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| Me at age 3 with my parents at Grandma's |
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| Me at age 10 |
A good exercise for writing your memories is to type the words I remember... Then stop for a few seconds and start remembering. Write whatever comes to mind, whether it seems silly or not. I once did this exercise that turned out to be the basis for a full essay. You can read it here, then do your own.
I remember....
I remember so much about my
childhood days. Incidents, events, people, and places return to me over and
over, sometimes in my dreams. I so often am the age I am now, but the dream is
set in someplace of long ago—a place where I might have been as a child. My
childhood home figures prominently in my dreams and memories.
I grew up in a 3rd floor
apartment. Six of us crowded into a 2 bedroom apartment which also had a small
kitchen, pantry, dining room (which is where I slept) and a living room with a
small sunroom extension on it and one bathroom with a clawfoot tub, no shower.
We also had an outdoor balcony, very small and scary when you leaned over the
railing and looked way down below. We never had a chair or table on the balcony
like people would today. It was a place we were seldom allowed to go, reserved
for those Kodak moments.
We climbed the three flights
of stairs to our door carrying so many things. Laundry baskets, grocery bags,
the live Christmas tree we had each December. Whatever we needed or wanted was
toted up those three flights. The enclosed front stairs were carpeted, and
as we climbed, we could smell dinner. Sometimes it was dinner cooking and
sometimes it was a lingering odor from yesterday's dinner. We had to pass four
other apartment doors to reach our floor, and the dinner smells from all four
mingled. I often tried to single out the aromas to see who had eaten what that
day. The back steps were outdoors and wooden. Up a big double set to the first
floor, then split off to a single width set on either side, then onto another
double set, and another single width set on either side leading to our floor.
One more double set of steps and we landed on our back porch. There were four
apartment doors on that big porch. And above the railing on our side ran a
clothesline on a pulley. My mother often did hand-washing and hung the clothes
to dry on that line. When there was an infant in the family, diapers fluttered
in the wind every day of the week, drying quickly on summer days, and freezing
to a cardboard stiffness in the winter.
I never knew what it was to
be alone during my growing-up years. With three younger brothers and living in
a small apartment, privacy came down to my allotted ten minutes in the bathroom
each morning. The only place I can remember having solitude is when I walked to
the library, which was at least once every week. Down the three flights of
stairs with a load of books in my arms and away I went, past the conservatory
in the next block, past the city park, and across the double set of railroad
tracks. One was for freight trains, the other for Chicago Transit Authority
"els" Once over the tracks, I turned onto a cinder path that ran
behind the train station platform. I loved that cinder path. It made me feel as
though I’d entered another world. The feel of concrete under my feet was the
norm, but crunching along the cinder path brought me to another realm. The back
of the train platform was to one side of me and a field of tall weeds bordered
the other side of the path. Today, I would probably think it was no place for a
child to be walking alone, but I did it myriad times over those years and never
had a mishap. Maybe an angel walked with me.
The cinder path ended all
too soon to suit me, and I skipped along the remaining block and a half until I
reached my home away from home--the public library. While I made the walk to
and from the library, my thoughts ran to so many things. I had time to think,
to plan, to dream. I cherished that private time as much as the wonderful books
I carried with me.
I remember so many good
things my mother cooked and baked for us. Food was something to be enjoyed in
our home, not just to eat to stay alive. Money was scarce, and Mother skimped
on many things, but food was of primary importance, and we ate quite well.
Steak appeared on our table only occasionally. And we knew if we had steak one night, the
next night was something like tuna casserole, or a pound of hamburger stretched
in any way possible, and some never even thought of before. My mother baked a
lot, and she passed the love of baking on to me. She had learned from her own
mother who had a neighborhood bakery for many years.
Memories feed an old soul.
Memories entertain the younger generations. Memories are priceless.
Yes, I remember so many
things from those childhood years on Garfield
Street Oak
Park , Illinois
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