In ways I do not entirely understand, this video is a perfectly encapsulating demonstration of my childhood, and perhaps the Hawken home as an entity: Cute, wholesome, tenacious, and exasperating in the most charming way imaginable.
[Sidenote, Hal and The Beast are pretty well defined by this clip. Once again, I can't exactly explain why, but for those of you that know them, you're nodding your head.]
Thursday, August 30, 2007
Re: Family Names
Upon hearing one of these creole names, it seemed like you'd received some kind of medeival salutation or a tribal recitation of genealogy.
Sometimes, The Beast would eventually get to my name, think it was wrong, say another name or two, then (about half the time) come back to my name. The resultant effect was something like this:
"Haro-, Ben-Jake [pause] Anna-Ben-Jake!"
In fact, as our mother ages, these salutations have taken on an inquisitory tone, ending often with, "...Tyler?"
Sometimes, The Beast would eventually get to my name, think it was wrong, say another name or two, then (about half the time) come back to my name. The resultant effect was something like this:
"Haro-, Ben-Jake [pause] Anna-Ben-Jake!"
In fact, as our mother ages, these salutations have taken on an inquisitory tone, ending often with, "...Tyler?"
Wednesday, August 29, 2007
Family Names
It's common for mothers to give their children names that reflect special family members or other branches of the clan. My middle name, for example, is The Beast's maiden name.
What is uncommon, however, is for mothers to entirely forget their children's names--constantly.
Throughout the course of my life, I have never heard my mother call me by the correct name on the first try.
If I ever heard "Jaco...Ben" (commonly rendered Jake-Ben) shouted down the hallway, chances were I was needed for something. Typically, however, it sounded more like this:
What is uncommon, however, is for mothers to entirely forget their children's names--constantly.
Throughout the course of my life, I have never heard my mother call me by the correct name on the first try.
If I ever heard "Jaco...Ben" (commonly rendered Jake-Ben) shouted down the hallway, chances were I was needed for something. Typically, however, it sounded more like this:
"Jacob! [silence] Hey Jake! [more silence] Ben?!"
As you might imagine, Jake's standard name was "Ben-Jake."
Things really became disasterous when we got our dog, Anna.
Adding a third name to mix was basically the same as providing Jake and I with middle names.
Now, in addition to "Ben" being rendered a surname, my full title was "Jake-Anna-Ben."
It's common usage was:
"Jake! [silence] Anna! [the dog walks into the room, confused] Go away! Jake! [more silence] Ben?!"
It would have been degrading were it not so ridiculous.
Tuesday, August 28, 2007
The Official "Admittedly Hawken" Welcome Message
While it's true we were raised as Hawkens, we consider it distinctly unfair to assume anything else about us. For that reason, we present this weblog to you, the reader, courtesy of the world wide Intraweb.
This blog is a database of the most intellectually stimulating (i.e. utterly ridiculous) elements of the proud Hawken family.
We are not so ambitious as to chronicle every distant relative, so we have focused our wit, scorn and mildly antagonistic style of affection on our two parents, Megan and Harold.
The great American sage, Mark Twain, remarked, "Truth is stranger than fiction, but it is because Fiction is obliged to stick to possibilities; Truth isn't." This blog could easily set its mind to pursuing fanciful, fictional notings of singularly gelastic events--but nothing we might imagine could properly compare to what we have witnessed.
Instead, this is a bold, enthusiastic retelling of a childhood spent in the incomparable Hawken home, and our continuing intersections with our unique, fiery and unintentionally jocular parents.
No, we're not making it up.
At least not very often.
This blog is a database of the most intellectually stimulating (i.e. utterly ridiculous) elements of the proud Hawken family.
We are not so ambitious as to chronicle every distant relative, so we have focused our wit, scorn and mildly antagonistic style of affection on our two parents, Megan and Harold.
The great American sage, Mark Twain, remarked, "Truth is stranger than fiction, but it is because Fiction is obliged to stick to possibilities; Truth isn't." This blog could easily set its mind to pursuing fanciful, fictional notings of singularly gelastic events--but nothing we might imagine could properly compare to what we have witnessed.
Instead, this is a bold, enthusiastic retelling of a childhood spent in the incomparable Hawken home, and our continuing intersections with our unique, fiery and unintentionally jocular parents.
No, we're not making it up.
At least not very often.
