Food for Blogging

When I tell the stories of my youth, I am always taking a gamble. There's the worry about how my family will react, then the gut feeling that I don't want to censor or be censored, then the anxiety about whether my audience will relate. Usually, my siblings laugh and my parents are uncomfortable. Most of the time, I censor my stories as much as possible without removing the parts that actually make them funny. And a lot of the time, my audience reacts with, "You have the Leave It To Beaver family."

My family is one that grew tobacco and corn and our own pumpkins for Halloween. We owned land and worked it and can now appreciate its worth beyond monetary value. We answered the telephone with, "Hello, this is the Whitaker residence." We addressed our elders as "Mr." and "Mrs." and were in trouble if our parents heard otherwise. We hug - a lot - and do "group hugs" and "group kisses" - which consists of all five of us in a circle, arms wrapped around each other, kissing the cheek to the right, then left, then right, tip-toeing to reach Mom or Bobbie Jo.

We went to church every week and if we got up too late, my dad would bring me the Bible and tell me that home services are in a half hour. I would prepare a sermon, preach to my congregation of four, and my younger brother would lead us in the hymns he selected. We church played and choired and handbelled and Bible schooled and nurseried and picnicked. We have a birthday party, complete with cake and ice cream, every Christmas day for Jesus.

My family is modest, and (as my dad always tells me) wishes I was, too. My family is honest, and I at least got that trait - sometimes telling too much. We never had cable television growing up, but we do own over 50 board games. We played all kinds of cards, but never for money. We watch as my dad gets tense at RISK and we talk over hours of euchre. We LOVE croquet, and my dad uses a handicap, as he would crush us all otherwise. Santa has a new board game under the tree for our family every year.

My mom has tea in the fridge at all times. She would give me the air in her lungs if I couldn't breathe. My dad gave his children every opportunity he didn't have. Passes on lessons and lineage for us to treasure; tells us his stories to pass on, but never writes them down. My brother is morphing into an image of my father every day. My sister is stretching up into a woman.

The stories of my family are worth telling. The stories of my life shine a positive light on a negative world; don't need to be censored, because their innocence is hope - remind people that filth doesn't have to seep its way into the nooks of every 21st century home. I look at my family and fear ever making one of my own because I don't think I could ever create a home as wonderful as the one I grew up in.