Memory Strip Pt.1

By any standard of blogging I should be posting something to do with the latest foiled terrorist plot to blow up several trans-Atlantic planes heading from England to the United States. But- I mean... really, everyone is opining on that. And I’m sure someone else has covered the same ground I would have tread so let’s do something else.

I alluded in an earlier blog to the fact that it becomes more difficult to retain memories the older we get. Since it’s important to know your own story I think it might be worthwhile to record the stuff I still remember at my current tender age of 42. That way I can remind myself of what happened in the future even if the memory center begins to experience slippage.

The memories that stand out appear to be random. Why do we recall one or another days from our childhood? Why do I remember certain moments spent with friends and not others? Who knows? But certain things do stand out and as closely as possible I’ll try to relate these memory vignettes in a linear sort of order. Hopefully by the time I make it to the present I’ll have something like a memory filmstrip that I can unwind and take a look at from time to time.

So here we go-

Memory #1
The very, very first thing I remember is bleeding in the bathtub.

I’m probably about 21/2 and I think we live in a rundown place in Detroit.

Someone has left a razor on the lip of the tub and the memory begins after my curiosity has gotten the best of me. I look down to see blood in the water then I look up to see a bigger person pulling me out of the tub. End of memory-

Memory #2
I’m sitting on a couch with a couple of other kids. Someone has put a big floppy hat and sunglasses on me in an attempt to cheer me up. I’m screaming my head off because my mom has left me with a sitter that I don’t know. The poor lady is doing everything she can to get me to stop crying- she holds me up to the mirror to see what I look like in the wacky hat and glasses. It’s not working. I’m still screaming like a banshee when the memory goes dark.

Memory #3
This is my first full memory. It is early morning and still dark outside so it must be 4:30 or 5:00 in the morning. I’m just shy of my 5th birthday and I am again looking back at myself in the mirror. But this time there is a connection. This is my first fully conscious moment. By that I mean I actually seem to wake up to being alive in this moment.

It’s the beginning of wonder and abstract thought and all of that. I seem to look at myself and say, “hey, that’s me.”

The lighting is stark. I’m standing on one of those kiddy step-up ladders beneath an exposed fluorescent bulb, the kind that twists into concentric circles, and I’m combing my cowlick-plagued hair. The family is getting ready to visit my father in a prison located somewhere in Ohio (my best guess is Columbus since we were living in a small town called Ashville on the outskirts).

The next thing I know the whole family is eating Kentucky Fried Chicken (it wasn’t KFC yet) with my father in a room made up of picnic tables on a concrete floor. The place is full of other families doing the same thing with their incarcerated kin. This is the first time I have any notion of having a father. He went to jail when I was two, shortly before the razor incident, and I have no practical perception of his existence until this moment.

My recollection jump cuts to playing with my older sister and other kids in a small playground surrounded with what appear to be very high concrete walls.

Another jump cut and I’m back in the dining area and I’m running around the picnic table even though adults are telling me to stop. Then the guy they call my father tells me to stop or else. I clearly remember thinking, “I don’t even know this man, what’s he gonna do?”

-Jump cut to being stomach down over his lap while he smacks my ass-

-End of memory.

Who knew prisoners were allowed to spank their kids?