Friday's Feast #46

Appetizer
What was your first “real” job?

I'm assuming that the "real" in the question means a job where I used a résumé and paid taxes ... If that is the case, I worked at Taco Bell for ten days prior to quitting because I had immediately applied for another job after being hired by Taco Bell.  My second job was at Big 5 Sporting Goods and I worked for that company for exactly three years:  6/10/1986 - 6/10-1989.

If the "real" job was the first thing that I did for someone else that earned me money, then it was babysitting for an 18-month-old boy who was wonderful and perfect (and spoiled me for kids ... I don't want any of my own because they wouldn't be Kevin).

Soup
Where would you go if you wanted to spark your creativity?

Prior to the wildfires, I would drive up to a place in the hills called Julian and I'd drive around enjoying the "country" with a stop for apple pie and a trek through the pine cones.  Now that much of that area is blackened (those parts that aren't still smoldering), I'd take a trip up the coast through Solana Beach, Encinitas, Leucadia, and Carlsbad ... at night ... on a weekend ... to smell the campfires at the on-beach campgrounds.

Salad
Complete this sentence: I am embarrassed when…

I'm out with my mother and she chain-sneezes.  You'd have to be there to understand.  She doesn't just sneeze once or twice or thrice ... She'll sneeze eleven or twelve times with the last one sounding like the top of her head is going to fly off.  VERY embarrassing.

Main Course
What values did your parents instill in you?

My parents were strict and had high expectations for my brother and me.  I towed the line REALLY well:  No drinking (I'm allergic, so that one wasn't very hard), no smoking, no drugs, no swearing, no staying out past curfew, no lying/cheating/stealing, no phone-abuse, no teenaged sex ... Homework before playtime.  Keep promises:  Your good name is all that you've really got that's worth anything.  Go to college.  Finish what you start.  You get what you pay for, but don't make frivolous purchases.  Save for a rainy day (although it rarely rains in San Diego).  Respect your elders.  DO THE RIGHT THING.

Interestingly, my parents weren't big church-goers and we didn't go much save for Christmas Eve and Easter.  My family is well-educated and tend to follow "karma" more than organized religion.  So the values that I was shown weren't necessarily church-learned, but rather learned by example.  My parents were very good examples.  

Now my younger brother is a whole other story ...

Dessert
Name 3 fads from your teenage years.

Oh, what WASN'T a fad during the mid-80s?  

Jelly shoes ... I never had them as I thought they looked stupid and cheap (and I have wide feet anyway).

Leg-warmers on anyone who wasn't a dancer.  I wore them because I was a dancer when I was a teen and you had to have something covering your tights or you'd freeze your calves and pull a muscle.

Izod and Le Tigre polo shirts with the collars flipped up.  Worn with Madras-print shorts and Sperry Topsiders with no socks.

Uh ... I could go on and on ... What's so funny to me is that my seniors are wearing much of what I wore in my senior year of high school ... But THEY think that it's new and fashionable.  I see them and tell them that I'm having a "Breakfast Club" flashback (I even have a "Breakfast Club" poster hanging in my classroom).  Many of them HAVEN'T seen any of the quintessential 80s films ... Their loss.