My memory.

Last week I posted a beginning. A beginning to explore some of my past, and to write it down. To throw it out there, let it plop down on the floor and then, to poke it with a stick. It might be interesting, and it might be dull. Dull dull.

I have one really clear memory of my sister and I when we were little. She was riding the tricycle, and I was standing on the back. That was typical. I was either standing on the back of her tricycle or on the back of Kevin’s. I don’t remember that I had my own tricycle. Micki had one because she was oldest. Kevin had one because he was the boy. I didn’t have one because, well, I don’t really know except that I didn’t. At least, not in this memory or else I wouldn’t have been standing on the back, while Micki pedaled.

We wore dresses a lot. I remember it being hot, that the park we were then living in had parched dirt roads. It was in California, I think, although I am not clear on where it was. I have a vivid memory of looking down and watching our shadow as I stood up and Micki was seated in front of me, my dress blowing out behind me. It was windy, too, and when we got back to the trailer the awning that attached to the top of the trailer and was secured by poles stuck in the ground had blown loose. It now laid across the top of the trailer. Or, at least, that’s my memory.

I will tell you that I remember being the middle kid. The middle kid between my mom and dad’s first child together and their baby boy...red haired and freckled boy. I was sweet, cute, spoiled to a degree. But, I was still the middle. My situation was hopeless! I don’t know if I ever got a tricycle but I can tell you I was 10 before I got my first bike. It was purple. Micki had hers for years, and Kevin, well....again, being a boy he got his bike when he was about 2 weeks old. Or, at least, that’s my memory.

There is an old movie of me crying my eyeballs out as Kevin and Micki danced together in our living room. I am probably 5 or 6. Apparently, neither would dance with me and I was quite distraught. I’ve seen that movie many times during my life and can not believe I cared that much, but like I said, I was spoiled to a degree. I fancied myself to be a ballerina, often wearing my petticoat over my clothes as if it were a tutu. I am sure that is why I was so upset, because I was the dancer! Or part of why they were being so darned mean to me, ganging up on me. Or, at least, that’s my memory.

My memories are scattered and are not like the memories of other people I have known. I have no repeat, kind of seared in to your brain memories you get from doing the same thing every day of your childhood. Like the street names, or store names or the hallways of schools. Or who use to live in a house on the corner of such and such street. People who had the same best friend for their entire lives. I’ve always been fascinated by those memories that other people can pull back to the surface. We moved about every 9 months, so there was not a lot of time to sear memories into the ol’ noggin. I do have snippets. Polio shots, and being lined up to get a sugar cube with vaccine in it, beaches, petrified wood, some sort of dinosaur park. My grandpa’s watermelon stand, Mt. Rushmore. Or, at least that’s my memory.