Auto Mechaniacs
For all of his humorous foibles, Hal was remarkably adept at household and auto repairs.
As you might imagine, this saved countless hours and dollars.
Hal, however, was not the type of person who was comfortable with copious amounts of either commodity, so, on the rare occasions a mechanic was needed, he made sure to expend as much time and money as possible.
The mechanic he chose to perform any and all car repairs was, in technical language, an outlandish thief.
Our attempts to repeatedly point this out fell on deaf ears, however; Hal was intensely loyal to the shadiest auto shop in South King County.
Everytime the car began making a noise we didn't recognize (or when it stopped making noises entirely and simply ground to a halt along the shoulder of a major interstate) Hal would immediately call this man.
The solution from the mechanic was typically the same--he would promise that the repairs would be done by Monday (they would finish on Saturday), he would quote a basic price (it would be double), and he would declare it an easy fix (a monkey with an astigmatism had a better chance of finding the problem).
The real mystery to everyone but Hal was that none of the repairs were ever actually made. From what I could tell the broken head gasket was not so much "replaced" as it had "grease rubbed on it" and the "valves were reevaluated." In any other setting I think Hal would have known he was being robbed, but whenever it came to this mechanic, he wouldn't blink.
From what I can tell, each time a repair was necessary, their conversations went something like this:
You can just imagine the convo we'd have to have with a doctor he picked...
As you might imagine, this saved countless hours and dollars.
Hal, however, was not the type of person who was comfortable with copious amounts of either commodity, so, on the rare occasions a mechanic was needed, he made sure to expend as much time and money as possible.
The mechanic he chose to perform any and all car repairs was, in technical language, an outlandish thief.
Our attempts to repeatedly point this out fell on deaf ears, however; Hal was intensely loyal to the shadiest auto shop in South King County.
Everytime the car began making a noise we didn't recognize (or when it stopped making noises entirely and simply ground to a halt along the shoulder of a major interstate) Hal would immediately call this man.
The solution from the mechanic was typically the same--he would promise that the repairs would be done by Monday (they would finish on Saturday), he would quote a basic price (it would be double), and he would declare it an easy fix (a monkey with an astigmatism had a better chance of finding the problem).
The real mystery to everyone but Hal was that none of the repairs were ever actually made. From what I could tell the broken head gasket was not so much "replaced" as it had "grease rubbed on it" and the "valves were reevaluated." In any other setting I think Hal would have known he was being robbed, but whenever it came to this mechanic, he wouldn't blink.
From what I can tell, each time a repair was necessary, their conversations went something like this:
For reasons such as these Jake, The Beast and I restricted him from responsibilities such as picking restaurants, movies, or HMOs.Hal: My Volvo broke down again.
Mechanic: Really? Again?
Hal: Yeah, it burst into flames this time.
Mechanic: Just like I expected. This is only the second time, right?
Hal: No, this makes a baker's dozen.
Mechanic: As you know, your zero-coverage warranty won't cover this.
Hal: I don't care about that, just tell me how you can mess this up even worse as soon as possible.
Mechanic: You drive a hard bargain, Hal. How about double charging you, and I do some unrelated repairs?
Hal: I'd be willing to pay triple if you promise to break one of the last things that still work...
Mechanic: You got yourself a deal. To be clear, however, the next time your wife's minivan goes over a speed bump and the transmission falls out, I'm gonna have to ask for all your mutual funds.
Hal: That's fair.
Mechanic: When's the most inconvenient time to have your car ready?
Hal: Friday would be terrible.
Mechanic: Sounds good, see you Friday.
You can just imagine the convo we'd have to have with a doctor he picked...
Hal: So you're saying I have what?
Doctor: Inoperable cancer of the pancreas.
Hal: I see. So what's the next step? Would you like an enormous, unnecessary payment?
Doctor: Yes, thank you. Also, I'd like to perform another unnecessary procedure--I think a colonoscopy would be appropriate.
Hal: I didn't know you actually did those here.
Doctor: We don't, but your mechanic said you wouldn't be too picky about details like that.
Hal: True.
Doctor: Also, we'd like to do an autopsy once this tumor eats its way through your thorax.
Hal: Be sure to overcharge my next of kin.
Monday, August 27, 2007
Change is the One True Constant -- Most Places
Last week I had a chance to spend a few days with the parentals and Jake, and it gave me a chance to reflect on my dear, cohesive family unit.
