October 19, 2010
My First Ten
1. Standing over my first birthday cake. Daddy beside me, Mom taking the picture from a Kodak box camera hanging from a cord around her neck looking down into the view finder.
2. Being carried, legs astraddle Daddy’s neck. The ground so far away down there.
3. In a car seat in the middle of the front seat between Mom and Daddy, helping Daddy drive with my steering wheel affixed to the seat. The steering wheel was white plastic with a soft rubber, bright yellow horn in the middle. I remember thinking it looked like a [fried] egg. I remember beeping the horn.
4. Sitting in a radio station watching, through the sound proof glass, Daddy sing with a gospel quartet he was a member of.
5. The radio, that used to play gospel music on Sunday mornings, when we lived in the little trailer, getting ready to go to church. I remember the radio vividly. The rest is vague.
6. Telling in Nursery School, in show-and-tell about my new Hushpuppies.
7. Taking tap-dancing lessons in Nursery School. There was a recital once. I was a “Legionnaire.” I remember seeing Mom and Daddy in the second or third row. They were both laughing. Mom was crying, wiping her face, at the same time. I asked about it later, the laughing and crying. I don’t remember her answer.
8. My first grade teacher, (who also taught my Mom to play the piano years earlier, when Mom was in her teens) the night she sold my folks a set of Compton’s Encyclopedia. The set is still in my parents’ house, along with, I don’t know, about 30 “year-books” they purchased every year, meant to update the original set. I don’t know what I’ll do with them when/if they come to be mine.
9. Ooo, the tuna casserole that was occasionally served for lunch at Nursery School. There were rubbery things in it I later came to know were the mushrooms in a can of Campbell’s Cream of Mushroom soup. Once, they made me eat it all, and I promptly barfed it onto the floor beside my chair.
10. Falling asleep, on nights before Christmas, with visions of good things coming in the morning. Anticipating I could scarce contain it, let alone fall asleep, but sleep I did. The morning never disappointed.
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Oh, Rick. This is just beautiful.
You know, I often find myself thinking of Truman Capote in some of the things you write. This one, especially, puts me in mind of A Christmas Memory.
thank you, Rick. beautiful. I’m sure your mom was laughing and crying with joy.
I know I have talked about this, the writing teacher talking about how the best are letting themselves shine through even as they are working extremely hard polishing and sharpening the words. And Rick, you remind me of that. Because I always see you so very clearly when you write.
And I remember the camera! Looking down into the viewfinder! I thought surely we were the most photographed children in America.
You remember so much, I wish I could remember more.
Sometimes I wish that I could forget more, but I’m essentially happy to remember things.
Telling about your new Hushpuppies.
I was so bedazzled when my mother bought me a Barbie doll. Barbie was pretty much brand-new at the time, and all the way home in the car I held her and said over and over inside my head, “I have Barbie. I have Barbie. I have Barbie.” Somehow the saying made it even better.
Years later I shared this memory with a friend, and he said that he did the same when his parents finally got him a puppy. Sat in the back seat of the car with the pup and said to himself, “I have a puppy. I have a puppy. I have a puppy.”
That’s what I did when I had Mr. Beaudreaux, Shelia. But I was staring at him, not smiling, saying over and over, “I just cannot believe this.” The doctor kept laughing because I did have time to prepare!
Oh, Carole, that is just beautiful.
“I had Mr. Beaudreaux. I had Mr. Beaudreaux. I had Mr. Beaudreaux.”