Am I the only one who is bombarded with old memories throughout the day? It's been said that a person whose conversations are dominated by the past is over the hill. I hope not. I like hearing about how people grew up and even tidbits in recent memory. Share them here, please. It can be about anything...well, no politics.
Here's one I had this morning:
My grandparents’ brick house was built in the ‘60s and it had a basement, half of which housed an Oldsmobile and pickup truck. It was cold and dark and wet year round and smelled of weedkiller, sawdust and fabric softener, cast iron elbows of plumbing low enough to touch. From one window stretched the gentle curve of the earth, the milky glass ticking with long grass. It was above this window where a bedroom window allowed for a loftier view: a moss-covered hill bursting with roots that unraveled like a rumpled carpet to a gravel driveway, perpetual shadows from hickory trees whose wooden nuts littered the dirt floor, and a rusty washing machine tub from which sprang fake tulips. I liked to lean toward the screen and breathe in the rain and black walnut trees as soft fingers tapped the roof and bowery of leaves.
It was in this bedroom, on a bed where my own father once slept, where my grandmother rubbed Vicks VapoRub on my bony chest and brought me Coca-Cola over crushed ice. The blue medicine bottle had a green metal lid like a tiny fruit jar, the red print two decades old. She’d shut off the light and in a menthol cloud I’d steal long wintry breaths until, dizzy from a revolving door of thoughts, I was overtaken by sleep.
Here's one I had this morning:
My grandparents’ brick house was built in the ‘60s and it had a basement, half of which housed an Oldsmobile and pickup truck. It was cold and dark and wet year round and smelled of weedkiller, sawdust and fabric softener, cast iron elbows of plumbing low enough to touch. From one window stretched the gentle curve of the earth, the milky glass ticking with long grass. It was above this window where a bedroom window allowed for a loftier view: a moss-covered hill bursting with roots that unraveled like a rumpled carpet to a gravel driveway, perpetual shadows from hickory trees whose wooden nuts littered the dirt floor, and a rusty washing machine tub from which sprang fake tulips. I liked to lean toward the screen and breathe in the rain and black walnut trees as soft fingers tapped the roof and bowery of leaves.
It was in this bedroom, on a bed where my own father once slept, where my grandmother rubbed Vicks VapoRub on my bony chest and brought me Coca-Cola over crushed ice. The blue medicine bottle had a green metal lid like a tiny fruit jar, the red print two decades old. She’d shut off the light and in a menthol cloud I’d steal long wintry breaths until, dizzy from a revolving door of thoughts, I was overtaken by sleep.