I snapped. "And, I don't wanna hear another word. From anybody!"

The room was dead silent for the rest of the meal.

But I'll show 'em. Tomorrow night - it's rutabagas!

That oughta give my husband something to write about!

YOU ARE WHAT YOU DRIVE: WHAT YOUR CAR SAYS ABOUT YOU

by Suzanne Lieurance



A car pulls up to our driveway and stops.

I’m in the living room, just finishing my morning coffee as I happen to look out the window.

The car is red, sleek, low to the ground, with that aerodynamic look designed to make it fast, and it probably cost more than our first house.

My son Nick comes bounding down the stairs, two at a time. He’s late for work and this is his ride.

I glance out the window again to check out the driver. A pair of eyeballs peeks out over the dashboard.

“Who's that?” I ask, pulling at the blinds to get a better look.

“Just Allie. Cool car, huh?” says Nick, then adds with a stab, “Her PARENTS bought it for her...”

I refuse to feel guilty. “Wear your seatbeat,” I warn, then sarcastically add with a smile,“and have a nice day."

Nick rolls his eyes at me and charges out the door.

After he’s gone I look out the window again - at our cars. We have three, all junk. Well, maybe just two are junk. The third is what we refer to as our “good car” because it's the newest of the three, runs most of the time, and the only body work it needs is a new paint job. The other two have dents and bumps and rusted fenders, and the interior of my husband’s car is held together with safety pins and some masking tape.

Lately, Nick has more and more friends with sleek, shiny cars. Most of the cars are red for some reason, too. Nick’s friends laugh at his car. Call it a piece of junk and ask him when he’s going to get a real car (for that matter, they probably ask him when anyone in his family is going to get a real car).

This preoccupation with cars led me to some quiet reflection about vehicles and why we drive what we do. After all, everyone knows our cars make a statement about us. What are our three jalopies saying about this family?

Nick would say our cars tell the world we're either poor or just plain cheap.

I, on the other hand, have a different view of why we don’t worry more about our image. Here’s how I explained it to Nick: “Cars are the basis for many people’s self-esteem. When they drive an expensive, fancy car they feel good. They’re letting the world know they're important and can afford something really sharp.”

“Exactly,” says Nick. “And they look cool!"

“But, you’re missing the point,” I say to him, “LOOKING and BEING are two different things.”

“Well, that’s good, I guess, “ says Nick, “considering what we look like in our crappy cars.”

“That’s the point, exactly,” I continue. “We're as important and cool as that guy in the sleek, fancy Grand Prix or Porsche. In fact, we’re probably healthier than the guy in the Porsche.”

Nick scratches his head. "Huh?"

“Just look at the guy in the Porsche or any other expensive car," I say. "He drives up and everyone looks at his great car. He feels important and good about himself. But, he didn’t feel good on the inside without something on the outside to help him. You, however, don’t need that shiny new car to feel good about yourself.”

Nick rolls his eyes and grins. “So what you’re saying is - anyone who shows up in our pieces of crap must have a really healthy self-image."

“Exactly,” I answer, thinking this kid of mine really is quite smart, though he’s entirely too fond of the word crap. “What would that guy in the Porsche think about himself if he drove up in one of our cars?”

Nick chuckles the way he usually does when he thinks I’ve done something that assures him I’m slightly deranged.

“I don’t know about you, Mom,” he says. “According to you, this family must have the highest self-esteem of anyone on the block. “

“You got it!” I say, patting him on the back. “Now hop in your little coupe and go get us some milk, will you?”

A few minutes later, Nick pulls out of the driveway. His car sounds like tin cans clinking together.

I close the blinds, hoping no one will notice.

"We gotta get at least one new car right away," I mumble aloud to myself, "this family is WAY too healthy.”

IT'S ALWAYS DOGS FOR DAD

by Suzanne Lieurance


Some people never learn. My father is one of those people. For someone as educated and intelligent as he is, I’d expect him to know better by now. Yet, his past experiences have taught him nothing when it comes to pets. He still prefers dogs to cats. Suggest, “Ah, Dad, get a life. Get a cat” and you’ll see the veins stand up on his neck. The mere thought of a cat causes his blood to surge. And it’s always been that way.

I remember as a child seeing some cute cuddly kittens in a box outside the grocery store when I was shopping with my mother.

A sign on the box said “Free kittens.” So, I picked up one and asked, “Mom, can we have a kitten?”

Seemed innocent enough to me, but Mother gasped like she had something stuck in her throat and couldn’t breathe.

“Eeeek.....NO..... ,” she wheezed, “your father would have a FIT. He HATES cats! He’d probably drown the poor little thing if we brought it home.”

Fearing for the tiny kitty’s life I quickly set it back down in the box, and never, ever (not even once) asked for a kitten again. My mother had planted visions of my father, the cat murderer, in my head, and I wasn’t about to furnish him with unsuspecting little victims.

Mother never could give me a reason for my father’s strong dislike of cats. We moved on - to the world of dogs.

What a world it was (and still is). Somehow every dog my father has ever owned has had “a fungus.”

We’ve had Chows with a fungus, Poodles with a fungus, Labrador Retrievers with a fungus.

If it was our dog - it had a fungus.

I was grown before I realized a fungus wasn’t a body part of all dogs (“What do you mean your dog has no fungus?” I’d ask my friends. “What’s wrong with him?”).

And dogs with a fungus always had to eat special food (something oily for their coats), take little pills (cuts down on the itch, so they don’t scratch themselves to death), and be given baths with special shampoo (don’t ask, I don’t know).

