Now on sale . . .Muffins & Mayhem: Recipes for a Happy (if Disorderly) Life by Suzanne Beecher, and when you purchase it, request a free autographed bookplate, by visiting:
http://tinyurl.com/Muffins-MayhemPO
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Dear Reader,
I'm on holiday. If you haven't had a chance to sample my book, Muffins and Mayhem: Recipes for a Happy (if disorderly) Life you can read a sample today...
Excerpt from MUFFINS AND MAYHEM
I used to think I didn't have anything to say about my childhood. For the life of me, except for the bad complaining stuff, I couldn't remember a thing I did with my parents as a kid. Since I didn't want to lug "those" stories around with me the rest of my life, my mind would always go blank whenever some body started talking about their warm and fuzzy childhood experiences.
"I remember when," somebody would begin...and from those three words would flow a precious childhood memory about the time they got caught sneaking in the back door of the movie theater, and they'd recite in vivid Technicolor every single detail, right down to what they were wearing when the manager called their parents to come and get them. I "hated" those people who told their cute little "I remember when" stories. Okay, I know I'm not supposed to say I "hate" anyone, so let's just say I was consumed with envy, jealousy, and disdain.
How did these people do it? How could they remember all of these things? And what the heck was wrong with me, that I couldn't?
So I took a quick inventory and discovered my one-dimensional childhood consisted of these four scintillatingly dramatic "stories":
I was born in Madison, Wisconsin. We didn't live there--we lived seventy-five miles away, in the small town of Cuba City, population 2,000--but my mother became very ill in the last six weeks of her pregnancy, so the doctor sent her to the big-city Madison hospital.
My parents and I lived in a trailer for a while--just long enough to save up money for a down payment on a house.
I had a green dress with a scratchy cancan slip underneath it. I think this was in the fourth grade.
When I was in eighth grade, the first round school building in the county (maybe even the state) was built in Cuba City. In the middle of the school year, we all packed up the stuff in our old desks and walked in a single-file pilgrimage from the old rectangular school building to the new round one.
The End
That's the short, happy childhood of Suzanne Beecher in 157 words, plain and simple. And boring, even to me.
So I accepted my fate as an adult deprived of a childhood. Or at the very least an adult deprived of those warm and fuzzy memories I should have been able to tap into when I wanted to go back home in my mind. But then it occurred to me that I'd always been ambivalent about going home anyway--not only in my mind, but in my car, too. At least it seemed that way. Whenever I planned a trip to see my parents, I'd get sick. I'm not kidding! Two or three days before I was supposed to leave, an illness would consume me: wheezing, sneezing, that all-over crummy feeling. Nothing serious, a twenty-four-hour virus sort of thing--but just enough "miserable" so I'd have to cancel my trip. My recovery period was amazing. And eventually I realized there was a pattern: As soon as the "magic hour" had passed, and it was too late to go, no hope of getting back home in time for a weekend visit, I was cured.
So I asked myself: Really, what's the big deal? Who cares if I can't remember any cute childhood stories--didn't want to go back to measly podunk Cuba City, anyway. It was a stupid town, one of those blink-andÂ-you'll-miss-it dots on the map. Cuba City meant nothing to me. My life is all about what happens to me now. Right?
But then Mrs. Creswick died. She was my girlfriend's mother. Everyone called her Purse, but I never used her nickname, or her real name, Priscilla. It seemed more respectful to address her as Mrs. Creswick.
When I heard the news that Mrs. Creswick had died, I realized I'd lost something precious from my past.
To continue reading and to view videos, create your own Cookbook of Memories and request an autographed bookplate, go to: http://www.muffinsandmayhem.com/content/special-offers
Thanks for reading with me. It's so good to read with friends.
Warmest regards,
Suzanne Beecher
[email protected]
www.MuffinsandMayhem.com
* This month's Penguin Classics book is The Penguin Book of Gaslight Crime edited by Michael Sims. Start reading now and enter to win a Penguin totebag. Go to: http://tinyurl.com/November10Classics
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