I Remember...

I remember walking across the "busy road" just outside our neighborhood to get a soda in a glass bottle and thinking we were so far from home.  The end of the neighborhood felt like the end of the world.

I remember getting in a fight with Corey, my older brother, and telling him that I hated him, then feeling terrible afterward.

I remember running away from home, then coming home and realizing that nobody had noticed that I had been gone.

I remember riding bikes around the block pretending that our bikes were horses.  My horse was named Dirty Snow.

I remember my 9th grade English teacher calling me "Little Larrabee" because she had taught both of my older brothers.  I hated being called "Little Larrabee."

I remember wearing my Sunday shoes out onto the iced-over road and "ice skating" until my toes were so numb that I couldn't feel them.

I remember watching my Mom and Dad kiss every night when he would come home from work.

I remember making up songs with my sister and singing them over and over; annoying every other member of the family.  They had such original lyrics as, "Shiny dime, red elastic, yo, ho, ho" repeated three times.

I remember weeding the garden on Saturdays.

I remember crying as I watched my dad set our dog, Princess, gently into a deep hole he had dug in the garden after she died.

I remember running home from church because I had to go to the bathroom. I got there just to find all of the doors locked.  I looked in all of the window wells see if one of the basement windows was open and instead found a baby bunny.

I remember Marci straightening my hair with a clothes iron, it was a frizzy mess and Marci called me "Richard Simmons."  I cried.

I remember my Mom telling me that her dad had stars in his eyes.  I went into the bathroom and stared in the mirror for hours at my eyes; wanting to find something of him in me.

I remember falling off of the neighbors' trampoline, face first into a pile of loose dirt.  I stood up, mortified, covered with the fine powder. Trent Angel looked at me and said, "I've heard of girls powdering their faces, but that was ridiculous!"  I couldn't help laughing.

I remember when my Mom and Dad disagreed about something, my Mom would always say, "Honey, can I talk to you in our bedroom?" and all of us kids would say in a sing song voice, "Ooooh! Dad's in trouble!"

I remember stepping into the mud as I reached for cat tails that grew along the stream in the park, and learning why we called it "poo mud".

I remember re-doing my bedroom with my Dad for my Laurel project.  It was done in shades of green and white; I thought it looked so mature.

I remember Marci re-did her room a couple years later.  Hers was done in bright, primary colors; I thought it looked so immature.  She told me my room looked like a grandma's room.

I remember driving in the family van to my Grandparent's for Sunday dinner.  My youngest sibling, Tyler, said, "I can punch myself in the face and it won't even hurt."  He punched himself as hard as he could and then burst into tears.

I remember pretending to be a pioneer, walking along the dusty trails, having only "cheesies" to eat.

I remember getting a running start to brave my way through the tall sunflowers that drooped heavily over the sidewalk.  The grasshoppers hiding in the thick weeds would jump up and cling to my arms and legs, leaving their brown spittle in tiny puddles on my skin.

I remember sneaking into the storage room and eating marshmellow cream straight out of the jar.


The idea for this post came from Tiffany at The Would-be Writer's Guild.