Our most memorable family trip was the time we took our “fungused” Labrador Retriever with us when we moved across country, and on the way stopped at a motel that did not allow dogs in the rooms.

They had a kennel out back, but my brother decided to sneak the dog into our room anyway while Dad was unloading the car and mother was getting ice.

We hadn’t been in the room two minutes when the dog relieved herself on the carpet. To make things worse, my brainy brother picked up the mess with some paper towels we had in the car. He flushed them down the toilet only to stop up the plumbing so bad my mother had to call the manager, who promptly sent someone to help us.

My brother stuffed the dog in a closet while two men removed the largest piece of dog excrement in motel history from our toilet.

I can still recall the way those men looked at us that night. We all knew they were sizing up the whole family, wondering which one of us was responsible for that giant clump buried in soggy paper towels.

Everyone kept quiet about the dog, but I knew each of us wanted to blurt out, “It wasn’t me. Our dog did that!”

The years and the dogs have come and gone.

Now my parents own not one dog, but three.

Their house has more baby gates than a family with quadruplets because the dogs can’t be trusted not to tear up the furniture.

Last year these wonderful dogs were sent away to learn a few manners at doggie boarding school, but were immediately sent home when one of them bit the teacher.

Oh, well. You can’t teach an old ma..., I mean dog, new tricks. But you can get a ca. . .caaaa. . . caaaa....

I can't even say it!

I give up. It’s always been and it always will be - dogs for Dad.

NO BIG DEAL

by Suzanne Lieurance



“Can we go to the concert, Mom? It’s no big deal....” says my teenage son as his younger brother nods in agreement.

I'm not excited about the idea, but I don't feel like arguing.

"I guess so," I say to them, as they race to the front door.

After they've gone I get to thinking about their comment, “No big deal.” How many times have I heard this phrase? We all use it without thinking. But, oddly enough, in these modern times there seems to be almost nothing left in life that isn’t a big deal. Take something as simple as a phone call.

Used to be, if I wanted to call a business to get information about a product or service, all I did was look up the number in the phone book, dial the phone, then talk to the person who answered at the other end. Not any more. Now a machine answers and gives me a list of “options.”

“Press 1 if you wish to place an order; press 2 if you wish to return an order; press 3 if you wish to have information sent to you,” and finally, “press 4 if you wish to speak to someone in the customer service department.”

All I want to do is check the price of computer paper. This information isn’t available through options 1-3. I have to speak to a human, so I confidentally choose option 4, only to have the line answered by another machine that says, “everyone in the customer service department is busy right now, but please hold, or push 1 to get back to the order desk. Or push 5 if you would like to leave a message.”

And I thought this was going to be a quick, simple phone call. I decide I’ll never find out what I need to know, and it would be too silly to leave a message, so I choose the only option the machine hasn’t allowed for - I hang up.

Now, hungry from the frazzling phone call, I decide to get something to eat. No big deal. There’s a drive-through window at the chicken place around the corner. Since the boys are out for the evening I'll get my husband and myself some dinner.

I hop in the car, drive to the restaurant, and place my order.

“I’d like 2 number 2’s , please,” I say to the speaker on the menu board.

“Will that be crispy, extra crispy, barbequed, rotesserie roasted, or original recipe?” a garbled voice shoots back.

Time to click on the old brain, again. Even a couple of chicken dinners require some decisions.

“Uh... original recipe,” I say, squinting at the menu board again.

“The number 2 comes with 2 side orders from column 3, m’am.”

My mind flashes back to years ago when I would come to this same restaurant and order chicken. It always came with mashed potatoes, gravy, cole slaw, and a biscuit. No decisions, necessary. What happened?

I study the big menu board, but it takes me 5 minutes just to find column 3.

“Baked beans, and corn, for both orders, please,” I say finally.

“Something to drink?” asks the voice.

“Root beer,” I say, boldly.

“We have Sprite, Dr Pepper, Orange Crush, Mountain Dew, and Coke, m’am,” the voice says impatiently.

“Okay. ..two Cokes,” I answer.

“What size?” asks the annoying voice.

“Medium,” I say, almost automatically.

“We have large or small, ma’m,” the voice screeches back.

“Small then,” I mumble, feeling my blood sugar sink to a new low.

At long last, I drive home with my two chicken dinners.

After we’ve eaten our dinners, my husband decides he wants some of the new chocolate cookies he’s seen advertised on TV. As he describes them to me, they sound so good I say I’ll drive to the store to get some.

“Back in a few..., “ I tell him. “No big deal.”

But when I’ve been gone for nearly an hour, I'm sure my husband must be ready to come looking for me. Finally I walk in the front door with two grocery sacks. My husband eyes me nervously.

“What’s all that?” he asks, as I dump the sacks onto the table.

“Well, I wasn’t sure which cookies you wanted and I got confused reading the labels. Did you want the low fat? Or the no fat? Or the reduced fat? Or the lite cookies?

Now my husband looks confused.

“I think I wanted them WITH fat,” he says, scratching his head. “They’re cookies...”

“Not to worry. I bought them all,” I tell him.

It isn’t long before our sons are home from the concert. They trudge into the family room where my husband and I are about to relax with some television. My older son snatches the remote from the coffee table and flips through 37 stations.

“Nothing on,” he says dryly.

I could argue the point with him. After all, it’s hard to know what's on when you only see flashes and muffled sounds as he surfs through all the stations at the speed of light.

“So... let’s rent something,” suggests my younger son. And then he uses that popular phrase once again, "no big deal."

I listen as they haggle over, not only which video to rent, but which video store to go to. Finally I can’t take it any more.

"I'm going to bed," I tell them. "It's the only thing left in life that really is NO BIG DEAL."