Blocking the Old Chip

Today, as I was sawing a hunk off a pork roast to "have a bite" I remembered going wild for pork roast when I was a girl. At the time I was about 8. My "Aunt Lou" served the pork roast, something I did not remember ever having before. It was so delicious to me I kept asking if I could have more. The next day Aunt Lou took me aside and said that she was concerned about me because I had been so insatiable in regard to the meat. She said that my sister Myrna had a problem with obesity and that she was worried that I may have inherited the same trait.

Well, I was floored. First of all, I really had no real concept of obesity. Oh, I guess in cartoons, Wimpy was fat and always wanting a burger. That was humor, right? I had mixed feelings about that guy. Annoyance at his behavior and pity for his hunger. But back to my sister. Obese? Myrna? Why, to me, Myrna was the most beautiful girl imaginable. And secondly, whatever this horrible "condition" was that poor Myrna apparently suffered from, oh, my god, I too was to be the subject of Aunt Lou's and others stern looks and head shaking in a tsk tsky sort of way.

For cripes sakes, looking back I wonder if maybe I was just starved for iron. After all, I had been hospitalized twice as a baby for anemia and the doctor had put me on geritol plus iron when I was three for - yep - anemia. In fact, my whole life, docs and midwives and such have chased me around doling out iron pills, prenatal vitamins, even when I was not pregnant, waving chicken and beef liver about.... well, ok, metaphorically.

From that moment on, I think I looked at Myrna in a new light and surely at myself. And perhaps at others, wondering if they could see my inherited tendency. Mostly, tho, I just played hard and had fun. In junior high I took sewing and when my sister Pat (okay all these sisters and Aunts are a long story, but Pat, no relation to Myrna...) measured me to fit a pattern, my waist measured 18 and a half inches. That year Twiggy was a smash phenom and at school, my nickname became Twiggy. Still, I think that damn curse of the dreaded obesity trait was banging around in my psyche breeding trouble.

Well, it was not long before it had something to breed with. About the same time I was answering to Twiggy and playing tennis at every chance, as well as cycling, swimming, playing trumpet and french horn, sewing everything I could dream of, creating a troll doll mansion and lined sleeping bags for all 11 of the little monsters, we all went camping. It was a strange camping trip. We went with the Lyons family - my mom's boss Jack, his wife Dean and their 4 kids, two of whom, Pete and Jeff, were Danny's and my main tripping buddies. Er, Danny my brother, no relation to Myrna. On that particular trip, my mom and dad were fighting. I could hear them yelling in the volkswagon bus. My mom was crying and Dad was slapping her. I wanted to go do something but Danny said to just leave them alone. It was quite unnerving. The next day I tried to talk to my mom about what had happened. I told her I had heard Dad slap her twice. Her response set my world as I knew it spinning. She explained that I did not really understand how things worked or what was going on. That my mother (my birth mother, that is, and yes, Myrna's mother, my "mom" being actually my aunt and my Aunt Lou being no relation at all) ah....that my mother was insane and that she, my "mom" was concerned that I may have inherited the tendency to mental instability.

Wh.a.aaaat? Ok, wow, that does change one's self image. First of all, my mother was insane? Uh, all I really knew about that was that horrible tv movie I saw where the woman wanted to marry the guy but he loved someone else and so.... oh, man, that movie gave me the creeps for like 30 years. Ok, lessee, where was I? Oh, yeah, getting inoculated with the insanity tendency neurosis. Wonderful. NOT  ~ Well, then, with those two lovelies festering around in my inbox, the creature of self doubt could flourish.

Did that show? I mean could people see that my mother was insane? That I was a veritable fat crazy person just waiting to manifest?

Ah.... the wonderful things we inflict upon our children.