Memories

When I was about five or six...back in the days when it was fun to ride in the 'way back' of the '90 Dodge minivan, we were on the way back from an excursion to the City library. My sister and I were harking back to the gunslinging days, using our index fingers to as gun barrels and making shooting noises as we 'shot 'em dead' ('em' being all the drivers of the cars unlucky enough to travel in our wake). There was a guy in an old Ford Ranger behind us who looked eerilyl like Gordon Lightfoot...the version of Gord on the Gord's Gold LP. He followed us for a long time, all the way down Capitol Hill and Victory Road, and we shot him enough times that by all rights he should have expired several imaginary bullets ago. But he was still alive, and perhaps was getting annoyed, as later, we both swore that he pulled something black and shiny from the dashboard and pointed it at us. We huddled behind our 'cover' (aka, below the window) and did not come out to peek at the competition for a very, very long time.

I used to stare at the Simon & Garfunkel Greatest Hits album cover for hours. I wonder how exactly Garfunkel's hair got that texture, and wondered if Simon was really holding a golden egg in his hand. I'd listen to the songs and really feel the mournfulness of the boxer, and the despair of Mrs. Robinson, even though I had absolutely no idea what the song was about at the time, and wonder what the devil difference it made between being a hammer or a nail, as both came with pound-a-trucks which were to be guarded jealously against the stealings of younger siblings.

I remember the first time I went to the subpar Robintino's grill on Highway 89. I had been elected Student of the Month, and my fellow cohort, Paul, and the principal went along. We had pizza which I had heard rave reviews of, but which I remember thinking looked and tasted exactly like the pizza cafeterias used to serve before Ambassador Pizza got the contract to provide the little people with greasy carbs....that is, it didn't taste appetizing at all. Remember, how it was cut in squares, and had canned mushrooms on it, and dripped grease everywhere? (No wonder I brought my lunch from home so often!) Later, Paul gave me a small beanie-baby (yes, this dates me) lamb for Christmas, which I named, but I cannot remember its name to call my little sheep home. Help! what was its name? He (Paul) delivered it to my neighbor's house on Christmas morning, and it had snowed, so I put on my boots and trudged in my pajamas (no coat, as it was bright and not too cold) to the neighbors...the pristine snow glinting. I was so surprised...it was the first time a boy had ever given me a Christmas present, and I was totally overcome with happiness that someone had been so thoughtful...and it was so unexpected! What a great surprise!

My favorite baseball players are Derek Jeter, John Smoltz (what a great last name...I think if I chose a last name, that would be it), Orel Hershiser (I nicknamed him Oreo Hershey), Chipper Jones, Mariano Rivera, Greg Maddox, and Kenny Lofton. I saw Lofton, Jeter, and Rivera in action four summers ago at a game at Camden Yards. (Bet you can't guess who I was rooting for...) When Jeter got up for his second at-bat, I silently willed him to hit a home run with all my little heart...and on the third pitch, that's exactly what he did. I jumped up and down, shouting, shaking my roommate and shouting, "He did it for me! That one's for me!" So all you people, the homer he hit on June 24, 2004 is all mine.

HMPM and I used to eat 'cheezits' from the side yard. Cheezits come from weeds. Yes, I ate the 'fruit' of a weed. The plants usually grow to be about a foot high, but can sometimes be higher, and the leaves are wrapped tightly around a very tiny pumpkin-shaped green fruit. We ate them, and actually thought they were good.

I told Shanelle in my 2nd grade class that her crayons were toxic, because they weren't Crayola and didn't have 'non-toxic' written on them. She had absolutely no idea what I was talking about, and after I explained that she would be poisoned and die from using her crayons, she started to cry. I don't know if I was being malicious or just trying to show off that I knew what 'toxic' meant. I don't think I want to know, either.

Before having the Internet at home was common, my siblings and I all had Juno accounts because you could access email without actually having an Internet connection...you just dialed up, and it made the little fax machine noise, and then a bar would appear and it would jump forward in lime-green increments. If it went straight from 0-100%, chances were really good that you had no mail waiting for you; however, if the bar took even a few seconds to load, you almost certainly had mail. I played the old game Lemmings on this computer, too. The graphics and layout of the Juno page stick in my mind...wish I had a printscreen of them to show you.

We used to get Mario and Luigi points for reading back in elementary school. We had a schoolwide reading contest and my older sis was mad because third graders had to read 20 minutes to get a Mario head on the classroom poster chart, whereas first graders only had to read 10. Therefore, I racked up a lot more points than she did, and due to my overzealous competitive edge and my love of reading, our grade managed to win. Mario and Luigi. My kids (if I ever have any) probably won't even know what dot-matrix printers, record players, modems, typewriters, or land lines are. Sad. Most of me wishes I could go back to not being so 'connected.' Seriously, do I have to be looking at a screen ALL THE TIME??????????? I realize that was shouting. I meant it to be.

Ah, a trip down memory lane always takes too long to type. Gotta go to bed now or I won't be able to get up to take my trooper of a car into the stinky dealership to get my headlamp and oil changed. Timeconsuming and tiresome, but necessary, nevertheless.