It is comforting (i.e. maddening) how so many fundamental aspects and dynamics of our family unit will not, or cannot, change.
For example:
Within just a few moments of getting home I made a joke about Hal's wardrobe. This made him start to pout.
To patch things up, I commented on the land bridge of hair between the rear portion of his scalp and his back. I likened it to a hairy version of the Bering Strait during the Ice Age. He didn't find this funny. He never did laugh at my jokes about the North American migration of Asian tribes.
During day two, the four of us piled into a car meant for either 1.5 people without legs, or three dozen clowns, and we did touristy things in Seattle like eat several dozen mini donuts--you know, the kind of things the Travel Channel always talks about when they do a feature on the Emerald City.
Jake and I went about our normal business, e.g. asking bums if they have change for a 20, and naming the seagulls and then cursing at them. Due to a lack of time, he and I were unable to carry out task #3: Approach strangers and then demand personal information from them while speaking in Russian accents.
There's always next time.
The Beast was in typical form as well. Trying to raise Jake and I was a lot like attempting to humanize a pair of blenders set to full blast and sans lids. To this day, whenever she leaves the house for more than four hours she, out of habit, calls the neighbors to check to make sure Jake hasn't been shoved back inside the dishwasher, or to simply double check whether or not any of those sirens or helicopters were headed toward our backyard.
Very rarely were her concerns justified. Rather than inflict outrageous physical violence or start petty fist fights, I would focus on other things, like convincing Jake he was adopted or informing him that his favorite stuffed animal secretly hated him. Typical stuff.
Regardless of what I had done, it usually resulted in me being sent to my room and Jake having free reign of the house. That meant time devoted to practicing some kind of interpretive dance or writing songs on the piano about the family dog.
Most enlightening of all was talking about plans for Christmas. Although I may have a full blown career, I can't help but find myself thinking about holiday gift giving the same way I did 20 years ago: Signing a card from RiteAid and wrapping something for my dad and Jake which The Beast bought several months earlier.
Ahh, the memories.
The Beast and me during the vacay, at Alki Point.
It is comforting (i.e. maddening) how so many fundamental aspects and dynamics of our family unit will not, or cannot, change.
For example:
Within just a few moments of getting home I made a joke about Hal's wardrobe. This made him start to pout.
To patch things up, I commented on the land bridge of hair between the rear portion of his scalp and his back. I likened it to a hairy version of the Bering Strait during the Ice Age. He didn't find this funny. He never did laugh at my jokes about the North American migration of Asian tribes.
During day two, the four of us piled into a car meant for either 1.5 people without legs, or three dozen clowns, and we did touristy things in Seattle like eat several dozen mini donuts--you know, the kind of things the Travel Channel always talks about when they do a feature on the Emerald City.
Jake and I went about our normal business, e.g. asking bums if they have change for a 20, and naming the seagulls and then cursing at them. Due to a lack of time, he and I were unable to carry out task #3: Approach strangers and then demand personal information from them while speaking in Russian accents.
There's always next time.
The Beast was in typical form as well. Trying to raise Jake and I was a lot like attempting to humanize a pair of blenders set to full blast and sans lids. To this day, whenever she leaves the house for more than four hours she, out of habit, calls the neighbors to check to make sure Jake hasn't been shoved back inside the dishwasher, or to simply double check whether or not any of those sirens or helicopters were headed toward our backyard.
Very rarely were her concerns justified. Rather than inflict outrageous physical violence or start petty fist fights, I would focus on other things, like convincing Jake he was adopted or informing him that his favorite stuffed animal secretly hated him. Typical stuff.
Regardless of what I had done, it usually resulted in me being sent to my room and Jake having free reign of the house. That meant time devoted to practicing some kind of interpretive dance or writing songs on the piano about the family dog.
Most enlightening of all was talking about plans for Christmas. Although I may have a full blown career, I can't help but find myself thinking about holiday gift giving the same way I did 20 years ago: Signing a card from RiteAid and wrapping something for my dad and Jake which The Beast bought several months earlier.
Ahh, the memories.
The Beast and me during the vacay, at Alki Point.
