Memories, Like The Corners Of My Mind: Small Talk Six

It’s time, once again, for Small Talk Six! On Saturdays presented by MomDot.com. Today’s topic is “6 of your most vivid childhood memories“. You can answer this with a list of 6 words, 6 phrases, 6 sentences. 6 paragraphs, 6 photos, 6 videos, etc…

Wow, I have so many vivid childhood memories. Unfortunately, my Big Bro claims that many of them are just vivid figments of my imagination. {He has no vision} Ok, here goes nothin”…

1) I think I was 3 or 4…We were at my Grandma and Grandpa’s {My Mother’s parents} in North Carolina and I remember running out into the Summer rain — without telling my parents or them seeing me walk out the door. My Dad eventually found me and I was apparently quite a ways from Grandma’s house.

2) I believe I was 5 or 6 and I got my first pair of roller skates.  The ones with four wheels, not these new fangled ice skates with wheels…Anywho, I was outside with my Dad and Big Bro {Dad used to be a competitive roller skater/dancer} and they were trying to get my unbalanced ass to balance on the skates without falling. A couple of my friends/neighborhood kids came over and said they would help me learn.  Stupidly, my Father agreed and let me go with them. They took me to an area behind our condo pool area that had a small hill. Part of it was concrete, the other part was grass. Knowing I did not know how to stop yet, and the fact that the hill/sidewalk ended at someone’s front door, I chose to go down the grassy part…sideways.

I fell, of course. All the way to the bottom. I remember seeing my friends laughing at me through my tears while I screamed out about how much it hurt and to go get my Daddy. I think my Big Bro came and got me and carried me home. My right arm was hurting badly. My parents believed it was sprained and had me soak it in Epsom Salts {Their cure for nearly everything}. When a week had passed and I still wasn’t able to use my right hand/arm/wrist, I told my Mother she needed to take me to the doctor. By that time, the broken bones in my wrist had started to grow back together, but not in the right way. I had to have my arm re-broken by the Orthopaedic Surgeon before it could be set and cast. And I was awake the whole time. I spent my Summer in a cast. I couldn’t go swimming. I couldn’t even bathe by myself. Fun times.

3) Going back East on a family vacation and staying with my Great Aunt Louise and Uncle Ray at their house in Middletown, PA for the first time. For whatever reason, each time we went to her house, it was raining. And nighttime. Pennsylvania rain storms are different than any place I have ever been. They are beautiful, bountiful and have the best thunder and lightening I have ever seen. Aunt Louise’s house had a walk-up attic and that is where I always slept. She would put my bed next to the dormer window by the big tree. I would fall asleep to the sound of rain and thunder and the brilliance of the lightening. I loved it. This is likely why I have such an affinity for The New England States, rain storms and houses with walk-up attics. And fireflies. I loved the fireflies in the Summer. We would catch them in mason jars and put them on the picnic table in the backyard while we ate dinner.

Did I mention that those suckers were huge? Uh, yeah, they were. Middletown, PA is also the home of Three Mile Island, one of America’s nuclear power plants. One of the years we went back there,  they had had an “accident”. We blamed the unusually large fireflies, sunflowers and garden vegetables on the nuclear spill. And considering you could actually see Three Mile Island from her back porch, it probably wasn’t far from the truth!

4) Back in the Stone Ages, sunblock wasn’t something anyone used. There was suntan oil, not sunblock. I am the original white Irish girl — red hair, fair skin, freckles and blues eyes — I don’t tan. Ever. I burn. Badly and turn the color of a freshly cooked lobster. We had a pool growing up and I was in it daily when the weather was nice, all day, sans sunblock and by myself, since my Mother can’t swim. I was young, maybe 7 or 8 and allowed to be in a pool all day with no parental supervision. Try letting your kids do that today! I would inevitably get a horrible sunburn — the kind that won’t let you wear clothes, gives you chills and makes you blister and peel — and not be able to go to school the next day. I couldn’t go to school nekkid, could I? I would walk around in a bed sheet tied up like a toga. The last bad sunburn I remember getting was when I was about 14. The skin on my face burned, blistered and peeled so badly that I have areas where the “peach fuzz” all women have on their faces doesn’t grow anymore. I’m lucky A) that I still have eyebrows and B) that I didn’t get skin cancer. Now I won’t go in the sun without a slathering of waterproof sunblock 45 — and neither will my daughter.

5) Going shopping every Christmas Eve with my dad to buy presents for my Mom. This always seemed to be the only day he could get to do it and I was always armed with the list of what Mom wanted {From her telling me while the two of us were out shopping. “Tell your Dad I want this”, she would say as she held up or pointed to the item she desired}. Dad and I would wake up early, go out to breakfast, discuss what Mom wanted and where we needed to go and then we would be off on our quest. We were always able to find good parking and get unadvertised discounts on the items we wanted to purchase. We were home before dinner and Dad and I would lock ourselves in their room while we wrapped Mom’s presents in secret.

The first Christmas Eve I had to spend without him was one of the hardest days for me. It had always been our special time — A Daddy and his Daddy’s Girl. I still miss him almost 18 years later.

6) My Dad teaching me how to rebuild a carburetor and hot wire a car when I was about 12 or 13. He said I needed to know these things and I was only too happy to learn. Plus if I was out in the garage with my Dad, I didn’t have to deal with my Mom and her craziness. She would usually send me out there anyway, saying “Go out there and make sure your Dad doesn’t blow anything up.”

Tags: Childhood Memories

Category: Memes