make a list of 43 special memories from my childhood.

And by the time I had hit 43 memories I was worried I wouldn’t be able to finish. However, each time I read through other peoples’ entries, it triggers a memory that I had forgotten. Many times there are snatches of memories that I cant remember all the details. Like the time we had an Easter egg hunt and we didn’t find all the eggs (hard-boiled). I remember finding one several weeks later in the hollow tube post of my mother’s clothesline and peeling it and yuck!!! It stunk. And then there was the time I was feuding with my next-door neighbor (and used to be best friend) and my brother and I threw guavas into their pool and got caught.

This ocurred sometime in early 1969 I believe. My Dad worked as a computer analyst for the Air and Space Division of Rockwell in southern California. I knew he worked for an important company and that they helped make rockets. I found out just how important one evening when he arrived home earlier than usual. He had called my mom earlier and she did not make dinner that night. We were told to get cleaned up as soon as we got home from school for we were going to see the Apolla 8 where my dad worked. It took some time to get there since rush hour was still on. When we got there, a security person motioned where my dad could park. It was a big parking lot and we had to park a long distance from where we needed to go. We walked and walked along with a lot of other people until we found the line. We had to stand in line for a very long time. When we got there it had still been light out and the sun hadn’t set. I know it had to have been over an hour in that line for the sun did set and it was dark out before we even got close to seeing what we came to see. When we got to the front of the line, my brothers were very excited. There it was under flood lights: The Apollo 8 capsule, the first spacecraft to orbit the moon. I didn’t know the significance of this at the time, but my dad said “This is history, something you’ll want to tell your grandkids”. With the succeeding Apollo ships, including the Apollo 11 which landed on the moon, it kind of got lost in my memory until it was mentioned during the Apollo 13 movie I watched a few nights ago that Commander James Lovell had been on the Apollo 8. I called up my brother that night to comfirm that we did, indeed, view the Apollo 8 shortly after its history making flight in December 1968. I don’t remember if we stopped off for dinner on the way home that night, but I do remember going to school and telling my class about it the next day.

Believe it or not,I really thought this goal would be easy and I would complete it in a matter of days. I thought I had a happy childhood, but as I began to dig into my memory I realized that I had some unhappy times, too. My father had a nervous breakdown when I was around 7 or 8 years old and was hospitalized for several weeks. I wasn’t told why he was in the hospital at the time, but his absense had a profound effect on me. I knew he was a computer analyst for a big international company and had been promoted several times. He was very stressed out and started suffering from depression. It was a big decision, but he chose to leave this carreer and we eventually moved to Missouri. My grandfather was retiring from farming and it was thought to be an ideal situation for my parents. When he, my grandfather, died, my parents contiued to farm the land until my father’s physical health started to decline. In spite of the changes in our daily lives, my father contimued to suffer from depression for years until he died just a couple years ago. I was not a happy teenager and only now realize I, too, suffered some depression while growing up. I was a loner and didn’t like to be around people and didn’t have many friends after we moved from California. It wasn’t until I learned the facts about my father’s depression a few years ago that I recognized that I had suffered bouts of depression as a teenager and that my daughter now sometimes suffers from it, too.
It isn’t that I don’t remember the bad times, it had always easier to talk about the good times

I got stuck going to a reading tutor when I was 9 because my fourth grade teacher claimed I had a problem. I did have a problem. I could read multisyllable words quite well in my head but I had a tough time sounding them out loud. So here I was sent to a tutor. Her name was Ms. Peck. That was her maiden name. She had 3 children(1 son and 2 daughters) and was divorced. Her youngest daughter Beth was only 2 years older than me and we became friends.

