First Memories

When my parents married they lived somewhere up from New York City where the picture from yesterday was taken. The little house was in a cul-de-sac that was perched up on a hill that sloped down to the main highway. Across the Highway was the Lake.

I have many memories of the first house I lived in. I believe I was four years old when we moved to Kentucky. The house backed up to a forest, I think. I have a vivid memory of a deer hung over our sand box in the back yard during hunting season. It was not my fathers hobby. My father never handled a gun again after WWII. It was maybe the landlords or someone else who lived in the small grouping of homes.

Several years ago, while driving in the wild back country of Ohio/Indiana I saw the the same image that is seared in my mind from Jefferson Valley. A deer hanging from a tree.

I wonder what they were thinking to expose children to such a horror. I suppose they did not even think about it.

I fell down the stairs, those long concrete stairs that led to the front door. I remember rolling and rolling. I still have a scar at the corner of my right eye from the experience.

My brothers were always fighting, being Irish twins and all. The youngest one, T., was somewhat of a drama-kid even back then. He would run into the house crying and complaining of this or that and my Dad would say, "Let me see the blood. No blood? Hmmmm, you can't be that hurt!"

My mother was busy in the kitchen when T. approached her, hiding his head behind two small hands, sneaked up behind her and yelled, "Look Mom!!BLOOD!!" and exposed the side of his head that had been whacked by a brick thrown by N.!!He was so proud of the blood that no tears were shed.

Other memories are stories that at times I wonder if they are just the tales handed down and told over and over, or if they are memories. I do remember being falsely accused of knocking over a horse jockey, the kind that holds your house number. My other brother N. was the favorite golden child to the family that lived in the house and even though he knocked the jockey over (man that kid must have been stong!)I was the one banished from their house, never to be able to go in the yard again.

A memory or just the story retold and retold?

The Lake would freeze and we would go ice skating on its surface. I do not remember this, but there are pictures of me in a snow suit with mittens and matching hat standing in the drive way balanced on skates. I do remember those skates, they were two blades instead of the regular grown up one blade. I do not remember the actual skating part, but I'm certain we did because my Dad liked to skate.

It snowed a lot up there.

When we left my two brothers and my Mom took the train to Kentucky. I made the trip with my Dad in the car. I was wearing a hat, like all good little girls did back in the day, and I stuck my head out the window and the hat blew off.

Lost forever. Like most of my very early childhood memories.

But not all.