Relive Some Childhood Days

A good many of us have felt this way. I've heard people remark that their childhood days were simpler, plainer, and perhaps kinder. Maybe they were like that for us as children but I have a feeling our parents had as much stress as those of today. 

We can go back and feel some of those happy times again. Memoir pieces and family stories can be the vehicle that allows you to relive those days. 

Whenever I have written about days of long ago, I find a spot of happiness in my day. Remembering the small apartment where I grew up brings back memories of the tantalizing aromas in my mother's very small kitchen. She made some amazing meals there, using the kitchen table as her workspace. The stove, sink and  very small fridge were only a few steps away from the table, each in a different direction.

There were no kitchen cabinets where dishes were kept. Instead, a small walk-in pantry held everything needed to cook for and serve a family of six. There was a radio on top of the small fridge. which was played most of the day, and before we had television, we listened to programs on the radio in our living room every night. That radio was a tall console model. I can remember sitting on the floor as close as I could get to the bottom area where the speakers were located. 

My mother cooked many things without a recipe. She had only one cookbook. I can see it now in that little pantry. The cover was blue and the words on it were The Watkins Cookbook. She must have bought it from the Watkins man who came door to door selling vanilla and other extracts. Mom also used handwritten recipes she'd collected from her mother and her friends. I wish I had that cookbook now. It's not the recipes in it that are of importance but the fact that my mother's hands held it time and time again. "Get the cookbook," she'd sometimes say to me. I had no problem finding it--step into the pantry, reach out to a shelf on the right side and grab it. Even as I write this, I know that, if I looked high up on the top shelf, I'd see an old oil lamp that belonged to my grandmother. Mom kept it there for times when the power was out. What fun it was to have the oil lamp lit shedding just enough light on the kitchen table to allow my brothers and me to color or play a board game. 

I walked into that tiny kitchen from the back porch every time I came home from school or had been outside playing with neighbor kids. I had to climb three flights of stairs to reach our back door. On winter days, it was so comforting to walk into that warm room--warmed as much by the good things that came from our oven as it was from the radiator--one in every room to heat our apartment. In the summer, we'd find a pitcher of Kool-aid or iced tea to cool us, along with a freshly baked cookie or two. 

One window stood between the side of the fridge and the front of the stove to allow light and fresh air into the kitchen. Our dad put a large fan in that window during the summer. I can hear the whirr of the motor and the blades turning. Mom had to turn up the volume on the radio when the fan was on. She didn't want to miss a minute of the daily soap operas she listened to regularly.

We gathered around the table in the small dining room next to the kitchen on Sundays at noon for our big meal of the day. On Sunday night, we were back at the table in the kitchen, eating a light supper accompanied by Jack Benny on the radio. We listened and laughed as a family. Later in the evening, Dad might make popcorn. He used a big kettle type pan on top of the stove. We waited for the popping sound to begin and watched Dad shake the pan sideways across the burner to keep the corn kernels moving and pop, pop, popping. Lots of butter and salt on the hot popcorn made it the best treat ever. 

I know my parents managed to just make it on Dad's salary but we had a lot of good times in our small kitchen. Today, it might be called a mini-kitchen in comparison to what we see in homes and apartments. I can still spend a little time there when I think or write about the memories in that room. I am back with my mom and dad and three little brothers. 

Write some memoir pieces or family stories if you want to feel a few things, to relive those childhood days and to savor the memories of the place where you grew up.