Peyton What?

Theme from Peyton Place ("Wonderful Season of Love")

Unfamiliar with this week's song? Hear it here.


1) Spring, summer, fall or winter: which season do you consider most wonderful?
All the seasons are wonderful.  The HEAT is what I hate, to be honest, and it can hit in the dead of Winter in SoCal.  We don't have seasons where I live, only The Wet, and The Dry.  So, I like all of The Wet, and only the beginning and end of The Dry.  If I really had to pick, I'd pick The Wet.

2) Crazy Sam learned this song when she played flute in the high school orchestra. Did you participate in many after-school activities?
My activities were GAA, School choir, Scouts - from Brownies to Senior.   

3) The flautist next to her in the orchestra was Jeanne Pepitone. After a little Facebook spying, Sam learned that Jeanne is now Jeanne Moran, a nurse with a husband and a daughter. Sam shot her a "friend request." Do you keep up with your high school classmates?
For awhile I did, when I was in the area, but I've never been to a re-union nor did I want to go.  I didn't really want to run headlong into the fact that a few of my best buddies had died in the Viet Nam war.   

4) When she performed with the school orchestra, Sam was required to wear gray slacks and a black sweater. What are you wearing right now, as you answer these questions?
I'm wearing grey cords and a forest green fleece Wallace Beery.  To all the younger participants, they are now called Henley's after the leader of The Eagles rock band.  My generation called them Wallace Beery's, after the actor, a madman of a comic.

Photo Source

5) Sam was especially dedicated to the school orchestra because she had a crush on Mr. Hanley, the school's musical director. He was the dark/thin/sensitive type. Tell us about a teacher you remember, and why he or she stands out.
My high school Algebra teacher, because he could see that I was struggling with the concept of Algebra being anything but wizardry, and he taught me to understand it.  He was a wonderful and patient teacher and so creative about his subject that he inspired me to take more maths.  I'm sure that other students loved him, too.  He was a great teacher.

This is for you, Mr. B., where ever you may be!

6) Because Sam was so crazy about Mr. Hanley, she was desperate to attend his band camp. Her parents wouldn't allow it unless she could pay her own way, and so she didn't get to go. Were your parents strict or permissive? If you have children yourself, what's your parenting style?
My mother was a wonderful parent, and did the best she could.  I have talked about this many times before.  The paternal unit is universally disqualified as a parent by his children.  My parenting style changed over the years but together we were pretty strict, in that we tried to be good role models, and were loving, vigilant and protective.  I love my children unconditionally but don't think I was a very good mother in the beginning, not immature but let's say, unschooled.  Their Dad was wonderful from the start.

7) Sam liked Fridays because her favorite food, fried rice, was served in the school cafeteria. When you eat Chinese food, do you use chopsticks or a fork?
I used to use chopsticks but lately I use a spoon.  I can use chopsticks very well, but my hands tire out quickly.  Spoons work really well when you are hungry and want to eat faster!  Gobble Gobble!

8) When Sam was a little girl, a new box of Crayolas could get her pulse racing. Now she loves her Sharpies. Do you enjoy shopping for school/office supplies?
I could pitch a TENT in an office supply store.  I love those places.  I'm a pen and mechanical pencil freak, for one thing, and love anything that has to do with paper or glue.  Did I say anything about specially shaped sticky notes?

9) Do you have any plush toys? Or did you give them all up when you left childhood?
I have a lot of stuffed bears, collected in adulthood.  And there's a pig that the kids thought was a bear when they got him for me.  Also I have Protagonist Rabbit, whom I rescued from a "shelter" (the Goodwill.)  In childhood there weren't many toys.  Toys were really expensive during the war years.  I never had any plush toys as a kid.  Just a Kewpie Doll.  She was so cute, made of pressed wood, and painted.  She got left out in the rain, and, ever after, she had a "skin condition".   But I loved her anyway.  

Source: Ebay

It's been fun chatting about the past.  Thank you for writing this meme!

Oh, Sam, by the way, The Princess Bride came in finally at the library.  I got mine!  I'll be reading these two books together, the good, the bad, and the ugly, so to speak.

"Her dress is on fire!  Her dress is on fire!!"