One thing that really bothers me is when I tell people about my earliest memories, and they tell me that I couldn't possibly remember that far back. It infuriates me! Everybody says that I only think I remember things, because I've heard people talking about these certain events. I don't buy it, though. I really really remember this stuff!
Scientists say that kids first memories come at an average age of three years old. The key word here is "average." To have an average, you need some numbers above and some below to make the average. In my case, I believe I come in on the lower end of this curve. Then childhood amnesia sets in. As kids develop cognitively, they tend to forget much of what happened between the ages of 3 and 7 years. Some memories persist, but most are lost.
The very first thing I can remember in my life is climbing on a sawhorse that used to be behind our house. I think it was a sawhorse, anyway. It was shaped like a walker. I'll post a picture here if I ever find one. Anyhow, it sat under the trees that used to line our backyard. I can distinctly remember climbing on it, in front of all the trees. And I can't imagine why anyone would have talked about that with me. A few years ago I was telling my parents about this memory and they both said, "Oh yeah. We did have that back there. I don't know why we had it, but we did." This memory has to have been from the summer or fall after I turned 2 years old in April. That winter, in 1982-1983, there was a huge ice storm that brought down all of the trees behind our house. I also remember a little of the aftermath from the storm. I remember looking back behind our house, seeing several of my father's friends cutting up the trees with chainsaws. And I remember asking my mother what Lanny was wearing over his ears. He had on ear protectors, which I'd never seen before. And I remember my mother telling me that he wore them because the chainsaw was so loud that it hurt his ears. Again, I don't know why anyone would have told me about this conversation.
Another early memory I have is of sitting on a stool in the living room of my great-grandparents' house and seeing my great-grandmother(GGM), Frances, come into the room with a smile that stretched from ear-to-ear. She died shortly before my third birthday, so I must have been two years old when this happened. There is another memory to go along with this. After she died, I must have gone to their house and, not seeing her there, wondered where my GGM was. At the age of three, death and mortality are difficult to understand. Months later, perhaps, I remember meeting my GGM, Alma, from the other side of the family. When I was introduced to her, having only known one GGM in my life, my reply was "Oh! So this is where great-grandma has been staying all this time!" When I told my mother about this as a teenager, she said she'd forgotten about it happening.
One other fun memory-and I'm not even sure how old I was, but probably 3 or 4-is of riding on the back of my mom's bike, in those big old plastic kids' seats. I would get bored staring at the back of my mom's head, so I always wanted to lean to the side to look ahead at what was coming up. This would usually throw us off balance and scare my mom half-to-death. :)
One last memory, which I find bizarre to have held onto all these years, happened during the summer when I was probably 3 or 4. I can remember being outside playing and becoming thirsty. I went up the stairs and through the outside door to the back porch, then into the kitchen where I found my mother. I asked for a drink and she poured some kool-aid into a cup. I was chewing gum, so I asked if I could keep it in my mouth while I drank. My mother told me it would be okay if I was extra careful, so I was and I drank the whole thing without swallowing the gum. I was so proud of myself!
So, for anyone who might happen to read this, let me know what you think about memories. Do you have any from your early childhood?
Wednesday, August 17, 2005
Monday, August 15, 2005
My dad
My dad's a weird dude. Maybe it helps to know a little bit about his upbringing. He grew up on the Shutts Road, named after our family for being the first to permanently move there around 1815 (my dad swears it's named after him for being the first person from the road to go to college). He was in the 7th of 9 generations so far who have lived within a space of about 2 acres. Think about that...2 acres and everyone from your great-great-great-great grandparents on down has lived there. They didn't have any running water until the 1960's. That might not be a problem if you live in the South. But imagine it here in Upstate NY - it's 25 degrees below zero, there's 3 feet of snow on the ground, and the wind is blowing 30 miles an hour. Now imagine that you've got diarrhea and you have to run outside to the outhouse every 20 minutes. Not only that, but you've got to fight off the 9 other people who live in your home just to get to that outhouse.
Eight brothers and sisters. My dad's job was to peel potatoes. My mom says that when they first got married, she once asked him to peel potatoes for the two of them, and he had already stripped about 6 before she could stop him.
