The Beginnings

Almost as much a given as the fact that about 50% of second graders' grins in school pictures would be strangely toothless, tiny little prize fighters sans fights or other battle wounds. Almost as inevitable as our little Jack-o-Lantern grills were the trips that many of us made to the hospital to have our tonsils out. This was the 1970s, and every kid who had a cold a little too often soon found himself under the bright lights and careful hands of a small staff of angels in white. And, as is always the case, kids had their own take on the events. Most of us were not quite sure what exactly this visit would entail, to tell you the truth. Our parents were clever in holding back details of such things. We couldn't even say "tonsillectomy", after all-not just because our little brains couldn't fathom such a word, but, well, without those front teeth... Because we could not fully comprehend the meaning, that we were going to be put under, and cut open (gruesome, even as an adult thinking of it) our little brains tried to piece together the little bits of tangble information we and our friends had to offer. Because of this ramshackle way of cobbling a story into existence, "getting your tonsils out" was something that, in our child speak, ballooned quickly into an amorphous myth. This myth's Holy Grail, one which during any childhood discussion was always raised at some point, immediately trumping all other points was: "when it's over, you get to eat as much ice cream as you want." This fact, beamed triumphantly over all of us like that final scene in The Fifth Element, light poured out from this statement, ungulfing us, enlightenment itself washing away any childhood uncertainty, bringing smiles to all faces able to behold it. And the sticky facts about an "operation" were soon forgotten. I mean, that was the point, right? The deal was an adult ruse to draw our attention away from reality...to make palpable what would have had us running kicking and screaming from our mother's arms on operation day. In the childhood lexicon, "all the ice cream you want" took on an air as other-wordly as the Tooth Fairy or Santa himself. I, too, had to go under the knife. But I was never a real fan of ice cream. A foreshadowing to my present food issues, at that time in my life I loved to eat raw, cold pats of butter. Yes, raw. Just butter, straight up, nothing to lighten its load, nothing to cut its perfection. Just 100% real butter. Are you thinking ahead? Yes, your deduction skills are good. When the nurse asked me what flavor of ice cream I wanted when awakening from my, at that time, heavy anesthesia, I insisted on a bowl of butter rather than ice cream. And, yes, she brought me a big bowl of butter pats. I peeled off the cardboard bottoms and the wax paper tops and I ate every last one of them. I savored them, in fact. I guess the trend with kids these days is popsicles? That treat would have never have met the muster of a child who was to grow up starry-eyedly watching Julia Childs every Sunday afternoon. I would grow up to love butter and all that it stands for. But that is a story for another day. Yep, I ate a bowl of pure up, unadulterated butter when I was 6, after my my tonsils had been taken out. And truth is stranger than fiction.