Category: Memory

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900

il_570xN.530350248_bs57It’s odd how something that is completely unrelated to something else can still trigger those memories in my mind. For instance, I was listening to Rod Stewart this morning (The Motown Song) and it made me think about Pepsi. Of course the song is all about hanging out and listening to old records to set the mood. It has nothing to do with Pepsi, but follow my logic…

When I was in high school I worked on a mushroom farm. It was 1991, so the song was on the radio a lot, and we listened to it while we worked. That song will forever be indelibly linked to mushrooms, fertilizer, heat, Losing My Religion, and Diet Coke soda. The mushrooms, fertilizer, and heat were related to the boxes we were packing to ship off to people trying to grow mushrooms, the song was another big one in the rotation on the one radio station we listened to, and the Diet Coke was what our boss let us have when we were in some downtime. As I can’t stand Coke, my mind instead goes to Pepsi when I hear the song, as it did this morning.

That happens a lot to me since my mind is always going a mile a minute, and I pretty much dare people to keep up, to trace back my brain’s journey to get to the bizarre destination. In fact, it has gone on so long that it has become sort of a game for me to even figure out my own logic and connections, a variation on the six degrees of separation, but internal instead of external. It’s why a pair of blue jeans reminds me of Von Hayes, why a kid on a bicycle brings back memories of the Empire State Building, and why Fred Flintstone saying “Yabba Dabba Doo!” inspires me to do the Humpty Dance.

So, I think about 900, and what comes to mind are the SATs, you know, the exams that are supposed to test your potential ability. I recently found out that the newly revised (again) SATs will feature a return to a 1600 perfect score, so I will theoretically be able to compare my score with my daughter’s score when she takes the test in 8 years. Back in my day, the math score had a ceiling of 800, and the verbal score was the same. Usually people did a lot better on one or the other, but the score to look at was 900. Most schools would accept you if you scored a 900, so it was what you strove for, right? Continue reading “900”

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Fountain of Youth

FOUNTAIN-OF-YOUTH1The explorer Ponce de Leon was desperate to find a land of riches and the mystical “fountain of youth” when he landed in Florida in the early part of the fourteenth century. It was apparently a get rich quick scheme that had much more to do with finding gold and precious jewels than in locating the magical fountain that was said to reverse the aging process. In the Bible there is a similar fountain mentioned, in a place called Bethesda, where the sick and infirm came to touch the waters and be healed. Does it in fact exist in this day and age? I believe so.

First off, before you think I’m some kind of kook, I’ll explain. I don’t actually think there’s a basin with water in it that will bring back your youth. I don’t believe in magic of that kind, and neither, I think, did Ponce de Leon, or Hernando de Soto after him. I think they were fascinated by the idea of something otherworldly that could make them live forever, but aren’t we all? It’s one of the reasons I think we are so into vampires, zombies and the like right now. Just look at television shows, books, and movies.

Is that the answer? As a writer I am very sensitive to the idea of words being that source of everlasting youth. When I go back into my earlier writings I am transported back in time, and to an extent all readers are when they delve into literature from when they were young. The body secretes a hormone that emerges when those memories are triggered, creating a sense of release, not unlike letting out that breath that you were holding, like coming home and relaxing. The same is true of anything that triggers those memories, in essence bringing each person back to the time of his/her youth.

I believe it’s more than that, though. Continue reading “Fountain of Youth”

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Mid-Winter Memories

snow_through_windowI remember winter breaks when I was young. My sister and I would get dropped off at Nana’s house, my mother driving us in the old, powder blue Chevy Nova that made the sputtering noises as if it would die any minute. Joy and I would make bets as to when it would finally expire, but it never seemed to care.

We would pull up to the house in the early morning hours grumpy to be awakened at such an hour during vacation. Nana always waited for us just inside the front door. We could see her silhouette outlined against the glass, past the ripped screen, in her bathrobe and fuzzy slippers.

Of course we were bundled up to face the elements in our big, puffy coats with frayed scarves and knitted caps. The crumbling front steps of Nana’s house were a welcome sight because we had seen them countless times before, and they felt like home. Nana felt like home when she opened that door and enveloped the both of us in her arms, a big smile on her face as she ushered us inside.

We quickly shed those outer layers because Nana always kept the house as “hot as hell,” our Uncle Nolly would always say. He lived with her because he had nowhere else to go, and he was constantly blessing us when we entered. I was never sure if his blessings were real or not, but I always felt like I couldn’t make fun of him for it because they might be. Uncle Nolly was blind, but he had an uncanny knowledge of where we were at all times when we were in the house, and he would mumble as such, even when we were trying to hide. He often smelled of smoke, which was comforting in its own way

We would pass by his chair on our way into the dining room where Nana would have hot chocolate waiting for us. Of course it was rarely ever still hot by that point, but those chipped mugs were as familiar to us as our own names. My mom was long gone, and we began to take bets as to her mood when she would come back to retrieve us from our winter’s day. Some mornings the 8-track player would already be on, providing a subtle soundtrack to our conversation that was always well-scripted. Continue reading “Mid-Winter Memories”

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I Remember

I remember… Phillies’ games on school afternoons the smell of popcorn at my first movie a time when tapes were king long walks up and down South Street paddle boating in Baltimore asking Kareema Perkins to go steady wishing for rain in summer dreaming of sheep in order to sleep blushing but no one noticing … Continue reading I Remember

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Tracing Scars

It is late evening and we sit together on the couch — she fresh from the bath and in her footie pajamas, me in my voluminous robe. She climbs into my lap and I notice the heavy lids that presage a sleep so deep no one will be able to awaken her for hours, but … Continue reading Tracing Scars