Tuesday, August 21, 2007
If You Buy a Soda, The Restaurant Wins
Hal taught me many things about life as I was growing up. Aside from lessons about the evils of sleeping in, or the masculinity-inducing effects of pumping gas, my plucky father also taught me how to make stuff last. Where some parents might have stopped at teaching their kids to price shop and to buy in bulk, Hal went right into the nitty-gritty, physical aspects of stretching out what you have.Here are some basic rules I learned from my father:
- Get every last individual drop out of the bottle. Yeah, you know you're really wasteful and you throw away that bottle of ranch dressing when there are still a few droplets clinging to the inside. Not Hal, though. He taught me the delicate art of pouring water into the ranch bottle, shaking it up and pouring the delicious, ranch-flavored water out onto my salad.
- Wear your clothing until it disintegrates. My father truly taught this principle by example. A pair of green, sweat-stained sweats owned by Harold Hawken will never be thrown away or given to a thrift store. They will be worn until the holes in the crotch extend far below the knee and are threadbare enough as to be rendered transparent. My fathers clothes were never destroyed or thrown away; they faded slowly out of existence.
- If you buy a soda, the restaurant wins. My father's arch enemies were restaurants. Don't misunderstand, he loved to eat at restaurants, but they were his secret nemeses. When going out to eat, never order a soda. They charge you way more than it costs them to make it! Don't you know that that's all profit?! "One's goal when visiting a restaurant," Hal taught me, "should be to give the restaurant the smallest profit margin possible." (A related rule is that the check must be argued over, or you have not done your part as a patron.)
- Use expired coupons. Another way to say this is, "Argue loudly and hassle the employee until they accept expired coupons." Also, use them in ways that the fine print says you can't use them (i.e. in conjunction with another sale), and then, when somebody points out that you are doing so, get prickly and throw around invective like, "Oh, that's really honest, down there in the fine print like that," or, "If I can't use them together, then it's not much of a deal, is it?!"
Friday, August 17, 2007
Breakfast: The Case of Hot v. Cold
From what I can gather, there are two kinds of moms when it comes to breakfast—hot and cold.
The Beast fell under the "cold" category.
Every morning, during the years of my childhood, she would awake before me, and, with a gentle hand and a soft heart, take the milk from the fridge, a bowl from the cupboard, and place them on the kitchen table next to a shameful, bagged cereal.
Having arranged this table setting, which occasionally included a bowl or spoon, she would then walk down the hall, throw a glass of water on me, and return to bed until the early afternoon.
I was 13 before I was at a friend’s house one morning and found his mom making him bacon and eggs.
My first thought was that it was his birthday, or perhaps he was shipping out for war.
The Beast fell under the "cold" category.
Every morning, during the years of my childhood, she would awake before me, and, with a gentle hand and a soft heart, take the milk from the fridge, a bowl from the cupboard, and place them on the kitchen table next to a shameful, bagged cereal.
Having arranged this table setting, which occasionally included a bowl or spoon, she would then walk down the hall, throw a glass of water on me, and return to bed until the early afternoon.
I was 13 before I was at a friend’s house one morning and found his mom making him bacon and eggs.
My first thought was that it was his birthday, or perhaps he was shipping out for war.
Thursday, August 16, 2007
The Hawken Home Stressed Values - Like Sleep Deprivation and Back Aches
Do you like to sleep in on your day off? I have found, later on in life, that I like to as well. While under the roof of the Hawken Family, however, I was taught that rest and relaxation were vile, reprehensible things to be abhorred and shunned.
Saturday mornings came, shining school-free down onto the quiet village of Fairwood, with the promise of a couple quiet hours when I could catch up on the sleep I'd missed that week. Falser hopes have never been imagined. With the tone of voice that would frighten a fair-to-midland sized grizzly bear, I would be forcibly torn from my bed and lectured in that loving, gonna-rip-your-face-off tone that only Hal can muster, about the evils of slothfulness, laziness and getting enough sleep.
"Teenagers," he would growl, "should be in bed at 8pm and up at 2am, with frequent push-up breaks throughout the night to break up all that superfluous 'Rapid Eye Movement.' Thats what I did when I was a kid."
He would then pause, forget what he was saying, and start talking about diesel engines and/or the looming specter of the UN.
If I by any chance fell back asleep after he left the room, all hell would break loose. Hal's remedy would involve ice water, throwing of my belongings into the street, vague threats involving llamas, and the assignment that Ben & I crush all of the aluminum cans he'd picked up and stored in garbage bags on the back porch.*
This was a consistent pattern till I finally left home for college.
