Scattered Childhood Memories #13: Raindrops & Radio Contests

During the summer of 1987 my mother spent her free time listening to the oldies radio station, trying to win a brand new car.

How it worked (as I remember it): You mailed in a postcard with your name and phone number, then tuned in to the station and listened... constantly. At home. In the car. Outside, with a battery-operated gadget. At any moment the DJs might call your name, and if they did, you had roughly 10 minutes to get to a phone, call the station, and claim your prize. The prize, as I recall, was a key. The key may or may not open the doors of a BRAND NEW CAR! I feel like you also got $100 cash, too, which to a 6-year-old sounded like a fortune.

My mother swears that my memory is false, that she never sent her name in, and that she probably only told me she had done so "to entertain me." But I know I'm right. Only because of how much she listened to that station that summer. Heaven forbid we be on the road when they called someone's name, because there were no cell phones, and you'd have find a pay phone. Sure, pay phones were on every other corner, but you'd also have to park, and... what if you had somewhere to be? Or what if someone else was in the phone booth? 

The songs I remember playing over and over that summer:

You Send Me by Sam Cooke (1958)

All I Have To Do Is Dream by the Everly Brothers (1958)

Dream Lover by Bobby Darin (1959)

Raindrops Keep Fallin' On My Head by Burt Bacharach and Hal David (1969)

Baby I Need Your Loving by the Four Tops (1964)

Goin' Out Of My Head by Little Anthony & the Imperials (1964)

Top Of The World by the Carpenters (1973)

You've Lost That Loving Feeling by the Righteous Brothers (1964)

I'm also pretty sure there were some Herman's Hermits and Four Seasons in there.

I do wonder about the Carpenters song -- it's the only one from the 70s, and it seems a little odd that an Oldies station would play a song from just 14 years prior, but I'll leave it here anyway.

In the end, my mom didn't win a car. She didn't even win a key. But I lived in a state of anxiety that summer. What if they call her name while we're at church? What if they call her name while we're asleep? What if they've already called her name, and we MISSED IT?

And so it remains one of those mixed-up memories. 1987: a year of DuckTales and Care Bears and car rides full of crooning. 

Scattered Childhood Memories #11: Nowhere To Go

One day, when I was three years old, I was lying on our living room floor playing with a plastic Smurf toy when a sense of unease suddenly came over me. 

On the wall nearby was framed print of Jesus. It had been a gift from my paternal grandparents, and I had seen it since infancy. But recently, little 3-year-old me had had a memorable nightmare in which Jesus had moved. His face had turned even more upward-looking (counter-clockwise rotation), a movement which had summoned none other than the sinister-looking bear from the cover of the Golden ABC Rhymes book, a bear whose name (I had at some point decided) was The Big Bad Drum. 

Recalling my dream, little me decided I didn't want to be in the same room as the Jesus picture. After all, it might decide to move at any moment and call forth any or all instances of bass drum-wielding bears. 

But now what?

I couldn't play in my bedroom, because I shared it with my baby brother, and he was currently napping. I couldn't play in my parents' bedroom, as it was generally off-limits. I couldn't play in the kitchen, because I wanted to play on carpet.

Another option was the dining room, but... that's where we had our smoke detector, and the smoke detector was nearly as ominous as the Jesus picture. I knew the smoke detector had something to do with fire. I also knew that if you stared at it long enough, you'd see a red flashing dot. Was that dot made of fire? Was there fire inside, just waiting to pop out and attack? 

I remember feeling stuck. I had nowhere to play. I don't remember what I ended up doing, but I'm pretty sure I gave up playing Smurfs and went to pester my mom.

Years later, at a family Thanksgiving celebration, I remember feeling stuck again. I dreaded going to this dinner because I knew that after we ate, I'd have the option of hanging out in one of two main rooms. I didn't want to hang in Room #2, because it was kind of a kids' area, and I was afraid that one particular younger cousin would lob something at my head. It had happened the year before, and I didn't trust that that cousin had matured significantly in the past 12 months. 

Meanwhile, in the other room, there was that one particular relative, the one that everyone else general thinks is pretty great, but who you know has Creep tendencies, and who you've had to strategically avoid for years, not only because of That One Time (but really several times), but also because he's never apologized, has always given you grief because you haven't let him get near you since, and also, you're pretty sure he's still Creepin.

