More Childhood Memories, Part...Um, I've Lost Track

I suppose watching Miss Emmy growing up before my very eyes has made me a bit introspective about my own childhood. As I see her experiencing new things and learning more every day, it tends to make me try to see things more from a child's perspective.

For example, Jessica and I were talking just the other day, wondering how much of what Emmy learns now that she'll retain as she grows older. What is she really thinking as she's playing and learning? What's really going through her little mind? Does she think we're totally insane as we sing silly songs and make rude noises at her, trying to coax her to laugh and mimic us?

I know that Emmy will have very different memories as she grows up because she's growing up in a very different world than the world in which I was raised, but it's my most earnest prayer that some things that I experienced will be present in her life as well. My childhood wasn't perfect by any means, and my sisters and I experienced some difficult times as we grew up, as most families do, but we had love and we had each other. Love truly does cover a multitude of sins. Thank you Lord for that!

I pray that Emmy will grow up surrounded by family and a host of life long friends, knowing that she's loved unconditionally, and that when the hard times come, as they inevitably will, that she'll have precious, happy childhood memories to cherish and hold close to her heart, as I do my own memories.

Our memories are unique to each of us as individuals and mold us as we grow and mature from infants to adults and into our golden years. These are just a few of my childhood memories about Spring and Summer as I was growing up in the late 1960's into the 1970's.I remember a little 4 room shotgun shack on a gravel road, just a mile outside of Trumann, Arkansas. We moved there in the late 1960's and after living in "Town", moving to a 2 acre yard with cotton fields on every side was like being let out of prison for Cecil and me, and the nieces and nephews that came along shortly after us.

That tarpaper shack was home. Not just home, but HOME. We had the run of the place and we made the most of it. I don't know if anybody else has noticed, but when you're a kid you tend to be short, which means you're close to the ground. When you're close to the ground you're closer to the plants and flowers and see things in closer detail than after you grow up and farther away from those things.

I remember the smell of clover flowers. Do you remember the last time you actually smelled clover flowers, or do you just think of it as a pesky weed that has no place in your lawn? We never had a lawn, we had a yard, and every Spring mounds of clover sprouted and awaited our scrutiny as we searched for four leaf clovers. When the blooms came along we alternated between making clover blossom necklaces and shrieking at the tops our lungs as we ran from poor honey bees as they innocently tried to collect pollen from the blooms.

Now I see them as innocent, but back then they were stinging devil-possessed bugs whose sole mission in life was to sting us to death. Or worse, whatever's worse than being stung to death. I remember also that my imagination was fairly vivid when I was 6 years old. Ahem.

I remember the sweet scent of that clover and the sun warmed grass when we'd lay in it, looking at puffy white clouds in that impossibly blue sky, searching for animal shapes in those clouds. Of course, I also remember the itching and stinging of my legs when Mama gave us a sponge bath with a soapy rag in the dishpan before bed. That grass got it's revenge for us rolling in it when those invisible and unnoticed grass cuts came alive with that soapy water!

I remember my sister Ducky's pear tree that bloomed every Spring. I loved those poofy white and pink blossoms. They had a sweet dusty scent that made me sneeze every time I inhaled a deep snoofle of their fragrance, but it didn't stop me from smelling them over and over again. They smelled like dusty sunshine, with a fruity undertone.

I remember making bouquets of dandelions and clover and whatever else I could cobble together. Some I kept to put in an old bottle I used for a vase in my playhouse out by the storm cellar, and some I presented to Mama. She'd accept them and say "Thank You!" just as if they'd come from the finest florist, and keep them in her little pink and white hobnail vase until they wilted beyond resurrecting before she tossed them out.

I remember red and yellow 4 o'clocks that bloomed every Summer under our bedroom window. I've grown some 4 o'clocks since I married and had my own place, but none have ever been as intoxicating and intensely fragrant as those that bloomed every afternoon on those hot Summer days. What a heavenly scent that wafted in through the screen on those Summer evenings as I lay sweltering on top of the sheets, thankful for every meager little breeze that found its way inside.

It was endlessly fascinating to me how those flowers knew to bloom every afternoon at the same time! Every afternoon, those blooms would open like, well, clockwork! If you were still long enough to sit and watch them, you could see those flowers actually open before your very eyes. And when the flowers opened I knew Daddy would be home soon, because he got off work at the Singer Sewing Machine plant at 4 o'clock every afternoon, you see.

I remember one time after a good rain, Cecil and I had the bright idea of throwing mud balls at the outdoor toilet. Of course the mud dried on there, and the next time Mama had to make a trip down the back path, it almost literally hit the fan! She made us rake off the mud we could reach with old cotton stalks and sticks.

When you're young and short, that puts you pretty close to the business portion of a privy. That was a punishment in itself, never mind dodging the various bugs and insects that always seem to be attracted to such, um, fragrant things. Of course the next hard rain took care of the mud we couldn't reach.

I remember we had a china berry tree (anybody besides me remember those?) which I dearly loved, even at 6 years old. It had beautiful smooth shiny bark and lacy foliage, and sweet smelling purple star-like flowers. The flowers made clusters of hard green berries that stung pretty good when chucked at you by a skilled thrower. Not that I'd personally know anything at all about that.

We had a huge sycamore tree in the front yard that had silver dollar-sized seed balls on it every Fall. Now they downright stung when you got winged with one of those. Once again, I came by that knowledge anonymously.

I remember coming home from school on one of those first truly warm Spring days to find all the doors and windows open and being greeted by the clean smell of Pine*sol and lemon*Pledge. We knew before we got up the porch steps that Mama had been cleaning house. After a long Winter of the house being closed up and having a wood fire every day, airing out the house was a welcome thing and signaled that Spring was surely in the air, quite literally.

I remember Mama forever getting onto us for slamming the screen doors. But when you're 6 years old and you run everywhere you go, (where did we EVER find the energy?!) who has time to slow down and gently shut the screen door behind you? Life is too short for that, even at 6 years old apparently.

I remember long Summer evenings when we could stay outside as late as we wanted and chase lightning bugs and look at the stars, or until 8:30, whichever came first. Daddy had to get up early to go to work, so that meant everyone went to bed by 9 pm every night. We didn't have air conditioning in 1969, and only one or 2 box fans, so we slept with the doors and windows open and the screen doors on a hook latch. For that matter, our door didn't even have a lock on it, except for a slide bolt on the inside to keep it from blowing open at night, and it was rarely used.

I remember simpler, happy days, growing up in more innocent times.I hope you all have happy memories of your childhood, and I challenge you to put some of those memories down in words on your blogs, not just for your children and grandchildren to treasure, but also to bring those memories alive again for yourself.

Also, I'm selfish. I'd like to read them as well. :o)

I hope y'all are having a wonderful late Spring week.