The resultant effect of this lifelong abstinence from sleeping is threefold:
*Please Note: Our father regularly came home grinning and would announce to Ben & I that he had a surprise for us. As would be expected, our adolescent minds would immediately conjure up sugarplums, nintendo games and Vanilla Ice mixtapes. Once we'd thoroughly worked ourselves up with excitement, he would gleefully present us with a torn garbage bag full of dirty, aluminum cans soaked in rancid beer, (which cans he had found lying in parking lots and on the shoulder of busy sections of the road), announcing, "You've got your work cut out for you, boys." To this very day, we meet any suggestion of a pleasant surprise from Hal with the question, "More cans?"
Saturday mornings came, shining school-free down onto the quiet village of Fairwood, with the promise of a couple quiet hours when I could catch up on the sleep I'd missed that week. Falser hopes have never been imagined. With the tone of voice that would frighten a fair-to-midland sized grizzly bear, I would be forcibly torn from my bed and lectured in that loving, gonna-rip-your-face-off tone that only Hal can muster, about the evils of slothfulness, laziness and getting enough sleep.
"Teenagers," he would growl, "should be in bed at 8pm and up at 2am, with frequent push-up breaks throughout the night to break up all that superfluous 'Rapid Eye Movement.' Thats what I did when I was a kid."
He would then pause, forget what he was saying, and start talking about diesel engines and/or the looming specter of the UN.
If I by any chance fell back asleep after he left the room, all hell would break loose. Hal's remedy would involve ice water, throwing of my belongings into the street, vague threats involving llamas, and the assignment that Ben & I crush all of the aluminum cans he'd picked up and stored in garbage bags on the back porch.*
This was a consistent pattern till I finally left home for college.
The resultant effect of this lifelong abstinence from sleeping is threefold:
- I now pass out at every unoccupied second.
- I'm mildly deranged.
- Hal still does this when I come to visit.
*Please Note: Our father regularly came home grinning and would announce to Ben & I that he had a surprise for us. As would be expected, our adolescent minds would immediately conjure up sugarplums, nintendo games and Vanilla Ice mixtapes. Once we'd thoroughly worked ourselves up with excitement, he would gleefully present us with a torn garbage bag full of dirty, aluminum cans soaked in rancid beer, (which cans he had found lying in parking lots and on the shoulder of busy sections of the road), announcing, "You've got your work cut out for you, boys." To this very day, we meet any suggestion of a pleasant surprise from Hal with the question, "More cans?"
Finding Yourself
There's a time in each of our lives (both Jake and I, and all of you on the Intraweb), when we have to ask, which Transformer am I?
The Beast's answer: Quit asking me such dumb crap.
Hal's answer: A what?
What Doesn't Kill You is Hilarious
In our younger years, I lavished a lot of attention on Jake. This attention usually came in the form of beat downs and drop kicks, but I don't remember hearing (i.e. listening to) him complain.
On special occasions, however, I would set aside the time to do something especially thoughtful and outrageously terrible.
Setting aside the childish application of kidney shots and flying elbows, I would exact the most delightful kinds of mental anguish I could muster.
My opus (which I performed on two separate occasions) in regard to this psychological reign of terror, was a scenario wherein I (age 10 at this point) walked into the kitchen just as Jake was getting a drink from the fridge.
I would patiently wait until he had emptied his glass and then, with great alarm, shout, "Wait, you didn't drink THAT juice did you? The juice in the yellow pitcher?!?
He would demand to know what the big deal was and I would feign a troubling visage of confusion and sorrow. Then I'd ask again, with slow and somber inflection, if he was sure he had drank THAT juice.
Without a doubt, he was sure. Why was this such a big deal? Oh, no reason, I'd assure him--but I had probably better go get Mom.
This is where the real problems started. He knew that awakening The Beast with news of this apparently illicit juice drinking would go over poorly.
What on earth was such a big deal, he demanded.
In lugubrious, dispirited tones I explained that the juice he had drank was poisoned.
And there was no known antidote.
The result?
Complete panic. Utter chaos.
Then it would dawn on me: "Oh wait, I do remember an antidote, but it's really gross, so never mind. Maybe you should sit down so the poison won't work so fast and you won't die standing up and hit your head when you fall."
It turned out, as a matter of fact, that he was willing to drink any antidote.