So. Where to go? On that Thanksgiving evening, after dinner I went out and sat in the car until it was time to go. It was freezing, but I figured it was my best option.

Today I had another one of those moments of feeling stuck with nowhere to go. I was on breakfast duty at the school where I work. I usually have some flexibility to go back and forth from the cafeteria to the hallway. The cafeteria gets loud, though, especially when one of the other IAs gets on the microphone to remind the kids to be quiet and to eat their breakfast and to clean their tables and to check the lost and found and oh yeah, 5 minutes till the bell.

Every morning. At least three times.

Usually when she gets on the mic, I escape to the hallway.

Today, though, the hallway was no oasis. It was one of our Spirit Days, and someone was taking Polaroid pictures of kids who'd worn costumes. 🌟🌟🌟🌟 Flashes galore! Flashing lights have really started to bother me lately. It's not so much the light itself as it is the suddenness of it all.

I couldn't escape to my car this time, so I sucked it up and went back into the cafeteria and braved the noise.

I know that the flashing camera will be gone tomorrow.

My mom eventually donated the Jesus picture.

I try not to stare at smoke detectors anymore.

The immature cousin is, idk... is he out of jail these days?

And the Creep relative is... well, I can only hope The Big Bad Drum accompanied him to the afterlife and is following him around, percussing an annoying beat eternal. 

Scattered Childhood Memories #10: Library Story Time

 

I have a cluster of memories associated with going to the library. Since they're on my mind today I thought I might as well gather them here.

Age 4 - My absolute first memory of going to the library is only really memorable because of what I missed out on at home. My mom took me to story time one day. My 2-year-old brother stayed home with my dad, who was doing home repairs. When my mom and I returned from our outing, we found out we'd missed "the fire." There had been a kitchen fire, resulting in a couple of things surrounding the stove being charred. No one was hurt, and nothing was too damaged, but the smell. I remember being so bothered by it that I asked my parents: "Can we move?" (We had recently moved into that house... so, why not just pack up and go again?)

Age 9/10 - I'd become obsessed with The Baby-Sitters Club. I'd read about half of the 36ish books that had been released so far, all out of order. The second I entered the public library, I'd head straight for the paperback cart to grab any new (to me) books. One time my cousin and I even raced each other to the cart. 

Also on this cart were the American Girl books, but I was deeply embarrassed by the fact that one of the girls not only had my name (Molly) but also vaguely looked like me. The horror!

We learned to use the card catalog to look up which BSC books the library had. I think we could also reserve books. One day, a librarian led me away from the card catalogs and told me I could now use A COMPUTER to search for books! You'd think I'd be intrigued, but I was not. I loved those cards.

Age 9.5 - My cousins and I went to some kid event at the public library. They had book trivia and I answered a question correctly and won a prize -- BSC book #33! I later loaned it out to a girl I knew, who took ages to return it, and when she did, the book was in poor condition. You'd think I would learn not to loan out books at that point, but... you would be wrong.

Age 5-8. We had two libraries at my elementary school: a small one for the primary kids and a bigger one for the older kids. In the small one, the librarian was named Mrs. White. She had the same first name as my paternal grandmother, a coincidence the two of them discovered the time my grandma visited my school for Grandparents' day. As any good librarian ought, Mrs. White read us stories. One of the stories was about a badger or raccoon or some other animal that "washed its paws." This made me and my classmate giggle because it sounded so silly. We were admonished for giggling. But... PAWS!

Our class went to the school library weekly, but I had no interest in any books unless I had already read (or heard) them. I learned where to find the Peggy Parish (Amelia Bedelia) and Judith Viorst (Alexander) books, and usually headed straight to those sections.

Whenever we checked out books we had to fill in our name and info. on cards that we took out of pockets in the back of the library book. We then put these cards in a class folder. 

One day, the librarian read us a picture book about a hamster. I enjoyed the book and sought to check it out. The librarian tried to stop me from checking it out because she thought it'd be too hard for me to read. My teacher interjected: it's okay, I was a fair enough reader and should be fine. I got the book home and realized... it was written entirely in cursive. Well -- at least the pictures were fun!

