Memories Of Shiftless Adolescence

When I was in middle school, I had to take a home economics class. It was a very good thing for me to do, although the habits they sought to instill in us didn't stick for me. That doesn't mean that I was then or am now deliberately resistant to cooking, cleaning or the mending of clothes. It means more that I have lacked the discipline and the general wherewithal to apply what they taught, much as I have wanted to.

I have some fond memories and keepsakes.Our class time coincided with the daily broadcast of Sheri Lewis' show "Lamb Chop's Sing-A-Long", and we enthusiastically (if a bit ironically) watched that every day as we labored, barring the days that we were in the kitchen. As we watched the aforementioned show, we sewed, and I was really bad at that. I spent the entire semester just trying to thread the machine, and our diligent teacher never noticed (or never intervened). I eventually made a little pillow, which I still have.

When we were in the kitchen, it seemed that we spend a good deal more time cleaning than cooking, which I suppose is typical of cooking in general. I recall one class where we made donuts. This was when they were not under pressure to combat childhood obesity, of course. In any event, they were plain donuts, which are always the last to be consumed from an Entemann's box. These that we made tasted good, though since we had worked so hard at producing them.

At long last, some fifteen or so years later, I have developed an interest in cultivating skills along the lines that they tried so indifferently and yet so harshly to instill in us. The lessons come harder these days, and more expensively, but the motivation is consequently much greater than it was when all one my home needs were taken care of and the need to learn it all myself seemed so distant as to be purely academic. I'll get it eventually.