And speaking of outhouses...one of the great traditions on the Shutts Road took place every year on Halloween night. The neighborhood kids would go around and tip over as many outhouses as they could get away with. Unfortunately, sometimes they'd play hide-and-seek that same night. Dad told me about this time when one kid, either chasing or being chased by someone else, came flying around the corner of a neighbor's home and fell right into the hole that was no longer covered by one of the overturned outhouses.
But my dad, yeah, he has always been Mr. Baseball. He graduated from the Shutts Road and went off to college to play baseball. I guess you could say he majored in Phys. Ed., but whatever. He was the stereotypical dumb jock. Pulling pranks on campus, getting kicked out of sporting events, proud of his C+ GPA because it meant he could stay on the baseball team. One of my favorite stories he tells from his college days was when his roommate was being a douchebag to everyone else. So, to get back at him, they all went in after him one night while he was asleep. He was wearing just his tighty whities, so they stripped all the covers off him, tied him to the mattress so tight he couldn't move, then dragged the bed with him attached to it down to the campus quad. It was a warm night, so he didn't get hypothermia. But the next morning when all the other students were headed to class and found him still there, he got more than a few sarcastic comments.
My parents went to the same college, all 4 years. They knew all the same people, and one of my dad's roommates even dated and ended up marrying one of my mom's roommates. But they never met until the last semester of senior year. They were both education majors, though my mom was more of the typical bookworm. She was still dating her fireman-grapefarmer-turned-politician from back home. My dad was single and looking. Just at the end of the first semester of senior year, the college made it mandatory for all education majors to take a Drug Education Class in order to graduate. So now, all of a sudden, there are 600 or so students who need to take this one class at the same time in order to get their diplomas. My mom shows up to class on the first day and sees her friend's boyfriend and decides to sit next to him. Then my dad comes to class and sees the same guy, who he also knew, and sits on the other side of him. All through the lecture my dad and this other guy are checking out and commenting on all the girls in the room. As the class lets out, feeling pretty good about himself, my dad decides it's time to make his move on his future wife. Keeping in mind the stark contrast between their upbringings and personalities, i.e., my mom was the 95-lb nerdy girl who claims her sport growing up was skee-ball...my dad decides to go with what he knows best. He asks her if she wants to go see the minor league hockey team play that weekend. She counters with a polite, yet firm, 'no' and makes her way out of the lecture hall. Shot down. The next week, he decides to take a different approach.
Somehow, in some strange twist of fate that I have given up on trying to figure out, it works and he's got his foot in the door. It blossoms into a relationship, and she ends up dumping her boyfriend from home, with whom she'd spent the past 5 or 6 years. To be funny, my parents like to tell people they met taking drugs, as in the Drug Education Course. My grandparents didn't see the humor at first.
The first time my mom went to meet the rest of my dad's family at the family compound on the Shutts Road, she discovered the North Country accent. One of the brothers asked her politely to "Pass the 'buh-DAY-duhs". Not wanting to seem rude for having no idea what he was talking about, she pretended not to hear him. When he asked again, she really panicked, and froze out of fear of passing the wrong thing. Finally another of her future brothers-in-law motioned toward the POTATOES, and she was relieved to hand them over.
So back to my dad being a weird dude. He's always been a baseball coach. And if you've ever known a baseball coach, or any coach for that matter, you know how colorful their language can be. And by colorful, I mean they can make a drunken truck driver hopped up on speed and meth-amphetamines blush. But my mom, being the "perfect one," as she's been dubbed by her siblings, wouldn't allow such language in the house where her children were to be raised. So my dad was forced to resort to other expressions. For example:
He also liked to kid around with us when we were little. I remember several times asking my dad where he was going, and having the following conversation:
By this point, I'd given up and left him alone to go wherever the heck he wanted. I thought for the longest time that Timbuktu was a fictitious place. I would later find out that it is a city in the west-African nation of Mali. I also believed, through the same reasoning, that Tupper Lake (which was often referred to as Upper Tupper Puddle) was a made-up destination. So when I was perhaps 5 years old and riding in the car with my parents, and saw the roadsign saying something like "Now Entering Tupper Lake," I thought I'd entered the Twilight Zone. Not only was it a real place, but it was within driving distance of my house!