Age 9-11. I was now old enough to visit the intermediate library at school. The librarian here was named Mrs. Wurm. We started every library session by her singing: Good morning, class! We were instructed to sing back, Good morning, Mrs. Wurm! To this day, I seethe when I hear teachers making their students do this type of thing (it is very rare, but still.) Mrs. Wurm introduced us to Beverly Cleary, the lovely land of New Zealand, and Tomes & Talismans, a pre-apocalyptic, library-centric PBS miniseries that I'm fairly certain we never saw the end of but that lives rent-free in my brain to this day.

It was here that I was introduced to my first non-Commodore computer, an Apple Macintosh that had a mouse (not a real mouse, kids!). I became obsessed with clicking and dragging.

Age 11. I was bussed to another school once a week for special classes. That library had the Mary Poppins books -- all of them. I was scandalized to learn that the Banks family was supposed to have more than two children! (Disney, what did you do with John, Barbara and Annabel!?) 

One day we were given an assignment to cull a book -- ie, find one on the shelves that was out-of-date, irrelevant, or whatever. I found a book about motorcycles in the reference section that read like it was written for 1-year-olds. It was so pitiful, I thought for sure I'd found a winner (loser?) But when I presented it to the librarian, she wanted me to make a case for it. Make a case for it? Certainly it spoke for itself! LOOK AT IT! I now understand what she was trying to do, but at the time I was utterly appalled by how clueless she seemed.

Age 12. Middle school. On the second day of school, during lunch, I sat down next to a girl I didn't know and we clicked. She asked if I'd been to the school library yet; I hadn't, so she led the way. (You could go there after lunch instead of going outside.) I read so many books from this library during my two years at that school -- specifically, I remember Just as Long as We're Together, Matilda, and the delightful 80s time capsule Beverly Clearly's Ramona - Behind the Scenes of a Television Show. That REM "Read" poster was on one of the walls. Eventually I started volunteering there during my non-class times, checking out and receiving books, shelving, etc.

Age 13-16. For some reason our local public library decided to stop putting "date due" cards in paperbacks, perhaps to prepare for their upcoming renovations. This induced people to check out books and never return them. I got a few BSC books this way, but also felt bad about it. The library eventually was demolished, and a newer, bigger building took its place. There were hardly any paperback books in the new library. They didn't want the BSC books back. The library had lost its appeal to me. It took me a long time to want to go back there.

Those are my childhood memories associated with The Library.

Scattered Childhood Memories #9: Invasion

Disclaimer: 

So I typically write about certain kinds of memories on this blog. Happy ones are a given. Awkward ones, sure -- if (and because) I've gotten over the shame. Sometimes I write about my life events in order to understand them or their place in shaping who I've become. Yada yada. This one? This one's not good, and I'm still not over it. But a dream prompted a memory, and the memory prompted this. I would say "enjoy," but that doesn't seem right. While this is certainly not the worst thing that's ever happened to me, it's still a dark cloud that hovers over my childhood.

* * * * *

When I was eight, as my family's car approached our house, I would pretend to be asleep. I always hoped my parents would be like, "Oh, she's sleeping!" and carry me from the car to the house. Being carried felt nice. Alas, my parents usually saw right through the charade, as I would only "fall asleep" when we were three blocks from home. Before that, I'd be wide awake and singing Christmas carols with altered lyrics, hoping to get some appreciative giggles out of someone in the car.

December 3, 1988, had been a long day. I'd sung with my childrens' choir at the Festival Of Trees that morning, chatted with one of Santa's elves, and admired the shiny trees. After the Festival, my parents had dropped my brother and me off at my grandma's house while they went Christmas shopping and had dinner out. It was their anniversary. Somehow that detail was important. It added to the irony or something.

We pulled into our garage and there I was, pretending to be asleep in the back seat. My parents, ignoring this, went into the house. They'll be back, I thought. I'll stay here for a few more minutes... they'll be back. They'll scoop me up and carry me up to my nice warm bed....

But that night, something was wrong. I could hear my parents' voices coming from inside the house. They sounded afraid. Abandoning my charade, I scrambled out of the car and hurried inside. Somewhere between the car and the kitchen, I heard the words, "We've been robbed."

