It's 1975, and I am in Clearwater, Florida. It's a sunny day with a bright blue sky. Ted Rockford throws me up and down in the air. We both laugh while we play in a big crowded pool. He has an afro and a mustache, and is my dad's friend. I have no further recollection of him, because we move back to New Jersey, where I was born. This is my first memory.
It's 1977 and we are sitting at the kitchen table in Cherry Hill, New Jersey, eating dinner. My mom has made ground steak and onions with mashed potatoes and lima beans. This is our least favorite dish and we hem and haw about the onions that look like ribbed worms and the bland green lima beans and focus on the mashed potatoes. My dad stirs all the food on our plates together into a greenish brown stew, which does not make the meal look more appetizing. My mom tells us we “do not know how to show appreciation.”
It's 1978. Our neighbors to the left are the Bolinskys. My mom and Mrs. Bolinsky smoke cigarettes and gossip through the chain link fence. My mom calls her Dotty, but she is Mrs. Bolinsky to us and her husband, Hank, is Mr. Bolinsky. He is a truck-driver and we only see him when he mows the lawn or is yelling at his son. “CHRISTOPHER!!” we hear him roaring across the yards. Mrs. Bolinsky calls him “Chrissy”. Chrissy’s big sister is Little Dotty. Mrs. Bolinsky also feels that her children do not know how to show appreciation, so there is much to discuss.
It's 1978, and Chris Bolinsky loves dogs as much as I do. The Bolinskys have a Great Dane who is as big as a pony, and we have a Collie, named Sheba, who is like a black version of Lassie. I have a subscription to a magazine called Dog Fancy and I when I get my issues in the mail, I show them to Chris through the chain link fence, and we both pore over the pages and pages of purebred dogs, standing on platforms to show off their beauty.
It's 1978, and I wake up to the sound of my mom typing. She is a great typist, and works for a court reporter who delivers tapes to our house. My mom listens to the tapes with a headset that covers her ears. She has a small desk set up in her bedroom and begins typing at 5 AM and types all day and sometimes into the evening. She types on a Selectric typewriter, and has pieces of carbon paper between the pages so that there are multiple copies which she then collates into piles. The more copies, the fainter the last copy becomes until it's almost invisible, like a ghost.
Its 1978, and my mom and dad are arguing in the kitchen down the hall from our rooms where we try to sleep. The arguing gets louder until it stops and there are dull thuds and whimpering. As always, we go running out to protect her, but by they both shoo us back to our bedrooms and tell us to go to sleep.
It's 1978 and it's the Summer before I start Kindergarten. I am on my front lawn wearing a white veil and carrying a bouquet of flowers. There is a line of kids and stuffed animals before me on the lawn and Chris Bolinsky is next to me wearing a sailor suit. My mom and Mrs. Bolinsky are amused by my and Chrissy's
friendship, and decide it would be “so cute” (cigarettes dangling fom their fingers) if we got married, and so they have staged a marriage on our front lawn. My brother gives me away, and my sister is the ring bearer. Little Dotty, chewing gum, is a bridesmaid even though I never talk to her, but her mother makes her stand there until vows are exchanged and pictures are taken.
It's 1979 and I am not talking. I am in Kindergarten at Saint Peter Celestine, and when the teachers or other kids talk to me, I say nothing in return. I have developed a tick of picking my nose, which I do uncontrollably. The other kids notice and name me Booger Snots. Even then, I cannot stop. Sometimes, I eat the booger.
It's 1979, and we are going on a field trip to the zoo. We are instructed to pair up, and each pair has its own chaperone. No one wants to be my partner, but eventually one of the chaperones takes my hand and I am partnered up with a girl who has $20 for spending money. In the zoo gift shop, she gives me a dollar to buy a postcard, and the chaperone says, “Isn't that nice?” But I have my finger pointing to the glass behind which stands a small crystal horse, glistening kaleidoscopically. The chaperone explains that the crystal horse is $15 and it's not nice to ask for money, which makes me feel thick with shame.
Its Christmas, 1979, and we are at our Aunt and Uncle's highrise apartment in Philadelphia. The adults sit on pastel colored furniture and clink glasses while we watch a black and white movie from 1939 called, “The Little Princess” with Shirley Temple, who plays a poor city girl living in squalor who walks into her drab room to find it has been mysteriously filled with colorful blankets, (the film switches from black and white to technicolor) a princess bed, and a closet full of dresses. The little princess's cherubic gaze drifts around the room in consternation. I empathize profoundly with Shirley Temple's thunderstruck joy in a way that is palpable to me for the rest of my life.
It's 1979. and we have drive up to Short Hills to visit Mom Mom Irene, my mom’s mom. She lives in a “mansion” that has 8 bedrooms and an impossibly big living room that seems like an acre of whitish-silver lawn. Her bedroom upstairs is unthinkably off limits, but we know about the bathroom that is as big as the bedrooms and a has a tub that is more like a small pool. She is super strict and we are only allowed to play down in a dark damp basement or outside, so we always go outside. She has a backyard which is as big and level as a baseball field, but at the far end, it drops precipitously, like the end of the world. We call it “the end of the world” and it never fails to scare us with its promise of danger.
