Why did I call my blog Parboiled Popsicles instead of something more refined?  Less…obscure?  Because it made my dad laugh once upon a time, and his laugh was always one of my favorite things.

My parents were both 19 when I was born.  They moved to California from Iowa when my dad joined the Navy.  My brother came 3 years after me, and my two sisters came 16 months apart when my brother was still in diapers.  When I was three, we moved from Navy housing into a small, 2-bedroom house two blocks from the beach. It was cottage style, with the only bathroom situated between the two bedrooms.  I attribute this single bathroom situation to developing fortitude and patience in my developmental years.  My Mom and Dad had one of the bedrooms and my brother had the other, which left my sisters and me with the enclosed porch on the front of the house as our bedroom.  The space was no doubt designed for wicker furniture and flowering tropicals rather than bedroom furniture and Tiger Beat posters, but we were comfortable enough.  I had a bed to myself, my sisters shared one. The room had huge glass windows on the north, east and west sides.  I have a memory of my brother and I jumping on my bed – I was probably five and my brother two.  My Dad bounded in, grabbed hold of both of us in mid-air and jerked us from the bed in one fast move.  His steely green eyes were scary enough to make my chin tremble and my brother cry. “Never, EVER, do that again,” he jabbed his finger in our faces.  He didn’t explain his fear, which we took as anger.  But looking back on it as an adult, I realize the seriousness of clueless kids bouncing around inches from plate glass windows.

My siblings and I were little bohemians, barefooted, wild-haired, and brown as walnuts from constant sun exposure.  Back then, brown skin meant robust health.  “Look at those kids, they’re so tan and healthy!”   We were sweaty little animals running with the neighborhood kids until dinner time.  The evenings would cool down and, from our dinner table with the windows open, we could hear sea birds and smell the ocean.

My parents were younger than any of our friends’ parents, and they were beautiful. Dad was tall, with dark, nearly black wavy hair and deep green eyes.  Those eyes could reduce his children to jelly with a glare, or make our day with a wink.  He hugged us, tickled us and teased us at every turn.  And he could make us feel like crap with a disappointed shake of his head.

My Mom had thick brown hair that she set in waves and brushed back from her face.  She had a movie star figure, even after four children.  Her eyes were blue and soft.  Dad spent a lot of time on sea duty, so Mom was a single parent for months at a time. She bonded with the other Navy wives in the neighborhood, and they supported one another through those tough times.  I remember playing in “the big yard,” a shared open area between our house and three small apartment buildings, where the women would gather in lawn chairs to socialize and watch their kids play.  Their discussions were loud, punctuated by big laughs and cigarettes jabbing the air from dangling fingers.  Little ashtrays sat next to sweaty glasses of iced tea.  The air smelled of baby oil, smoke, salt air and bologna sandwiches.  We had our friends to play with and our mothers’ attention. It was the life.

When I was a teenager, my parents bought and moved into a larger home, ten blocks from the beach. It felt so spacious and modern.  We barely had the furniture to fill its whopping 1,500 square feet.  Despite the joy of having more space inside and being able to plan backyard barbeques outside, the house had its problems.  Not long after moving in, the plumbing decided to start jacking with us.  Hot water turned cold suddenly, then back to hot, then cold again, off and on, off and on.  Doing dishes took fast hands and quick thinking to get them under the hot water before it sputtered and turned cold, and anyone taking a shower had to dart around like a pinball to get wet without scalding or freezing.  One morning I had just finished a shower, scowling as I stepped into the hall in my robe, my waist-length hair in a towel.  My Dad was passing by and saw my miserable expression.  “How’d you like that shower, kid?”  Grinning.  I rolled my eyes and said, “It was just great.  I feel like a parboiled popsicle.”  He grinned wider.  “A what?”  I repeated myself, and he laughed. GOLD.  My dad did not have a big, loud, guffaw of a laugh.  He was not a back-slapper or a tip-your-head-back-and-howl-guy.  His laugh was deep in his chest and almost soundless.  His smile broadened from ear-to-ear, his shoulders shook, and his green eyes would almost disappear over his crinkled cheeks.  I loved it when I made him laugh, and I did, often.  As did my brother and sisters.  He thought we were all knuckleheads and we cracked him up.  But this was a moment I remembered because later, I heard him repeat my parboiled popsicle crack to my mom.  It must have been good if it tickled my dad enough to repeat.  Good enough for the title of a blog?  I think, yes.  In 2019 my husband Ron and I bought my parents’ second house.  The one with touchy plumbing and the memories of years of family gatherings absorbed into the framework.  We remodeled it and fixed the annoying quirks that filled it with highs and lows.  Hot and cold.  Parboiled Popsicles.  Of course, the very idea of a parboiled popsicle is absurd; it would disappear completely.