I don’t remember that much about the first six years of my life. I was born in Kentucky and we lived with my maternal grandparents and great-grandmother (grandfather’s mother) until I was almost six years old. Then, we moved to Tennessee. Not far from my maternal grandparents.
One of my earliest memories is of striking matches in the attic. I was maybe three or four? One of my grandfather’s hats burned and I received a whipping which I don’t remember. I remember testing the burn power of an electric stove eye. I still have that scar. I remember my older brother telling me he had swallowed a nickel and I remember us in the yard as he looked for it in his feces. Just think of the candy one could buy with a nickel! I remember a quilting bee with all the female relatives surrounding a quilting frame set up in the front yard. I remember a bunch of relatives in the living room watching the weekly horror movie on Saturday night. My grandparents had a TV and most of our relatives did not. I remember my mother, in bed, pumping milk for one of my younger brothers.
I remember my youngest brother was very heavy and I dropped him and he got a cut on his eyebrow. He carries that scar to this day. I remember he liked to crawl behind doors, etc. and go to sleep and our mother would be frantically searching for him. I remember we had a telephone party line and, if we played with the phone, the operator would call our mother to tell us to stop.
I don’t remember going to first grade. You’d think I would remember the day I first caught a bus to the elementary school. Absolutely, no memory. There was no kindergarten or pre-school in rural Kentucky or Tennessee, so such a change should have been memorable. Funny, weird, not funny comic, the things one remembers. I remember the workbooks or rather their smell. New paper/ink smell and the covers were glossy. I don’t remember learning the alphabet or how to read. I have a vague memory of See Jane run or something to that effect. I kind of remember the fat pencils we started with and the lined notebooks where we learned to write the alphabet. I remember my teacher…Mrs. P__. She taught first and second grade. I don’t remember most of my classmates and there was a long table of us. We sat in the back of the room and on the back wall (?) was a blackboard. We hung our coats on a rack behind the blackboard. So, I don’t know if the blackboard was attached to a wall or if there was a room behind the blackboard or if the blackboard was moveable.
I remember my father trying to comb my hair when my mother was in the hospital having my youngest brother. He had no idea what he was doing. For some reason, that baby didn’t interest me. I never touched him. He died when he was six months old.
I remember we always had a huge garden and I would can weeds. Weeds and water sour quickly in the heat of summer. My mother canned the garden produce before we got a freezer. I remember the white-speckled blue canner in which she sterilized the jars and the tops. So, I was imitating, in my own way, what my mother did. Each of us had our own little garden where we would plant left-over seeds.
There were always dogs and cats around. The first dogs I remember were vicious and were kept chained. Later on, the dogs weren’t so vicious and I actually played with them. I rember a kitten got under the car and Dad backed over him. I remember the kitten flipping, flipping through the air and I had nightmares about that for years.
There were also chickens and pigs. The chicks were always my responsibility. Feeding, watering, ensuring the chicken coop was closed so they wouldn’t be eaten by a hungry fox. I didn’t like caring for the chicks. I thought they were nasty and, as they aged, their pecks hurt.
We went grocery shopping once a week–going to town. That was a big deal. I liked tootsie roll pops, chocolate covered peanuts, sugar daddies, cracker jacks, peanut butter bars, jawbreakers, cigarette shaped candy, flavored powder in strawlike sticks (don’t remember the name). I wasn’t a huge fan of bubblegum or caramel. A lot of times we stayed in the car. (Trying to shop and keep track of the five of us was just too much!) At the store, one might see one’s neighbors who lived across the fields or one’s teachers or local ministers. A lot of people came out on Saturday to do their shopping. In those days, the stores were not open on Sunday. Blue laws were in effect in the 1960’s, but were not as prevalent in the 1970’s. (Blue law definifition from Wikipedia–Blue laws, also known as Sunday laws, Sunday trade laws and Sunday closing laws, are laws restricting or banning certain activities on specified days, usually Sundays in the western world.) Today, everything is open 24/7, except there are still some exceptions for liquor sales.
My mother was chronically ill. However, we were never told that she was ill. We knew something was wrong, but, not once, did either of our parents feel it necessary to tell us. First, there was the breast cancer…I think…then the chronic illness. That began in 1960. I don’t think our parents understood what their silence meant to us, to me. And one knew not to ask. Punishment was swift when unwanted questions were asked. Sometimes being ignored is punishment.
I may revisit this time, but this is enough for now.
Copyright 2023 DMM