In front of me was the kitchen window, which was wide open, the curtain rustling in the December breeze. In the dining room, a panel from the back door's window was broken. Upstairs, my parents' room was upset. 

My mom and dad went through the house, looking for things missing, and I just followed numbly. The VCR was gone. The colorful blanket my great-grandmother had knit us -- gone. Upstairs, a drawer full of my mom's jewelry and keepsakes was gone. So was a pillowcase off the bed. That drawer had held jewelry, my brothers' and my meager savings, and a small collection of my baby teeth. 

It was weird to think some jerk criminal now had my old teeth in his possession. My savings ($6 or so) could be replaced. My great-grandmother eventually knit us another blanket, this one in a "we-can-never-use-it" white color. The VCR was replaceable (even though they were still spendy then... a couple hundred, I think), but the VHS tape containing the just-recorded A Muppet Family Christmas that the robbers also got away with, was not. What kind of cruel beasts would take a little kids' Muppet tape?

A few things happened as a result of the robbery of '88. One, my dad went out and bought an alarm system, and there was a big to-do about that. The alarm would sometimes go off without any reason, so that was fun. Two, thereafter, every time I walked into the house from the garage -- especially if we'd been gone for several hours -- my eyes would go right to that kitchen window, to see if it was properly closed. Curtains rustling? Quick! Run around the house and look for missing objects! Aaauuughhh!! This paranoid routine went on for years. 

I can't recall that I ever tried the back-of-the-car sleeping trick again. Innocence lost, or what have you.

* * * * *

I wish it ended there. I wish that there wasn't enough material to fill a second blog post. I wish we hadn't been robbed a second time, years later. I had nightmares for months. They've subsided, but I had one last night, which got me thinking about this memory. 

Let's just leave it here. 

Scattered Childhood Memories #8: The Snowflake Plate

You know those motivational posters that say things like "dare to be different" and "be your own person"? Nobody had to tell Kid Me that. From a very young age, I was thrilled by things that were different. If there were ten identical toys, but one toy had a scratch on it? Give me the scratched one! Different meant special, and I always wanted the thing that was special. I almost never cared what color of [insert item here] I got, as long as I got a color nobody else had.

That was me -- and yes, I was a little odd.

In early elementary school, we'd sometimes go visit my cousins, who lived a few hours away. My aunt had a bunch of these square-ish Tupperware plates, on which she'd serve lunch to us kids....

At some point, she'd collected just one (it seemed) of the Christmas Set of Tupperware Plates. On this one red plate, there was a simple snowflake in one corner....

I quickly became obsessed with that plate. Oh, the glorious snowflake, temporarily hidden by a baloney sandwich, then... aha... there it was! That special icon that adorned just one plate. Woe to the children who had to eat off the plain, snowflake-less plates!

Perhaps the Snowflake Plate was equally coveted by my brother and cousins, or maybe they noticed my obsession with it, and that increased its value. All I know is, it became my mission to get the Snowflake Plate at mealtimes, even if it meant sneaking into the kitchen as soon as I heard my aunt making lunch, and specifically asking her for it.

My aunt, wisely, often just gave us kids all plain plates, probably to avoid hearing us fight or complain. But what a disappointment that was. The Snowflake Plate shouldn't have to sit in a cupboard! It should be enjoyed by at least one of us kids... me, especially! I loved you, Snowflake Plate!


^Actual photo of me, age 6, asking my aunt if I could possibly have the Snowflake Plate for lunch that day. Her expression is one of "you have got to be kidding me."

^Alas, I did not get the Snowflake Plate at this meal.

I've since outgrown that need to covet things that are different and/or special. But I am reminded of the Snowflake Plate whenever my students fight over things I think are really petty. I try to be sensitive toward the kid who gets upset because she didn't get the sparkly sticker she wanted. It's not because, necessarily, my students are selfish Veruca Salt-wannabes that are going to grow up to be selfish adults. No, perhaps it's just a phase that a lot of us go through at that age.

At least I hope it's just a phase....

