Fake Steak and Phony Bologna

Lifelong BFF Gail sent me this list this week, and I read it with laughter and grimacing. In retrospect, I hated growing up Adventist. I've said many times that I think it should be a crime to raise a child in that restrictive a lifestyle. Of course, everything is relative and when one looks at the mothers of the FLDS compound in Texas and thinks of the lives those kids have, my life doesn't look so bad!

I always admired jewelry and hated that all we could wear was functional jewelry - watches and pins. I hated having to kneel down and have my hems touch the floor. I hated not being able to wear what I wanted—I grew up in Florida and we couldn't wear sandals or sleeveless tops because our toes and our armpits would turn the boys on. When we swam, it was in same-sex groups, or with a rope separating the pool or lake into two same-sex areas. Of course everyone knows it's the female's responsibility to prevent the escalation of every male's sexual urges.

When a girl became engaged, her fiancé gave her a watch, which she wore on the opposite wrist. In middle school and high school, when a boy asked his sweetheart to go steady, the girl would wear his watch. My boyfriend, my beloved Buddy Brinson, had an identification bracelet that he gave me to wear when we were going steady. I always wore it with the ID part turned to the inside of my wrist. Alas, one day my mother discovered it wasn't a watch and made me give it back.

But I did enjoy Fri-Chik and VegeLinks and Skallops and all those meat substitutes. My mother was a really good cook; a meat-eater could eat at her table for a month and never miss meat. Now, at almost 95, she's gone vegan, and I miss the way she used to cook. You'll never convince me that scrambled tofu is an acceptable omelet substitute! Oh, and I loved fried egg sandwiches at Steak 'n' Shake. I was very sad years j

The reference to the earth lasting? I was raised to believe that the world would end, Christ would come again, in 1964. I used to just cry that I would never marry and have a family. I guess I showed them, huh? I married FOUR times!

Don't even get me started on the Tribulation. You wanna know why there are so many atheists and agnostics in the forty-and-up age group? I firmly believe it's because of all the dogma that was crammed down our throats as children.

It is reassuring to me that there are other adults out there who share my feelings about growing up Adventist. It makes me feel like I'm not so bad to scoff at all those SDA absurdities.

Okay, I'll step off my soapbox. Read and enjoy and, to some extent, understand why we are who we are.

You know you were reared SDA if...

• You pronounce "Adventist" as "AD-ventist", not "ad-VEN-tist".
  
• Your "Little Friend" wasn't a person.
  
• Your bedtime stories were about real people instead of fairy tales.
  
• You had an Uncle Arthur, Uncle Dan, and Aunt Sue and were amazed to find out that all your friends in Sabbath School did too.
  
• You think of kids instead of cars when you hear the term Pathfinder.
  
• You can remember what the letters "MV" and JMV" stand for.
  
• You have a board somewhere in your attic with a bunch of knots glued to it.
  
• You wondered if the earth would last long enough to have a girlfriend/boyfriend.
  
• Parenthood held many nasty surprises because you really believed Uncle Arthur when he said, "and he never disobeyed again."
  
• You know HMS as a name, not a ship.
  
• You know how to play poker with Bible Authors cards and Wheat Thins.
  
• You know how to play Rook but not Bridge or Hearts.
  
• You have looked for angels outside of a movie theater.
  
• On Saturdays you catch yourself telling your children, "You can wade, but don't swim."
  
• The word "Philistine" has a meaning in current terminology.
  
• Your tie falls in your soup because you don't wear a tie tack.
  
• The Review is not a full military dress inspection.
  
• You agreed to sing so you wouldn't have to solicit.
  
• Saturday Night Live had meaning before the TV program.
  
• You read labels on cans years before nutritional labeling was available.
  
• You saved labels off of cans years before recycling became fashionable.
  
• You have asked for a Veggie-Whopper at Burger King.
  
• You take more time at the Taco Bell counter than the last six customers.
  
• You take a helping of Nuteena because you like it, not out of courtesy.
  
• You can tell the difference between Linkettes and Vegelinks with your eyes closed.
  
• You know 101 ways to prepare Fri Chik.
  
• You have more than twelve uses for soybeans.
  
• You can stack 3000 calories on a plate at a church potluck.
  
• Your guilt trip ended the day Nabisco started using vegetable shortening in Oreos.
  

You May Have Gone To A SDA Academy/Boarding School/College If:

• You know all the basic square dance steps but only know how to execute them to march music.
  
• Your high school principal was an expert on female hemlines.
  
• You rolled down your skirt on the way to the principal's office.
  
• Your Friday night date was to Vespers.
  
• You went to banquets instead of dances or proms.
  
• You were called out of class to clean your room.
  
• You can grill cheese sandwiches on the bottom of an iron.
  
• You learned how to study in the dark after lights out.
  
• You've seen "Sound of Music" with a hand in front of the projector during the kissing scenes.
  
• You have been to movies during which the lights came on periodically for a hand check.
  
• You knew who was engaged by asking the time.
  
• You couldn't dance at school parties, but passing an orange under the neck was a non-censored activity.
  
• The only time you could hold hands was while roller-skating in the gym.
  
• The other side of campus was no-man/woman's land.
  
• You know what MCC stands for.
  
• You took cinnamon rolls back to the dorm on Friday afternoon.
  
• You have referred to high school as academy.