70s-child: Hansel And Grethel (the abridged version)

Friday, May 12, 2006

Hansel And Grethel (the abridged version)

Hansel and Grethel (Gretel) get ditched by their parents in the forest. The kids get lost and end up at a witch's house. The witch promises them the world, but the next day she puts Hansel in a cage for the purpose of eating him. Gretel manages to push the witch into a blazing oven and kill her. The kids escape and find their way back to their father's house. The Stepmother has usually passed away (in some versions).

Don't expect much out of me for a quarter:

As a kid, I never got an allowance. That's something my folks weren't into. They were very generous with me, I never lacked anything, and usually when I asked for something they'd get it for me, but an allowance just wasn't going to happen. In '76, just before my folks split up, dad decided to give me a "job". It was sometime in January and the weather was pretty brutal, so he told me he'd pay me a quarter if I'd open the garage door for him when he got home so he wouldn't have to get out of the car and open it himself. We lived in a split level house (a raised-ranch), and the garage was in the lower level. The very first night, I was watching TV and I heard him pull in and stop at the garage door. I didn't want to leave my show, and it was pretty cold down there in the garage, and I was rather warm and cozy and comfortable sitting in front of the tv, so I basically ignored him. He honked. He honked again. And again. And again. Finally I heard him open the car door, open the garage himself, pull into the garage and slam the door shut. The way he slammed the door, I could tell he was angry and that I was in trouble. He came upstairs and just looked at me. Let's just say I lost my job that night, which didn't really bother me. A QUARTER??? I didn't get out of BED for that kind of money...