 * * *

ETA: After posting the above, my cousin Sarah (whose family owned the snowflake plate) reminded me that she had adored the plate, too. So now, considering that, I'm wondering if my love for the snowflake plate had less to do with wanting the thing that was different, and more to do with having the valuable object that my slightly-older, much-cooler cousin herself coveted?

The plot thickens!

Scattered Childhood Memories #7: Halloween

My parents took me trick-or-treating for the first time when I was two or three. My only memory of this occasion is going to a house where a lady told us, "Sorry! But we're all out of candy."
I remember being somewhat dumbfounded. How could someone not have any more candy to give out on Halloween, the night you are supposed to give out candy? (Lady, you had ONE job....)

The next year, we moved. In our new neighborhood, everyone seemed to trick-or-treat between 6 and 8 pm, and you only went to the houses that had their porch light on, because that meant they had candy to give. But sometimes people would have their porch light on, yet never answer the door. These people were either super cruel or just didn't understand, but boy did they waste our precious time! They should be glad we weren't the type of kids to "trick," says I.

I wasn't super picky about what kind of candy I got, but I did save an ounce of scorn for any adult who handed out those miniature tootsie rolls. I may not have known much, but I knew what candy cost, and I knew that person was being a cheapskate! Still, other people made up for it. I remember the year someone handed out tiny bags of chips. Score! Or another time, somebody bestowed on me a can of soda. Seriously, I felt like I'd just won the Halloween lottery.

After a night of trick-or-treating came the loot sorting. I took great pleasure in sorting my candy by type and goodness. My brother would often do the same, and then we'd trade things. We'd get to eat a few pieces, then our stash would go in the cupboard. My parents, as far as I know, never (or rarely) dipped into our bins. Our candy was sacred. Mine was mine, my brother's was his, and we left each other's alone (well, okay, maybe I ate a few of my brother's when my own reserves were running low. Maybe.)

But this one year, my grandparents came to stay, and my grandma unapologetically helped herself to my candy whenever the mood struck. I was horrified. Grandma! YOU didn't tromp around the neighborhood and beg for two hours on a cold, rainy night! You're a grown woman with money in your purse! Go buy your own candy!

I swear, I did not have an obsession
with clowns.

Some years, instead of trick-or-treating, we went to a Halloween party at my elementary school. There we played carnival-type games and got candy. Strangely, I remember so little about these events, even though I know I loved them, and they seemed to be a yearly thing.

The first year I went to a non-school-sponsored Halloween party, I was about four. My parents' friends were throwing a party for their kid, whose birthday was shortly after Halloween. They called it a Pumpkin Party, and at the time I didn't think anything of it, but later I learned they were super conservative and probably didn't even celebrate actual Halloween. I remember we played this game where everybody had a string, and they were tangled throughout the living room, and you just had to get to your prize at the end of the string. I think we did a treasure hunt, too. Then we all went to this place and rode bumper cars?? Forget it, I don't think this even happened on Halloween.

The next time I went to somebody's Halloween-esque party, I was older (seventh grade?). My friend's mom devised a haunted house-type activity in their basement, and we got to blindly feel cold spaghetti and peeled grapes. Good times.

Another time I went to a Halloween party, I was in high school, and that was the time I learned that yes, it is true that you can glue your fingers together with SuperGlue. Don't try this at home, kids!

In fifth grade, I threw my own Halloween Party. I invited all my local cousins and a handful of neighbors and my best friend. We decorated pumpkins and ate pizza. I had invited my new friend and her brother, but was stunned to learn that their family didn't celebrate Halloween. Welp, more candy for the rest of us, I guess....

In eighth grade, I went to our school's Halloween Dance. Years of reading Baby-Sitters Club books had convinced me that you could go to middle school dances even without a date and still have a great time and possibly meet the boy of your dreams. This turned out to be a lie. However, I learned that going to a school dance with a group of girl friends could still produce good fun. Boys, shmoys.

My favorite Halloween was in fourth grade. I was a cat that year, and I went to our school's Halloween Party that evening. I was off on my own playing games, when my dad found me and told me we were going home because my cousins had arrived! This was a huge deal because my cousins were moving to our city for the year, and here they were arriving on Halloween, of all nights! Plus I hadn't seen them in a while, so I was super excited. My dad drove me home, and I joined my cousins as they trick-or-treated around our neighborhood. That night was the beginning of a great year.