As we grew up, I guess my mom started to relax her control of Dad and his behavior, because we started to hear the unfiltered words come from his mouth. For example:
So yeah, that's my dad. And he sometimes doesn't recognize me when he sees me. A few years ago, the college baseball team he coached for was playing near where I was in college. I talked to him on the phone the day before the game telling him I would be there. When I got to the game, I went up behind the bench, tapped him on the shoulder, and gave him a quick "Hey" and a smile. He stood up, looking at me with an expression on his face that was half confusion and half annoyance. A few seconds later he realized that this was his own son, you know, the kid who'd lived in the same house for 18 years, who was making him poor in order to attend college, and who shared half the same genes as his. I hoped he felt stupid, but I'm not sure he did. Later in the game, he came over between innings for a quick chat with my girlfriend and I. In those 30 seconds, he decided to tell us about the abscess he'd just had lanced from the back of his throat, which had been giving him bad breath for weeks. He felt the need to tell us about how much of it drained into his mouth, and how awful it tasted. Then, with a quick, "Man that abscess was wicked," he was off to his duty as third base coach.
Shortly after that was my grandmother's 75th birthday get-together. This was maybe the 3rd time that Michaelene, now my fiancee, had met my parents. We drove an hour from college to meet up with the rest of the fam. Our first stop was my parents' hotel room. We were there a few minutes early, so my father hadn't had time to fully primp for the occasion. As we were talking to my mother, I noticed my father walking toward the other side of the bed and pulling his pants down. He had to tuck his shirt in, but instead of going behind the closed door of the bathroom he felt that in this 10 foot by 10 foot room he'd be invisible if he were on the opposite side from us. My mother didn't see him, which was fortunate for everyone. A look of panic made its way to my face. When Michaelene first saw me, she didn't know what was wrong, not yet having seen his black boxer briefs which have so painfully burned their image into my memory. Then she looked and saw him doing his thing, and managed to keep a straight face long enough for us to regroup in my car. I had to explain to her a lot of what I've just written about my father. Then things seemed to make more sense. But yeah, my dad's a weird dude. You're frickin' A right, he is.
Eight brothers and sisters. My dad's job was to peel potatoes. My mom says that when they first got married, she once asked him to peel potatoes for the two of them, and he had already stripped about 6 before she could stop him.
And speaking of outhouses...one of the great traditions on the Shutts Road took place every year on Halloween night. The neighborhood kids would go around and tip over as many outhouses as they could get away with. Unfortunately, sometimes they'd play hide-and-seek that same night. Dad told me about this time when one kid, either chasing or being chased by someone else, came flying around the corner of a neighbor's home and fell right into the hole that was no longer covered by one of the overturned outhouses.
But my dad, yeah, he has always been Mr. Baseball. He graduated from the Shutts Road and went off to college to play baseball. I guess you could say he majored in Phys. Ed., but whatever. He was the stereotypical dumb jock. Pulling pranks on campus, getting kicked out of sporting events, proud of his C+ GPA because it meant he could stay on the baseball team. One of my favorite stories he tells from his college days was when his roommate was being a douchebag to everyone else. So, to get back at him, they all went in after him one night while he was asleep. He was wearing just his tighty whities, so they stripped all the covers off him, tied him to the mattress so tight he couldn't move, then dragged the bed with him attached to it down to the campus quad. It was a warm night, so he didn't get hypothermia. But the next morning when all the other students were headed to class and found him still there, he got more than a few sarcastic comments.