Anyway, every year as soon as school let out for the summer, they planned a camping trip with another divorced teacher and her children. Somehow, I got invited to go, my parents gave permission and off we went. All I remember was showing up at their house with my sleeping bag and a week’s worth of clothes, etc. Ms. Peck had a collapsable trailor she would pull with her station wagon. Her friend had a truck with a camper shell. Ms. Peck son had his own car which he intended to drive. It was late afternoon. The journey took several hours as it was dark when we got there. To this day, I cannot remember where we went except it was wooded and mountainous. That first night we camped, I noticed the stars. I never saw so many in my life, at least not in California. We did all the regular camping things you do on a trip: cook over an open fire, tell stories, do a lot of exploring. Beth and I found a little river and followed it upstream. We found a waterfall with a pool, though a small one. It turned out that she knew about it all along and just wanted me to find it without knowing it was already there. We all went swimming there. It was the coldest water I ever swam in. We went back to it nearly everyday. They actually had a swimming pool at the campgrounds but I don’t ever remember going to it. The other thing I remember was the gift shop/ general store. It had all sort of neat things. It also had a small refridgerated section and we found those little plactic limes that squirt juice. Of course, we had to buy those and squirt the juice in our mouths the rest of that day. I remember my mouth puckering.

Growing up in the 1960s and 70s meant I was fairly uninfluenced by technology compared to those growing up today. I never aspired to having my own television in my bedroom. I did beg a phone in my room like most girls between the ages of 8 and 17. Didn’t happen. I got a stereo one year with a turn table and an 8 track player which was the ‘in’ thing of the time. I preferred to purchase 45 records with my allowance and would go weekly to the local Mattingly’s to await the newest hits. It was first come, first serve as they were often sold out of that new hit I wanted. We had one television in the house without a remote, and didn’t get cable service until we moved into town when I was 12. I thought it was a marvel to suddenly get a dozen channels instead of 2-3 after struggling with an antenna. We didn’t even get a color TV until I was a teenager and I distinctly remember the large counsole television being delivered. On the side of the box it was written something about the cabinet being made of genuine wood grain plastic.

When I was 9 or 10, my bestfriend at the time Kathy Williams and I would perform for our mothers the songs that were popular at the time. We would act like we were on stage and sing the words to songs like Jackson by Johnny Cash and June Carter Cash, and One is the loneliest number by Three Dog Night

I know I was very small when my Uncle Danny was living in California not too far from us. For some reason I think he lived close to the beach. He was a bachelor then and from time to time, he would come over to visit and eat and all 4 of us kids would climb all over him the whole time he was there. I think the thing I remember the most about him was the Thanksgiving day he came over. He wanted to help out in the kitchen. He decided he had to take the turkey out of the oven for my mother and take it out of the roaster and put it on the serving platter. All I remember was the turkey sliding out of his grasp and falling on the floor. We ate it anyway.

I think one of the fondest memories I have is hearing the ice cream truck coming toward my street. We would all go running into our houses for change. I wasn’t always successful in snaring 15 or 25 cents out of my mom, but when I did, I was the lucky recipient of a cherry popsicle, fudgesicle, or even one of those drumsticks. I would eat it in haste as the heat would soon have that delicious stickiness running down my arm let alone my fingers. I ocassionaly think about when life was simpler and hearing the ice cream truck’s little tune was definitely the sound it made.

I remember when I was verly little, my dad was putting in a rose bush. I remember I had a little plastic pail and shovel. I guess I wandered off to the neighbors down the street. I saw where they were doing their own gardening. I decided to dig up a pretty plant and take it home. Boy, was my mom mad when I showed it to her! I think the neighbors were very kind. They gave me some strawberries out of their garden. After that I used to go to their house just to mooch strawberries.

Both of my grandpas were similar in age and both were farmers. My grandpa Duffy raised cattle and hogs and grew corn. He also grew a mean watermelon patch.

There are two settings in which I particularly remember him. One is in the basement of my grandparents’ newly built ranch house sitting on an old couch in front of a roaring fireplace. He would be playing his sax. I cannot remember any special melody he might have placed, just the image of him is there. The other memory is of him coming into the kitchen on a warm afternoon to take a break from his farm chores. He would get a bottle of pepsi out and sit down at the kitchen table and fix a glass. If I was there, he’d offer me some and we would sit down. My grandma Duffy told me that he didn’t do that with anyone else and it made me feel special.