Halloween traditions:

*Carving pumpkins. (We usually just got store-bought ones.)

*Watching the Garfield Halloween Special

 (even though I was terrified, and I mean terrified, by that old geezer in the haunted house with the pirate ghosts.)

Well, wouldn't YOU be???

*Being all sad when my carved pumpkin finally rotted and/or molded and had to be pitched

*Being even more sad when my Halloween candy ran out

*Being happy again because by that time, it was usually almost time for Thanksgiving, which meant PIE.


Pie....

Scattered Childhood Memories #6: Fishing

My dad has an old silver rowboat with an outboard motor that works when it wants to. Inside the boat: me and him, puffy orange life jackets, box of lunch, fishing poles, carton of worms, and a tackle box filled with colorful and sparkly things.

He gets everything ready -- worm, lure, hook -- and shows me how to cast. "Back, like this -- and now forward..." Whiizzzzsshhh!

My turn. "Oops, not far enough." Reel, reel. He casts. "See? That's how it's done. Here, you try."

I cast into the nearby brush and lose my worm.

Once more, he casts, then hands me the pole and tells me to just hold it.

Waiting for a "bite," now.

Waiting.

Waiting.

"I felt something!"

"Something may have just nibbled your worm. You don't have anything yet. When you do, you'll feel it tug hard."

"It's tugging! I can feel it!"

"Okay, well, reel it in... slowly...."

Reel, reel, reel, reel, reel, reel.

Hook comes up empty. Worm is half gone.

"Oops, nothing this time. Let's cast again."

"You do it," I say.

Whizzzzshhzzzz. More waiting. Bored. I can't even talk because he says it'll scare away the fish. I didn't know fish had ears.

He gets a tug on his line and reels in a fish... trout, salmon, bass?... I've never learned the difference.

He frowns. "It's too small." He lets it go. Plop, back in the water. Swim, fishie, swim! I wonder how he decides that it's too small. It looked big enough to me. I could've eaten that fish.

My stomach rumbles.

The sun climbs higher in the sky.

Another bite on the line. Another guppy. I begin to wonder if all the big fish live in another lake.

I can take it no longer. "I'm hungry."

Peanut butter sandwiches and apples and cans of juice. "Do fish like apples?" I ask. "We could use these cores to lure them."

"Fish prefer worms."

I carefully lean over the side of the boat to watch the rippling water. "Fish," I whisper. "Come out, come out, wherever you are!"

Dad smiles.

I start to itch underneath my life jacket. I can't scratch the spot. I begin to wriggle.

"Try not to rock the boat."

There are sure a lot of rules to fishing.

By noon, we're back in the pickup, the boat on its trailer behind us. "Well," says Dad, "I guess the fish just weren't biting today."

"We tried for a long time," I remark.

"Yes. But at least it was nice out there on the lake."

"I bet Mommy missed us. She'll be glad to see us."

Home. He pulls into the driveway. I hop out of the truck, skip up to the front porch and ring the doorbell.

My mother opens the door. "Welcome back," she says. "Where are my fish?"

We have hot dogs for dinner.

Scattered Childhood Memories #5: Pennies From... Well, Somewhere....

When I was a bonnie wee lass, sometimes I'd be given a coin for the grocery store gumball machines. I loved gum, oh how I loved gum. Actually, I loved pretty much anything that came out of those machines. It could be a slimy orange replica of He-Man's second cousin for all I cared... as long as I got to put money in the slot, turn the crank, and receive something out of the little metal door, I was happy.

In the early 80s you could still get a tiny gumball for a penny at some places. My mom was not the type to indulge me constantly, and so I was left to fend for myself. If I had my own penny, I could get gum. Otherwise, nada. Only thing was, I didn't have any income, not even an allowance (until I was about seven.) This left one option: finding pennies on the ground.

And so there I'd be, walking alongside my mother through the aisles, my head tilted downward, my eyes focused on the ground. Scanning. Looking in crevices. Doing a hopeful double-take at any semi-shiny object, be it a gum wrapper, a piece of foil, or a syringe (okay, kidding.) But despite my best efforts, rarely did I ever find any money at all.

