1969 or 1970: Halloween and other flashbacks

Okay - when I was a kid, my mom made all my clothes (and she was really good at it). So naturally, when Halloween rolled around, Mom also made my costumes. This was Halloween when I was about 5 years old, so probably 1970. I am the one in the Red Riding Hood costume. Kimberly is dressed as an angel, and the smitten one is Eric. I have no idea who he is dressed as. These are my best friends at the time and we hung out as much as we could after school. My brother would get to tag-along for a while, but Mom would usually come get him and take him home. He was only three years old, after all.

More Azusa Memories

I remember being about 5 years old, and living in this house with my mom and dad, and my little brother, who was about 3. We had a big front yard with a big, full shade tree. My dad would mow the lawn every weekend or every other weekend, and this one time he made tracks in the grass, mowed 'roads' so my brother and I could ride our tricycles in the tracks. Then he sat under the tree, leaning back against the bark of the trunk and drank a beer while we 'drove' around the roads he made. It was a pretty neat day for a 5 year old.

Another time I remember pretending I was a bunny, hopping around the backyard. I hopped into the house through the back door and hopped into the kitchen. I told my mom I needed some lettuce, because I was a rabbit and I was hungry. She gave me a few lettuce leaves and shooed me back outside.

We had a lot of long grass in the backyard, and a peach tree that had been pruned back pretty badly. It didn't grow anything that I can remember. I use to climb up the stump, which was about 4 feet high, and I'd jump off the stump into the tall grass in our yard. I did this often and one day I jumped off of that tree stump, and landed in the grass, and a pain hit me about three seconds after I landed. I had landed the bottom of my big toe, on my right foot, into the opening of a pull top soda can. All the skin from the bottom of my toe was neatly cut off into the can. It bled like you cannot believe, and it scared the heck out of me - so, being 5, I screamed bloody murder, thus scaring the heck out of my poor mom. She recovered, took me into the house and after several large band-aids and some gauze, managed to stop the bleeding. I vaguely remember her reading me the riot act about jumping out of that tree and I don't think I ever did it again.

This was also the house we lived in when I had my first pet, a small red eared turtle I had named Myrtle. Original, huh? He lived in this little shallow pond with an island in the middle. The island had a small hole where a plastic palm tree 'lived.' I would feed Myrtle some turtle food before I went to school and check on him when I got home. I don't recall just how long I had this pet, but I don't think it was very long. I came home from school one day, stopped in to check on Myrtle and noticed he wasn't moving. I poked at him, and picked him up and noticed that he had a large fly in his mouth. I screamed and proceeded to find my little brother, who I yelled at rather loudly. I don't really know if my little brother actually fed the turtle that fly, but I am pretty sure it was him.

I have only two other memories in that house that come to mind. The first was waking up early one morning with a terrible cold and not being able to open my eyes. First, I panicked, because I couldn't open my eyes, which were stuck shut with dry eye goo. I somehow managed to calm down, get out of bed, and slowly make it to the bathroom. The carpet had been pulled up in the hall, though I don't know why, and in my quest for the bathroom sink I stepped directly on the nail strip that holds the carpet down. The sound I made woke up my mom, who helped me out with my gummed shut eyes. (I see even then I didn't want to ask anyone for help - I could have called out to her from my room, but I decided I could do it myself -- at 5. Hmmm)

The other memory started in a dream. I dreamed that I woke up to a sound I heard in my brother's room. In my dream I got up and left my room, walking down the hall to his room. He was in his crib and then I was also in his crib, and there were wolves under his crib. Then he and I were running back down the hall toward my room and my parent's room. I opened my parents bedroom door and on their bed were large, colorful boxes, and in the boxes, rising like jack in the boxes, were hippos. Yep, Hippos. It was all very strange. I woke up the next morning and headed to the kitchen for breakfast and noticed that my parent's mattress was out in the backyard. There was a large burn hole in it. I can't remember now if a lamp fell on it or if a cigarette caused that hole, but how weird to have that dream and then see their mattress outside the next morning.

I think those are all the memories from that house. And now I am done with Azusa.

night all.....

When I was 5

I told you I had some stories to tell. This is one of the first memories I have.

When I was 5 or so, and we lived in Azusa, California, I had these friends who lived down the street, and may have been in the same grade as me - kindergarten. Eric was the boy and Kimberly was his neighbor. We all had these pedal cars - a firetruck, a coupe, and another one, I have a picture - well, it's one of the ones my Mom has and will send me. We'd play pretend - we had these tea parties in the backyard at Eric's. The grass wasn't really grass, but dichondra and we were allowed to play on it, even though it was pretty and too nice for kids (my Dad thought). Eric's mom would make us tea and put milk and honey in it (she was from Sweden?). We drank the tea out of these little balancing tea and saucer toys of Eric's. You'd stack the saucer on top of the tea cup and then stack a tea cup on top of the saucer, until you stacked all four sets. Each set was a different color, red, green, blue and yellow. We also made forts in the living room out of folding lawn chairs, the kind that folded in thirds. They made the BEST forts. That was a great place to play and that is pieces of a year of memories.

Blanca - that was Eric's mom's name. She took pictures and she wanted to take pictures of me once, to give to my mom. I had gotten home from school and changed into my play clothes (1970's and we had school clothes and play clothes), and I left my house without using the bathroom so I wouldn't miss a second of playtime. Blanca caught me in the driveway, and asked me to stand in her tulip garden so she could take some nice pictures of me. I was too embarrassed to tell her I had to pee, so I stood in the tulip bed, both hands in my crotch, smiling as best as I could under the circumstances. My Mom still has that picture, and if I post it you'll see a 5 year old kid, looking sweet but uncomfortable, like she needs to be somewhere else. And I did. I am pretty sure I wasn't able to hold it until I got to her bathroom and I was very embarrassed.

Back to the Beginning

I have been taking a trip back in time, reliving some of my old memories from childhood and the teen years, and I've realized that while I have several snapshot memories, my continuity is questionable. I was telling some of my tales to a close friend who first told me, awestruck, that he'd never heard these tales before, and then told me they'd make an interesting book. While I am not nearly that brave at this time, I did think it might be interesting to write down the tales of my life that I can remember and try to put them in some kind of order. Another friend told me that blogging the memories, one at a time, might be helpful in beginning this process. So here I am, beginning a memoir, for what it's worth.

I called my Mom earlier today and asked her if she had pictures from when I was little. By little, I mean 4 and 5 years old, up until she and my Dad separated and eventually divorced. She does, though she'll have to scan them before she can send them to me. That may help complete those youngest memories. I remember Eric, and Katie Chilton, and a brunette whose was my best friend when I was 5 - Kimberly. I also remember her always wanting to be in charge. She was always the mommy when we played house. Katie Chilton was another best friend when I was -- a little younger? a little older? I can't remember - maybe my Mom can shed a little light on this one.

I have tried to timeline my high school years, and I am having difficulty doing that. I have jotted it down on paper, as an actual timeline, and I have talked to my therapist about it (various things that happened between 14 and 17), just to get the dates straight in my head. But it still bugs me that it seemed like such a long period of time and, in writing it down, it appears to be much less time.

The stories will come, slowly. I know I have a lot to tell, and I'll get to that later. Until then, thanks for your attention.

Kathy B.