I grew up without exposure to a lot of things: books, music (other than the mariachi music my parents listened to), art, theater, etc. Until college, I had never been to the symphony, other than a field trip to the Young People’s Symphony when I was in sixth grade. I had never been to any plays other than school plays. I had never been to a concert of any kind. I had never been to the ballet.
When I had my own kids, I wanted to expose them to as much culture as I could. However, this proved to be difficult with three kids spread eight years apart. I didn’t have a babysitter for them and their dad worked late almost every night. He wasn’t one to go to plays or the theater so we couldn’t do it as a family. I actually took the kids to a lot more cultural activities after my divorce than I did before.
When my oldest daughter was about twelve, she wanted to go to see The Nutcracker. I thought it was a good idea and so I got tickets for the three kids and myself to go. Once I had the tickets, the other two kids didn’t want to go and Tina wanted to take a friend. She picked one of my friends, Lori, to go with us.
After weeks of excitement, the night arrived and off we went to the Pasadena Civic Auditorium to see the Bolshoi Ballet perform The Nutcracker. It was cold and wet and dark as we headed south on the Glendale Freeway and merged onto the 134 East. That’s when it happened. My tire blew. I managed to keep control of the car while on the bridge connected the two freeways but I had to bring the car to a stop and the only place to do so safely, because of my reduced speed, was ON and island between lanes of traffic merging from the north bound Glendale Freeway to the East bound 134 and the lanes of the 134. I couldn’t stop any place else. I had to cross two lanes of traffic to get to the call box as those were the days before most of us regular people had cell phones. Once the CHP dispatched AAA to the scene, I had to go back across those lanes of traffic to get to the rest of us. Remember, it was raining so I couldn’t stand out in the rain. Twenty minutes later, the tow arrived, changed my tire, and we were on our way.
Of course, we were late so we had to sit in the back row until the intermission when we were seated in out third row seats! I’m not sure how much of the performance I was even aware of as I was still in a bit of shock from our little emergency but I do know that the girls had a great time. After the ballet, we went to dinner then we were finally able to head home where I could wind down. It was all worth it though. I had succeeded in taking the girls out to a cultural event that they really enjoyed.
The things we go through for our kids!