I Claim A Strange, Nerdy Kinship With a Dead Relative I’ve Never Met

My grandmother Luella  “Esther” and her brother (my great-Uncle) Roland “Homer,” circa mid 1920s.  Yes, he totally looks like Alfalfa from The Little Rascals. Though I never met him, I have learned that we have some things in common!

My grandmother Luella “Esther”  and her brother were very, very close growing up. Just two years apart in age, they did everything together, which included stickball, jacks, playing kick-the-can (or whatever else kids did back then to amuse themselves) living through the Great Depression, watching their mother die a slow, painful death from gangrene infection, and helping dad out on the farm/orchards.  Even in Grandma’s “golden” years, she would continue to have dreams about Homer, who was killed while riding his bicycle in Orange County, CA in 1937.  He was only 24 years old.  It was a hit-and-run, and the case was never solved. I don’t know a lot of details about his life, but in some family photos, he looks like he is wearing a white Navy uniform. I actually managed to track down Homer’s death certificate about 12 years ago or so, which strangely made me feel like I’d given my dead grandmother some closure. I told myself that if she were looking at me from beyond her grave, she’d be pleased that I hadn’t forgotten about him.

A few years ago, I was visiting my parents’ house, and my mom showed me an old – and well loved – world atlas that was previously owned by Homer. His name was inscribed inside, in calligraphic writing, and it said that he had won the  world atlas as a prize for winning the school spelling bee. I don’t recall the exact year, but it was pretty close to what would be considered “seventh grade” now. I also won a school spelling bee in seventh grade (though my prize was a $10 gift certificate to Tape World)! I felt an immediate ancestral connection to Homer – because we were both…dorks! And we both love maps! I have a feeling that had I ever met him, we would’ve been best buddies! I can see him being a favorite uncle. He probably would have wanted to come out to my spelling bees, band concerts, etc. and bask in the celebration of dorkdom! I’ll just bet he might’ve loved trivia, too! RIP, Uncle Homer, so sad that I never got to meet you!

I’ve Been Pork-Free Since 1979

I went on a little pork strike when I was about 7 or so after reading the Laura Ingalls Wilder book Little House in the Big Woods, which chronicled a pig slaughtering in detail. It…traumatized me. For about a year or so after that, I didn’t eat any hot dogs, sausage, bacon, ham, etc. Just when I was getting over that little hang-up, I took an allergy skin test, which showed I was allergic to pork. So the pork avoidance continued. I haven’t eaten any pork since then. I try not to make a big deal out of it, since bacon is so popular, and I certainly don’t judge others for enjoying pork – I just don’t eat it. I was a vegetarian for about 12 years, and still pretty much only eat poultry/fish – no red meat – or “the other white meat.”

I Can Size You Up – Literally

I’ve learned a couple of things from working in clothing retail, which stem mainly from not wanting to do two different things – measure a man’s pants inseam – and do a bra fitting. I refuse to measure a pants inseam of a customer, I am just not comfortable touching the crotch of a stranger. I will take a dim view of any male customer who asks me to do it and automatically think they just want me to cop a feel of their junk – even if it’s not their intent. As an unexpected result of this, I am “generally” pretty good at eyeballing a man and figuring out their pant size. Barring that, I will just tell the customer to look at the size of the pants they’re wearing and buy the same size if it fits…a different size if it doesn’t! What some people don’t know is you usually need a longer inseam for casual pants/jeans than you do for dressy pants/khakis. If you wear a 34/32 in jeans, you might need a 34/30 in khakis/dress pants (jeans have a longer rise). Sizing can vary from manufacturer to manufacturer though – a 30 waist in a pair of Levi’s can be more like a 32 in other brands (always best to try ’em on)…

I can also usually guess what size dress shirt a man wears by eyeballing him, even though I do know how to measure for that! I don’t mind measuring dress shirt sizes – strapping a tape measure to a man’s arms/shoulders is a much different thing than measuring an inseam!  It was actually kind of fun – you take a tape measure, and start at the nape of the neck, and curve the tape measure around their shoulders/arms and down to the wrists. I’d tell the customer to “pretend you’re a mannequin” and proceed to bend their arms (the arms need to be bent to get a good measurement). Maybe some customers actually got off on my bossy “matter of fact” approach, lol….Measuring around the customer’s neck for neck measurements could be potentially kinda gross if the dude was of the more “greasy” or unshowered variety though, lol…

As for the bra thing…different managers/supervisors repeatedly tried to ask me to become a “certified bra fitter,” which I repeatedly refused to do. Women coming in for bra fittings are, generally, older women – ages 55 and up. I’ve heard from other employees who’ve done bra fittings that most customers don’t like to be told what size they “should” be wearing. They’ll say, “But I’ve always worn this size” after having a fitter go through the whole fitting process and telling them what they don’t want to hear.  I don’t want to deal with this. I would do a trade off – “I’ll run register while the fittings are going on,” which was deemed acceptable. Despite not having been trained as a “bra fitter,” however, I can “usually” guess the bra size that a woman wears, as long as it’s an “average figure” size (sizes 32A through 42D). Heavily padded bras might fool my eyes a bit, though! Once a woman starts wearing the larger fuller figure sizes, it’s harder to tell what size they wear. I have tested this – and it used to be a fun “party trick!” And I could get away with doing it – whereas if a man went up to a woman and said, “I’ll bet I know your bra size” they could get decked!

I Have a Hard Time Waking Up to Music

Any alarms I set cannot be music based. I tend to sleep through music-based alarms, because the music ends up insinuating itself into my dreams…or something! I can wake up to a vibrating phone if there is no fan running, however.

I Won My First Trivia Contests in the Sixth Grade

Say My Name! How cool is the nickname “count?” Seriously!

My sixth-grade teacher Mrs. C. would run “current events” trivia contests for prizes which I would frequently win. My dad was addicted to news – subscribed to multiple newspapers, watched lots of news shows on TV, etc. During one of these sixth grade trivia contests,  I specifically remember chiming in with the name “Count Basie” when she asked about what famous band leader had died recently. One of my classmates looked at me and said, “How’d you know THAT?” I just said, “It was on the news.” I was kind of quiet, didn’t speak up in class, never raised my hand, etc. But when trivia was going on? I was eagerly participating in class!  I don’t know for sure what kind of prizes I won for these little contests – probably stickers, candy, etc. I would never end up getting involved with quiz bowl in high school because I was in band, and there was a time conflict. You might be a dork if you don’t get involved with a nerdy activity because of a conflict with another nerdy activity!