Any antidote, Jake?
Yes, any.
So I set to work.
While assembling my supplies, I explained that this life-saving elixir it was a complicated and distinctly gross concoction.
He explained, in no uncertain terms, that he did not care how it tasted since seven was a pretty early age to die just because someone left poisoned juice in the fridge.
As I began to rush about the kitchen, I made it clear that his only hope laid in the specific ingredients I was now arbitrarily assembling from around the kitchen.
After filling a huge glass a third of the way with water, I added bacon bits, pickle juice, pickles, mayonnaise, walnuts, thyme, a piece of a napkin, corn flakes, bread crust, milk, a half cup of dish soap, vinegar, cream of tartar, sun dried tomatoes, olive oil, part of a carrot, a handful of paper clips, some bird seed and pancake mix.
I shook the glass a few times to properly randomize the contents and then, with seconds remaining before certain death, passed it into the eager hands of my dying brother.
Jake looked down at the mixture, which was frothing and, thanks to some horrible chemical reaction, slowly increasing in temperature.
He was hesitating.
You had better hurry! I kept screaming. This was life or death!
He took one sip, swallowed and immediately bent over double at the waist.
Now I was in his ear shouting about, "This is no time for dry-heaving - start chugging!"
...He was on his third mouthful when The Beast walked in.
What exactly is going on, she wanted to know.
Jake began recapping.
He hit all the main points:
On special occasions, however, I would set aside the time to do something especially thoughtful and outrageously terrible.
Setting aside the childish application of kidney shots and flying elbows, I would exact the most delightful kinds of mental anguish I could muster.
My opus (which I performed on two separate occasions) in regard to this psychological reign of terror, was a scenario wherein I (age 10 at this point) walked into the kitchen just as Jake was getting a drink from the fridge.
I would patiently wait until he had emptied his glass and then, with great alarm, shout, "Wait, you didn't drink THAT juice did you? The juice in the yellow pitcher?!?
He would demand to know what the big deal was and I would feign a troubling visage of confusion and sorrow. Then I'd ask again, with slow and somber inflection, if he was sure he had drank THAT juice.
Without a doubt, he was sure. Why was this such a big deal? Oh, no reason, I'd assure him--but I had probably better go get Mom.
This is where the real problems started. He knew that awakening The Beast with news of this apparently illicit juice drinking would go over poorly.
What on earth was such a big deal, he demanded.
In lugubrious, dispirited tones I explained that the juice he had drank was poisoned.
And there was no known antidote.
The result?
Complete panic. Utter chaos.
Then it would dawn on me: "Oh wait, I do remember an antidote, but it's really gross, so never mind. Maybe you should sit down so the poison won't work so fast and you won't die standing up and hit your head when you fall."
It turned out, as a matter of fact, that he was willing to drink any antidote.
Any antidote, Jake?
Yes, any.
So I set to work.
While assembling my supplies, I explained that this life-saving elixir it was a complicated and distinctly gross concoction.
He explained, in no uncertain terms, that he did not care how it tasted since seven was a pretty early age to die just because someone left poisoned juice in the fridge.
As I began to rush about the kitchen, I made it clear that his only hope laid in the specific ingredients I was now arbitrarily assembling from around the kitchen.
After filling a huge glass a third of the way with water, I added bacon bits, pickle juice, pickles, mayonnaise, walnuts, thyme, a piece of a napkin, corn flakes, bread crust, milk, a half cup of dish soap, vinegar, cream of tartar, sun dried tomatoes, olive oil, part of a carrot, a handful of paper clips, some bird seed and pancake mix.
I shook the glass a few times to properly randomize the contents and then, with seconds remaining before certain death, passed it into the eager hands of my dying brother.
Jake looked down at the mixture, which was frothing and, thanks to some horrible chemical reaction, slowly increasing in temperature.
He was hesitating.
You had better hurry! I kept screaming. This was life or death!
He took one sip, swallowed and immediately bent over double at the waist.
Now I was in his ear shouting about, "This is no time for dry-heaving - start chugging!"
...He was on his third mouthful when The Beast walked in.
What exactly is going on, she wanted to know.
Jake began recapping.
He hit all the main points:
- Drinking the juice
- The juice being poisoned
- No hope
- Special antidote
- The antidote was killing him, too
Mom was not amused.
She had a way of breaking up historically significant moments.
