Today I had the pleasure of running into an old friend. When I say old, what I mean is we have been friends since first grade. I can still remember the day I met her. She had the cool mom, they type of mom that traveled all the way to Peoria to get that certain Strawberry Shortcake lunch box. Please, don't get me wrong here, I have been blessed with a wonderful mom. I just didn't have the type of mom that drove to Peoria. Peoria was foreign land to me, until I got my license. Anyway, the lunch box. I really needed that lunch box and even as a 6 year old, I was ready to bargain shop her ass. I offered everything I had. The newest Holly Hobbie purse, a Scooby Doo folder, and even my beloved Evel Knievel crash car.
I will admit, I hated the purse and a folder for this overly amazing lunch box? When I offered up Evel, I just knew that would be the trade of the decade. Kind of like Albert Pujols coming to the Cubs, for say---a hot headed, over paid set up man. Just like that trade, she wanted nothing to do with my handsome jumpsuited man. What she wanted was my best friend. I gladly gave him up. I knew she would grow tired of him anyway and now in my possession was the most amazing lunch box ever. That is how our friendship began. We remained friends well into our teens. She moved away our junior year in high school. I learned today, that 6 months after moving to Oklahoma she had a baby girl. This baby girl, who I have never had the pleasure of meeting is now twenty four and a mother herself. A mother going through a nightmare. You see, the extra cool mother I spoke of earlier, the one willing to travel to foreign grounds for the most perfect lunch box ever, had not been able to have children. My bargain buddy, had been adopted. This was never of any importance until her Granddaughter was born with a rare genetic disorder. They had come back to the big city of Pekin to meet her biological mother and hopefully get some answers to some pretty important questions. Well, you know me and this really made me start thinking. Obviously, by this long drawn out post, I was thinking about my childhood. More importantly, I began to wonder if something from my childhood could have lead to my shimmy, shimmy, shake.
My Aunt called me shortly after diagnosis. She had learned that chlordane had been linked to Parkinson's.
This is what I found on my little hp full of knowledge. "Chlordane, a family of compounds used as insecticides from 1950 to their ban in 1975, was used both to treat crops such as corn, soybeans and vegetables and to treat termite infestations in homes." My Aunt had stated that she knew for a fact, that our families had used this within our homes. I live in the "family house". This house has been in the Miller family for more that 60 years. Believe me when I say, if it happened in this house, my Aunt knows about it. As I was reading through the endless pages on the web, it became clear to me. I may never know why I hit the jig jackpot, but this could very well be part of it.
I am not quite sure how this post went from kick ass lunch boxes, to killer chlordane. I guess that is just how my tiny mind works. It was a great memory though. I may not have discovered the cause of my shimmy shake, but I may have discovered where my bargain shopping started. Here it is, isn't she beautiful?
Today has been a good day.
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