Yet, as an adult, I've found many, many pennies on the ground. Why? Who knows. It could be because they're worth less nowadays -- people don't care as much if they lose them, and maybe it's too much of an effort to pick up a stray. All I know is I keep finding them.

And yes, I pick them up.

And someday, I might even have a DOLLAR! :D

Scattered Childhood Memories #4: New House (and a dash of freakiness)

I was three and a half when we moved into this house. My parents searched and searched for the right place, and when they found it, they were overjoyed. We were staying/living at my grandparents' house at the time. They had a big box of wooden blocks I liked to play with. The day my parents finally decided on "the house," my dad told me all about it. We were sitting in my grandparents' living room, and my dad used the blocks to make a model of "the house". He used blue blocks to represent the doors. "See? There are stairs here. One set goes up, and one set goes down." Ooooh.

Sometime after that, my dad took me to the house itself, just me and him. We parked across the street and entered through the garage. He took me upstairs and showed me the three bedrooms. "This one will be yours," he said. He didn't try to explain that I'd gotten this one because it was the second-largest room (the largest one going to my parents, and the third-largest going to my baby brother.) Instead, he said, "I thought you should have this one because of the neat lightswitch -- look!" 

And there it was. A lightswitch that was not ordinary. It was not one of those little stick-out ones that you flip up or down like I was used to. It was rectangular, with a slight bend in the middle. It was flattish. Clap on, clap off. "And the best part?" He turned the light off -- and there, on the top half, was a ball of glowing orange. A nightlight! This thing was a freaking nightlight!

The nightlight glowed throughout most of my childhood. As a young teenager, it began to dim and flicker, but it held on. By the time I graduated high school, however, it had gone dark. So it goes. I decorated the lightswitch with stickers and went off to college and came back and barely gave it two thoughts anymore. Except... sometimes it was hard to find it -- I mean, the lightswitch -- in the dark. Sometimes my hand would fumble all over the wall, searching for it. You'd think after twenty-odd years, I'd be able to locate it blindfolded, no problem, but nay -- I tend to get a bit disoriented in the dark. At some point along the way, my mind seemingly forgot that there used to be a light there to guide me. Light: a distant memory.

And then came this morning.

When I got out of bed and went to turn on the light, I saw it -- a flicker. An orange flickery glow.

I was sure my eyes were playing tricks on me. Maybe it was the sunlight dancing off my mirror. Maybe... maybe I was still dreaming....

I cupped my hands around the lightswitch and peered at it as best I could in my early-morning spectacle-less state. And as I watched, the light began to glow brighter.

Convinced the whole thing was about to burst into flames, I quickly turned on the light (thus eliminating the nightlight portion), and have kept it on since. Well, shoot, you can't be too careful, can you?

But then I got to thinking how strange my reaction was. And how strange the situation was. Isn't it funny? Something can be dead and gone for years and then suddenly -- it's back. I know it's just a nightlight, but darnit if I can't turn everything into some kind of metaphor. I'm an English major, after all. It's what we do. And in this instance, I can't help but think of this light-revival as some kind of minor miracle. Miracles, I believe, happen regularly. But many times, we dismiss them. We look the other way. We come up with some semi-rational scientific explanation for 'em.

Or we run screaming.

And why is that? Is it too hard to believe that something might actually be happening around us that's GOOD? That's special? That's beyond earthly explanation, but hey, who needs explanations? Why do we fear these things so much?

I know it's just an tiny, flickering orange light. But I want to believe it means something more.


Edit: Well, it turned out it did mean something more. It meant we had a busted transformer on a nearby power pole that was causing power surges throughout our house. A few other wonky things prompted us to call the power company. After they came out and replaced a part, the nightlight stopped glowing once again.

Scattered Childhood Memories #3: Exchange Students

The summer I turned five, my family hosted two teenage exchange students from Japan. Their names were Yuko and Naomi. 

At first, I didn't know quite what to think of these two visitors. They smelled different. They were different. They knew very little English, something which I had never encountered before. Over the years, my family had -- and would -- host a variety of visitors, but these girls were (pardon the pun) the most foreign of all.