Later, when I got to college, this same trick worked remarkably well on drunk friends.
I wore out my welcome at several parties by bursting into a neighbors kitchen and shouting, "HOLY CRAP! You didn't drink from THAT keg did you? That's the POISONED keg!"
Luckily for the person with a rubber tube hanging out their mouth, there was plenty of hand lotion, barbecue sauce, fish food and peanut butter readily available to whip together an effective antidote.
The Hawken's National Holiday
Every great nation and culture has a special day set aside that is used to reflect upon and celebrate that groups unique vritues and contributions to the world.
In America we have the Fourth of July, Bangladesh has Victory Day (Dec. 16), and the Netherlands has Dodenherdenking (May 4).
Growing up in the Hawken home, however, no day quite reflected the households prevailing, fundamental values quite like April Fools Day.
Every year, near the end of March, I receive a letter from my mom containing a witty, handwritten note, and a small piece of wax paper.
The latter object is the result of a 22-year-old ongoing joke.
My knowledge of this joke, however, stretches back only seven years.
On the first of every April, when my mom packed by lunch, she would place a carefully sized piece of wax paper in my sandwich.
This April Fools joke had been passed on from her own mother and now it was finding new life annually in my lunchbox.
From kindergarten to high school, Mom was always sure to have a lunch ready for this most cunning of tricks.
But I never got the joke.
If you know what I mean.
I finally got to be in on the laughs when I called her in late March during my sophomore year of college while researching April Fools jokes to play on my roommates.
Her first suggestion was the old standby: "You should put wax paper in their sandwiches, like I always did with you."
"You never did that."
"Sure I did."
"There was nothing in any of those sandwiche..."
An awkward pause.
"What?! You mean you ATE IT?"
Yes, that was exactly what I meant.
In America we have the Fourth of July, Bangladesh has Victory Day (Dec. 16), and the Netherlands has Dodenherdenking (May 4).
Growing up in the Hawken home, however, no day quite reflected the households prevailing, fundamental values quite like April Fools Day.
Every year, near the end of March, I receive a letter from my mom containing a witty, handwritten note, and a small piece of wax paper.
The latter object is the result of a 22-year-old ongoing joke.
My knowledge of this joke, however, stretches back only seven years.
On the first of every April, when my mom packed by lunch, she would place a carefully sized piece of wax paper in my sandwich.
This April Fools joke had been passed on from her own mother and now it was finding new life annually in my lunchbox.
From kindergarten to high school, Mom was always sure to have a lunch ready for this most cunning of tricks.
But I never got the joke.
If you know what I mean.
I finally got to be in on the laughs when I called her in late March during my sophomore year of college while researching April Fools jokes to play on my roommates.
Her first suggestion was the old standby: "You should put wax paper in their sandwiches, like I always did with you."
"You never did that."
"Sure I did."
"There was nothing in any of those sandwiche..."
An awkward pause.
"What?! You mean you ATE IT?"
Yes, that was exactly what I meant.
Wednesday, August 15, 2007
The Early Years in the Hawken House
What was it like growing up at my house?
I have to admit, Jake and I had it better than most. My mom gave us both the most well-rounded, heartfelt, childhood any kid could hope for.
Don't get me wrong--she had her share of quirks, just like anyone else, but nothing out of the ordinary.
For example, every night she would sing us her favorite song as a lullaby while she tucked us in. Whenever we got too loud, she'd encourage us to go outside and try to find a specific mystical forest creature to play with. If we were persistent enough, she would teach us some of the hundreds of poems she had memorized. She was also always good for a laugh whenever we came scampering into the house and stumbled into a room where she was slow dancing with some man we'd never seen before.
So, overall, pretty typical stuff.
-Ben
I have to admit, Jake and I had it better than most. My mom gave us both the most well-rounded, heartfelt, childhood any kid could hope for.
Don't get me wrong--she had her share of quirks, just like anyone else, but nothing out of the ordinary.
For example, every night she would sing us her favorite song as a lullaby while she tucked us in. Whenever we got too loud, she'd encourage us to go outside and try to find a specific mystical forest creature to play with. If we were persistent enough, she would teach us some of the hundreds of poems she had memorized. She was also always good for a laugh whenever we came scampering into the house and stumbled into a room where she was slow dancing with some man we'd never seen before.
So, overall, pretty typical stuff.
-Ben
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