In Pursuit of Childhood Memories

Replica of a 1940 toy airplane...

now hanging 10 feet above the stairwell in the studio apartment...

retired after giving young grandchildren magical rides around the neighborhood.

This little plane holds a lot of childhood memories.

Tall Husband had told me about the little boy who lived down the street from him when he was five; the boy who had a pedal plane; the boy who would let no one ride in this plane. Tall Husband's parents knew he longed to have that plane...so they bought him a used, pedal station wagon! Not a cool ride.

Days after Tall Husband shared this memory with me, a new catalog arrived in the mail. As I thumbed through it, this little airplane flew off the page into my imagination...I could see Tall Husband as a little boy finally flying his little plane. When the plane arrived in time for our anniversary, I thought his heart would burst with happiness.

Each time a grandchild visited, Tall Husband carried the little plane outside for each child to ride, to imagine that they could fly if only they pedaled fast enough. Now that the little craft has been outgrown, it will hang in our stairwell for all to see.

So you can have a happy childhood, even if it does come late in life!

Note: Thank you Don, for hanging this piece of happiness for us today!

This Silver Pursuit is from Airflow Collectibles and was purchased years ago from Vivre.

Remembering Nonie

This beautifully made baby was once a stage prop for the traveling show, Ragtime. She can be found at Heights Station Antiques. She reminds me of a time when I thought I was Nonie's.

There are a few mysteries in my life and Nonie is one of them. My memories of this woman with a warm, ample lap are so vivid that I can quietly inhale and recapture her fragrance...soap, the sachet that she put between her breasts where she cradled my head; the smell of her lovely food simmering in large pots on the stove. When I really need to feel loved, I remember Nonie's nurturing.

Nonie is my first memory...for me, all life began in her arms. So when I found myself being pulled along a street by the hand, wearing clothes that didn't seem to be mine, it's no wonder that I balked and demanded, "Where is Nonie?" Implicit in that question was, "And who are you?" Those two questions, spoken and implied, brought a threatening reprimand from the stranger gripping my hand. This is my first memory of my mother.

Over the years, though fearing to ask, I persisted in trying to find Nonie. Sometimes it was suggested that I had imagined Nonie, made her up out of thin air. Other times I was promised an answer, "When you're old enough." As a grown woman, I asked my mother about Nonie and she told me that Nonie had been our maid. (Here I should mention that my mother frequently constructs her own truth.) I refuted with, "Nonsense! We weren't well off enough to have had a maid." It was then that I resigned myself to never knowing who Nonie was.

The last time I remember Nonie, she was holding me in her lap while sitting in her rocker on the front porch one summer afternoon. An old neighbor man approached, asking, "Where did you get that white kid?"

I sat up abruptly, looking around for the white kid. Nonie threw her head back in laughter, "Baby, you can be black if you want to be." It had never occurred to me that Nonie and I were different in any way.

So, wherever you are Nonie, thank you for the memories. Over my long life, taking sanctuary in the memory of your love has given me strength, courage, a sense of self, and...most of all... a capacity for boundless love...just like you!

Remembering: Three Little Fishies

Three little fishies...

And a Mama fish too.

The fish-shaped silver foils from my chocolate fish were too pretty to throw out, besides they reminded me of a song that Nonie* sang to me when I was a toddler, Three Little Fishies (written by Saxie Dowell.)

You can find the delightful song here: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=iUjU-dw-gfE&feature=player_embedded#

*Nonie is my first childhood memory. Family members deny that she ever existed...yet she is the one person who imbued my life with a sense of wonder, showing me that all things are possible. Someday soon I'll post about Nonie.

My Knickers Won the War

All right, I'll admit it: I'm either the oldest woman in the world or I was the victim of the meanest family on earth.

No one seems to remember that, during WWII, little girl's panties (knickers to some of you) did not have elastic in them. At least mine didn't; they simply had a placket on the left side, with two ties that were hopefully tied into a neat bow, which could be quickly undone in an emergency. But I was a toddler who could not tie bows and children are notorious for having bad memories. I could never seem to remember that if I tied a knot, there would be hell to pay the next time there was an urgency. This led to whining, then screaming and that wild pre-potty dance and the begging of strangers in restrooms to untie the knot in my panties.

When asked what happened to elastic, Mama said that there was a war in Europe, that we all had to make sacrifices. I hope those guys over there knew that my doing without elastic in my panties put tires on their Jeeps. At least that's what Mama had me believe. Sometimes I wondered if she just spent our war rations on coffee and sugar, forgoing elasticized panties.

With the size of the tires on those Hummers in this current conflict, I shudder to think of the sacrifices we would have to make to put rubber on those babies. Perhaps that's why I find myself stockpiling panties, even though I learned young to speed tie a bow.