An early morning walk at the river, about the time the homeless were brewing their coffee on the camp fire, and I found myself smiling at the memory of breakfast cooked on an open fire at the zoo. My parents occasionally would pack a box on Saturday morning with a cast iron skillet, a loaf of bread, some bacon, eggs and even though I don't remember, I'm guessing real plates--I don't remember us using paper plates--and we'd drive across town to the zoo, which had acres of park connected. As a child, it seemed like we drove a great distance for our countryside cookout. Picnic tables, camp fire stations, big rocks to walk on top of, it was like a mini-vacation on a Saturday morning. I wonder now what prompted them to think of that. It was never a full day event. We just cooked breakfast, played a little and went home. No Saturday morning doughnut shops for us -- of course, at that time the doughnuts were sold door-to-door in little white paper sacks, 6 glazed for 50 cents.
Sometimes I miss the June Cleaver days.
2 comments:
This is one of my most pleasant memories of childhood, too, the zoo park and those huge blue-jays and cardinals. We didn't see those in our neighborhood, only at that park in the zoo. No paper plates (I'm guessing.) We had those plastic ones you found in someones garbage!
I tried to recreate the breakfast memory for my children. We on occassion would go to Golden Gardens on the Sound for a saturday morning experience. It really is a LOT of work though. I wonder if they remember?
I'm happy to read that the two of you remember something that is somewhat similar: ) I think creating traditions, positive ones, are very important in the lives of children, and their parents for that matter. I hope that my children will remember the weekend mornings of going through the donut drive though and taking said donuts into the bagel shop to nosh on bagels, cream cheese, and donuts galore.
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