I REMEMBER

I REMEMBER

A lifetime of memories - almost

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Someone recently suggested I write my memoir. “Wouldn’t it be a great idea for your children to see your most important periods of your life.”

I tried not to laugh. The most important periods of my life? Really?

What I would prefer to talk about are issues, some personal, some not that I remember the most. Some might make you scratch your head and ask, “What the hell?” while others (hopefully) might make you laugh. Or scratch your head and wonder how long ago did my marble bag get lost. (Remember the scene from the movie Hook when Tootles lost his “marbles”?)

My first question is this: how do I fit 70+ years into one short story.

Well, I guess the answer is easy. Leave out the extremely hurtful memories. No one needs to see them.

Okay, then, moving on to another story. Wait, I promised a half-baked memoir, so here goes. Maybe if you read this, you just might understand where my head goes when I write my stories.

I’ll begin with my earlies memory. I was about four years old. (Yeah, I can remember back that far.)

My brother and I loved animals. If my brother saw an animal who’d gotten hit by a car, he’d carefully check to see if that animal survived. If it didn’t, he’d break a small twig off the nearest tree and form a small cross. Then taking a few pieces of discarded newspaper, he’d place it all on the once lively stray.

I always considered my older brother to be my hero, my role model, so when I saw a stray cat limping near our apartment building, immediately and without thinking, I raced to pick it up hoping to offer some comfort. Not a good idea! The stray bit me!

My brother grabbed my hand and together we ran up the three flights of stairs to where we lived. “Daddy, a cat bit Donnie,” my brother hurriedly screamed.

Now, here’s where the fun begins. Hmmph! In a near panic thinking the cat might have had rabies, rather than take me to the hospital, he retrieved the bottom of mercurochrome from the medicine cabinet, held my hand over the sink and poured almost the entire bottle of stinging burning liquid on my tiny open wound. I’m sure the neighbors must have thought he was murdering me. If the cat had been rabid, we never saw any evidence of it. The mercurochrome probably burned any trace of bacteria from my body, let alone my finger.

Not too long after my seventh birthday, my parents moved our family around the corner. The new apartment was a bit bigger, and our family was growing. In addition to my brother and me, mom was pregnant again. Being seven, I was innocent enough to have NO clue. The advantage was that we lived directly across the street from a park. The disadvantage was that I tried to mimic everything my brother did. He climbed a tree! Well, so did I. My problem was that I was terrified of heights. Climbing up was easy enough since I was looking up. Getting down? I think the entire neighborhood heard me crying, “Frankie, help me down.” He always did, of course.

I was thirteen when I “discovered” how cute boys could be. Every girl in school had a crush on Steven. Steven’s sister had a crush on my brother. But then, so did Steven’s cousin. There, however, was the problem. My brother liked the cousin and decided to ask her for a date. The sister became angry and Steven, having more sense than to confront a much taller boy, took his frustration out on me. Oddly enough, it didn’t upset me. I curtly replied to his comments, “I once thought you were a nice boy, but now you’re dead to me.” And I walked away. Didn’t speak to him until three years later when he apologized. My reply? “Apology accepted, you’re forgiven but you’re still dead to me.” I walked away and we never spoke again. You don’t talk about my family and think I won’t retaliate.

At seventeen, I met a young man who I thought couldn’t be any better. Falling hard in love, we married not long after my eighteenth birthday. Another odd thing was that the second we said our “I do’s,” I knew the marriage wouldn’t last. IT wasn’t just a horrible gut feeling. It was my built-in premonition speaking. After eleven years and two kids, he decided he wanted to be free. Immediately, I drove to the record store (yeah, we had record stores back than) and bought Gloria Gaynor’s I WILL SURVIVE. Not only did I survive, but I also thrived and grew: mentally, emotionally, and physically.

Knowing I’d need to nurture my sons, I took various courses: auto mechanics, first aid, CPR, home repair, i.e., minor electrical repair, minor carpentry, not to mention plumbing. My sons learned right along with me and together we grew and even today, we’re as close as ever.

When I look back on my life and all the things I’ve done, yes, I often shake my head and wonder: why did I do that? Like the time I accidentally locked us out of the house. Being terrified of heights, I pulled the ladder from the backyard shed, secured it to the back window, and encouraged my son to climb it, crawl through the window and then open the back door. I was 32 years old, Jim was ten. We laugh about it now, after all these years.

Many might say that some memories are better left to die with age. If they don’t, try and lock them up in a mental vault and don’t think about them, but aren’t these memories the reason we are who we are? We live, love, get surprised, disappointed, and move on. Or not.

Often, memories make interesting stories.

Maybe my next memoir will be about the haunted house that I called home for twenty-eight years. Now, that’s a memory!

Thanks for reading.