The Park Bench

Thursday June 13, 1991

Up at 7:15--feeling really good!! Took a good walk.

Frank goes shopping for a park bench for his dad. I get my wash and ironing done. He refinishes the bench. It turns out great.

I try dieting today. I've gained 12 pounds back. Salad lunch and lite dinner. Then strawberries at 9 p.m. after we return from grocery shopping.

Bed about 10:30.

I'm not sure that restrictive dieting is really a good idea when fighting cancer, especially the simple salad for lunch. Where's the protein? Yes, eat a healthy diet, but concentrate on eating well and taking care of your health. The diet can wait!

I do need to make a personal comment about mom ironing. When I was growing up in the 50s and 60s men's shirts were cotton, not permanent press. When mom went to work when I was 12, she left me a "list" everyday of my chores to do after school. I had to wash last night's dishes (we had no dishwasher of the manual type), vacuum, clean bathrooms, shake out the rugs, wash the laundry and hang out the laundry on the clothes line (we had no dryer). After the laundry was dry which did not take long in sunny Southern California, I brought in the laundry from the clothes line and put it away in drawers and closets, except for my dad's shirts, which required ironing. I set up the ironing board in front of the TV in our hot living room (we had no air conditioning either, except for a swamp cooler that only cooled one room slightly), and with sweat dripping off my forehead, sprayed each shirt with starch and applied the hot iron one small section at a time. This process took several hours. By the time I walked home from school (4.2 miles from Granada Hills Jr. High) and finished all my after-school chores, mom came home to prepare dinner and I was free to do my homework. Do my kids have it easy!!