It's 1979, and some adult has given me a stuffed lamb, which I name Snowflake. I carry Snowflake with me everywhere, and even put her in my backpack when I go to school. I have decided that Snowflake is my best friend, and can keep me company while the other kids are playing. During recess, I am the only kid who wears a backpack, which attracts attention, and I steal around to the side of the building and remove Snowflake from my backpack, and pretend to explain to her what my day is like when I go to school. I show her the building, and the tire playground, with its bridges, moats, and its central citadel, where we sit for the rest of lunch, carefully placing her back in my pack before getting in line to enter the building. The girls give each other Frontsies Backsies in line so that best-friends are in line together.
It's 1979 and I am in the coatroom, in the back of class, checking on Snowflake. It gives me comfort to touch her curly fur and to just know she is there. Donald Berry has also come back to the coatroom and asks me what I am doing. I ask him if he can keep a secret, and he says that he can. I show him Snowflake, and instead of saying anything about the stuffed animal, he kisses me on the cheek. This enrages me, and my exasperation manifests itself into me chasing him around the schoolyard during recess. I stop bringing Snowflake to school, because my recesses are now full of me chasing Donald Berry who is a much faster runner than me, and I know I will never catch him, and do not have any clue what I would do if I did catch him, but the running feels great and we cover the outer limits of the school yard while the other kids stand in civilized clusters talking about who-knows-what.
Its 1980, and I have dreams about Wonder Woman often. Sometimes the dreams start out with me and Wonder Woman hiding under my brother’s brown bed on the brown rug. We hear a crashing noise because someone has broken into our house. Wonder Woman tells me that she will distract the intruder while I run next door to the Bolinskys and get help. She hop jumps out of my brother’s room and down the hallway and I crawl out after her and run out the front door toward the Bolinskys’ but as I begin to cross the lawn, I wake up and enjoy the feelings of excitement and relief.
It's 1980 and I have to wear a uniform now because I am in first grade. The black plaid jumper and white shirt are stiff and starchy, and my socks are not the right color blue. Sister Suzy tells me to make sure I wear the correct color from now on. I ask my mom what the purpose is of the uniform, and she says, “Its so you are all the same.” It does seem like we are all the same now, especially since 1/3 of the girls in my class are named “Jennifer”.
It's 1980 and I have discovered The Black Stallion books by Walter Farley in our little school library, on the second floor of Saint Peter Celestine, between the music room and the lavatory. There are 17 of the books, which I recognized from the movie, and reading these keeps me thinking about horses day and night. Alec Ramsey is the protagonist, and I envision myself, in his place, getting stranded on a deserted island wandering around lonely and lost. One day I peer through the beach brush to find I am not alone on this island. A wild black Arabian stallion prances around in the surf coquettishly and eventually befriends me after I woo him with an apple that somehow grew on the beach. We are both rescued from the island and I become a jockey and race my stallion over the finish line. I am not dissuaded by the fact that in first grade, I am already almost too tall to be a race horses professionally.
It's
1980, and my mom has given me a Barbie doll for my birthday. I have a hard
time showing appreciation, like I am supposed to. I think it’s pretty
clear that I only like the Barbie horses who are from one universe, and My Pretty Ponies, who are from a
different universe, but my pretend universes have no people. My mom
eventually relents and buys only horses for me, and I pretend the green carpet
in our living room is a dark pasture at night. I play by the fireplace
that doesn’t work and my brother plays by the stairs with his Matchbox
cars. We agree that his universe never collides with either of mine, even
though my two can sometimes collide.
It's 1980 And my dad wants to start taking me
for horseback riding lessons. My mom says that I can start after I learn
to ride a bike. I begin to practice every day and I fall repeatedly.
Chris Bolinsky tries to show me, but I still can’t balance. My sister
gets a bike for her birthday and effortlessly peddles the wheels into motion
and flies down the street. Watching her sail out of sight, I get on my bike and begin to pedal furiously
and am finally able to balance until I lose control and run into a Holly tree
in front of the Nevin’s house. My mom
does not like the Nevins because they park their cars on the front lawn, which “brings
down property values”. But when I sit
there pulling holly leaves out of my knee, Danny Nevin pulls me off the ground
and helps me and my bike home.
It’s 1980 and we have a neighbor across the
street named Lonnie. She
is an old and sickly woman with a cottony puff of white hair that is so thin,
you can clearly see her scalp through her hair.
Lonnie always wears nightgowns, even when she goes to
the grocery store. When she pulls into her driveway, and opens the trunk
with all the brown grocery bags, we always run over to help her because she
gives us a dollar each. We help her put her groceries away, and occasionally
something needs to go up in her bedroom. There, we see a double-decker
lazy Susan filled to the limit with orange bottles of prescription pills because
Lonnie is old and sickly.
It's 1980, and my mom has decided she is going
to retile the fireplace in the Livingroom. She packs us into her red Pontiac
Grand Prix and we go to the hardware store where we follow her around as she
consults with the hardware store salesmen about tile, glue, and grout. She
talks to them for a long time and laughs a lot at the things they say as we wander
through the aisle playing with plungers and machetes. She chooses ceramic tiles shaped like hearts,
clubs, spades, and diamonds. They are
different shades of brown and beige, but are shiny and make pleasant clinking
sounds when removed from the box. She puts us to work on retiling
the fireplace and I scrutinize my seams to make them perfect.
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