One night during their stay, my dad decided to try to teach Yuko and Naomi a card game known in our family as "Knock" (but which my grandpa calls "Polish Poker." Who knows what it is.) It was simultaneously fascinating and frustrating trying to watch my dad explain the rules of this relatively simple game -- in English -- to two girls who barely understood the language. But bless them, they tried, and with much laughter, everyone finally got the hang of the game.

Another time, the girls -- along with other members of their exchange group -- put on a magic show. One of the tricks involved pouring milk into a newspaper -- and keeping it there. I mean seriously, no milk dripped out. I'm still wondering exactly how they did that!

I remember one day we all went up to Mount Hood and rode the alpine slide up at timberline. This was my first time on a ski lift. Another time, we went to the beach. There's a picture of me in the back of our car, leaning my head against Naomi's shoulder. We're both fast asleep. Suffice it to say, I got over my initial apprehension and became close to those two.

One thing that helped bring us all together was origami. I've always loved art projects, so when the girls showed me the fancy little papers and told me I could make them into shapes, I was all aboard with that idea. Except for one thing... I wanted to use scissors and tape on my projects. Yuko and Naomi and even my parents tried to convince me that origami did not require those tools -- only folding. Yeah, but every time I tried to fold anything, I wound up with a big wad of paper. But the girls were ever patient.

I suppose Yuko and Naomi are in their 40s now. I wonder if they ever wonder about my family? Have they ever been back to the U.S.?  Where have their lives taken them? Do they have children? Grandchildren? They could, you know... that was 25 years ago, I mean... anything's possible. 

Hmmm.

Scattered Childhood Memories #2: Innocence Lost

For my 7th birthday I've received a gumball machine money bank.  A dime, nickel, or penny'll get you one gumball. I love the machine because 1) I love gum, and 2) I love buying things. Before long, all my minor coins are sacrificed to the machine.

A few days later, along comes my friend Beth, who takes one look at the gumball machine, pops off the bottom, and shows me how to not only get my money back, but to get all the gumballs I want, whenever I want, without having to pay. Sheer brilliance!

Of course, soon the gum is gone, and I don't have much in the way of $avings to show for my losses.  And so the gumball machine becomes a useless toy, like a Pez dispenser without the Pez (unless you collect them, which I began to do in my late teens. They're much easier to collect than gumball machines, though. Where was I going with this?)

So, to summarize:

I was ecstatic when Beth first showed me the secret of the gumball machine.  But I was sad soon after, once the gum had all been devoured.  I wished she had never shown me how to open the bottom. Wished that had been left a mystery.

Wished I wasn't so darn greedy.

Woe to the gumballs.

Scattered Childhood Memories - #1: Blue Lake Shenanigans

I am 3 or 4 years old and we're at Blue Lake Park. I'm playing on one of the playgrounds -- for reference, it's the one that used to have the swings that looked like they were recycled from the swing ride at the fair, a double metal slide (stairs up the middle, slides on either side) and a metal jungle gym in the shape of a train engine. The floor of the playground is comprised of sand.

My parents are nearby, though they are not watching me directly. Maybe they're chatting with the extended family or with friends, whoever else is there. My brother is probably in his porto-playpen, too young to join in my adventures.

There's a boy about my age who is throwing sand. He's claimed ownership of the train engine, and won't let anybody get near it. Should any child attempt it, her eyes will sting from the impact of projectile sand. I have experienced this first-hand. No parents seem to be watching this unfold. The adults are all too preoccupied. Perhaps I even ask for help... but if so, none is given.

I decide to take matters into my own hands.

Anyone can fight with sand, but I can do one step better. I gather sand and grass in my hands, then meander over toward the boy, looking like I couldn't care less about his dumb old choo-choo train. When I get close enough, sashaaa! -- I get him, right in the face.

He gets upset. In fact, I think he tattles on me. But his mother takes one look at little innocent ol' me and does not give her son the benefit of the doubt. Either that or she chooses not to bother with me. She does not know my parents, what can she do?

I walk away, go over to my parents. I tell them nothing, though I am quite proud of my efforts. Proud of how I've stood up for myself and the other kids. I want to tell them all about how I thought to mix the natural elements for added effect! But something tells me it might not be best to share what I have done with grown-ups. They have strange, strange ideas about right and wrong, about justice.

No, this one will be my little secret.