Sweet Memories

All these memories! Where are they coming from?  Just one note from an old country song or Sunday school hymn can evoke vivid imagery from my childhood. Sights, sounds, smells, and voices rush back as clear as the day they occurred. Perhaps I am just of an age when this phenomenon occurs.  Perhaps it is simply because I have been working in the same vegetable garden that my folks started in 1963. Or perhaps the memories live in the ground and are released as I part the soil to plant seeds. The memories come in clusters quite rapidly and then into individual events.

Mother is in the kitchen, not yet thirty, listening to Tiger baseball cheering on Al Kaline and Willie Horton. The room is hot and humid and her skin glistens with sweat. There are tomatoes in the bushel baskets, on the stove being blanched, in the sink cooling, and some in jars. The house is filled with the smell of partially cooked tomatoes, the clinking sound of glass jars being bumped against one another, and the pop of canning lids as they seal. My arms itch from the juice that seeps from tomatoes as I remove the peels for mother.

Calvin and Kenny are in the upstairs hallway endlessly stacking and restacking wooden blocks into a pyramid.  Only to propel the indestructible gray model car forward hoping each time for a bigger better more magnificent crash. They banter back and forth arguing over which crash was the best. I am the cheerleader and always root for Kenny because he is not my brother.

Jeannie, Joanie, Frankie, and I are sitting in the front yard on a warm summer day. The grass is cool but prickly on our outstretched legs. Our legs create a human fence to contain the new baby bunnies. We take turns holding each of the babies, nuzzling and petting their soft black and white fur. We giggle. We giggle because they are cute, and soft, and funny, and because they try to nibble the ends of our fingers. We giggle because we are delighted, because it is summer, and there are bunnies, and we have each other.

I am sitting in the old fiberglass canoe on the pond, fishing pole in hand. I am in the front and Dad in the back. I want to catch a fish, but I am distracted by the turtle that is swimming under the boat. “Keep still” my father cautions, “You will scare the fish.” So I sit still and watch the bobber. I like the yellow flowers on the lily pads and ask if we can take some to mom. “Keep still” my father cautions, “there is no talking in fishing, you will scare the fish.” I am five years old and I try to watch the bobber and I want to catch a fish. But my mind begins to wander, and I wonder how warm the water is and why we cannot go swimming in this lake. “Jerk!” my Dad hollers, and I do and he says “reel in” and I do and he smiles and calls me his little fisherman. He takes the fish off the hook, tosses it in the bucket with a splash, and recasts the line for me. I want to catch another fish and I try to watch the bobber, but I am distracted by the bird flying overhead.

All of these memories! Where are they coming from? I simply cannot say. No matter the catalyst, each is a precious gift to be unwrapped, savored, and considered again and again. I hear the laughter of children and the echo of boys being boys. I feel the special bond that is created between father and daughter spending quiet time together, and that of mother and daughter working side by side to complete a task. I have cherished these snippets from the movie of my life. It is with the sincerest gratitude that I say thank you Mom, Dad, Calvin, Kenny, Frankie, Jeanne, and Joni. Thank you for all of precious moments long past shared that have molded me into the person I am today.

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