The Original Misers

Bee and I are back in Los Angeles, and Sparky is very happy to see us, and we, him. We had a very good time visiting my family, and as my mother shared some stories with us about my youth it made me realize that my parents were the Original Misers! I guess they kind of had to be - they had six children to raise and my mother was a stay-at-home mom. So that meant we all had to get by on my Dad's salary from the phone company, which wasn't a heck of a lot. But none of us ever wanted for anything, and I recall that I had a mostly happy childhood (aside from the usual angst-ridden teenage part, of course, which was not very fun to say the least.) Dad has always been a little bit on the cheap side, which makes sense because there were so many of us depending on him. My parents are very generous these days, and back when we were growing up they were very generous with ensuring that we had fun childhoods. For instance, one summer when Dad was working the night shift, Mom would pack up a picnic lunch and we would go to the Woodland Park Zoo. It was free back in those days, and we would picnic outside of the zoo, and then go inside to see the animals. Mom says that our favorites were the chipmunks and squirrels, probably because they would come up to us and beg for food. We went there a lot, on those beautiful summer rainless days. I remember we also went to Volunteer Park (where my heroes "the hippies" hung out) and the Seattle Asian Art Museum, Lake Sammamish, and Pine Lake. The one thing all of these places had in common was that they were all free. Afterwards we would stop for soft-serve ice cream cones.

On our last day up in the PNW, Mom and Dad took Bee, my little brother Koovin and myself to the Woodland Park Zoo. Although the zoo now charges an entrance fee, my parents have a yearly pass so we all got in for free. Bee loves zoos, she especially enjoyed the baboons and the giraffes. We parked for free outside of the zoo in the same parking lot we used to park in when we were little (what is it with Misers and hating to pay for parking?)  Mom pointed out the picnic tables we used to frequent, which were conveniently located near the restrooms. Dad bought some peanuts at the grocery store before going to the zoo, and we snacked on those instead of buying food there, all of which is overpriced. After the zoo, we went to Dairy Queen and had soft-serve vanilla ice cream cones! Bee loved her cone (her first), and made a little bit of a mess. I can't remember the last time I had an ice cream cone, nor could my parents. All in all, it was a very pleasant day, and a nice way to end our PNW visit. It brought back memories of my youth, and the happy realization of my early Miser days.