My parents went to the same college, all 4 years. They knew all the same people, and one of my dad's roommates even dated and ended up marrying one of my mom's roommates. But they never met until the last semester of senior year. They were both education majors, though my mom was more of the typical bookworm. She was still dating her fireman-grapefarmer-turned-politician from back home. My dad was single and looking. Just at the end of the first semester of senior year, the college made it mandatory for all education majors to take a Drug Education Class in order to graduate. So now, all of a sudden, there are 600 or so students who need to take this one class at the same time in order to get their diplomas. My mom shows up to class on the first day and sees her friend's boyfriend and decides to sit next to him. Then my dad comes to class and sees the same guy, who he also knew, and sits on the other side of him. All through the lecture my dad and this other guy are checking out and commenting on all the girls in the room. As the class lets out, feeling pretty good about himself, my dad decides it's time to make his move on his future wife. Keeping in mind the stark contrast between their upbringings and personalities, i.e., my mom was the 95-lb nerdy girl who claims her sport growing up was skee-ball...my dad decides to go with what he knows best. He asks her if she wants to go see the minor league hockey team play that weekend. She counters with a polite, yet firm, 'no' and makes her way out of the lecture hall. Shot down. The next week, he decides to take a different approach.
"So what are you doing this weekend?"
"I don't know, why?"
"Wanna go watch the indoor lacrosse game?"
"Sure."
Somehow, in some strange twist of fate that I have given up on trying to figure out, it works and he's got his foot in the door. It blossoms into a relationship, and she ends up dumping her boyfriend from home, with whom she'd spent the past 5 or 6 years. To be funny, my parents like to tell people they met taking drugs, as in the Drug Education Course. My grandparents didn't see the humor at first.
The first time my mom went to meet the rest of my dad's family at the family compound on the Shutts Road, she discovered the North Country accent. One of the brothers asked her politely to "Pass the 'buh-DAY-duhs". Not wanting to seem rude for having no idea what he was talking about, she pretended not to hear him. When he asked again, she really panicked, and froze out of fear of passing the wrong thing. Finally another of her future brothers-in-law motioned toward the POTATOES, and she was relieved to hand them over.
So back to my dad being a weird dude. He's always been a baseball coach. And if you've ever known a baseball coach, or any coach for that matter, you know how colorful their language can be. And by colorful, I mean they can make a drunken truck driver hopped up on speed and meth-amphetamines blush. But my mom, being the "perfect one," as she's been dubbed by her siblings, wouldn't allow such language in the house where her children were to be raised. So my dad was forced to resort to other expressions. For example:
"Holy ever-lovin' cow!" = Why surely you can't be telling the truth.
"I'll tell you what, Mr. Jack!" = You will find this hard to believe, but it is the truth.
"You snake in the grass!" = You have done something that I'm not fond of.
He also liked to kid around with us when we were little. I remember several times asking my dad where he was going, and having the following conversation:
"Where ya goin', dad?"
"Crazy!"
"No, where ya goin', dad?"
"Timbuktu!"
"No, where ya goin'?"
"I'm goin' to Tupper Lake."
By this point, I'd given up and left him alone to go wherever the heck he wanted. I thought for the longest time that Timbuktu was a fictitious place. I would later find out that it is a city in the west-African nation of Mali. I also believed, through the same reasoning, that Tupper Lake (which was often referred to as Upper Tupper Puddle) was a made-up destination. So when I was perhaps 5 years old and riding in the car with my parents, and saw the roadsign saying something like "Now Entering Tupper Lake," I thought I'd entered the Twilight Zone. Not only was it a real place, but it was within driving distance of my house!
As we grew up, I guess my mom started to relax her control of Dad and his behavior, because we started to hear the unfiltered words come from his mouth. For example:
"You're frickin' A right!" = I whole-heartedly agree with you.
"Yeah, that and a rat's ass, buddy!" = I whole-heartedly disagree with you.
"Shit and a rat's ass!" = ??????? (I have no idea what this is supposed to mean, but it has been used in all sorts of contexts.)
"Well frick me runnin'!" = I am quite pleasantly surprised.
So yeah, that's my dad. And he sometimes doesn't recognize me when he sees me. A few years ago, the college baseball team he coached for was playing near where I was in college. I talked to him on the phone the day before the game telling him I would be there. When I got to the game, I went up behind the bench, tapped him on the shoulder, and gave him a quick "Hey" and a smile. He stood up, looking at me with an expression on his face that was half confusion and half annoyance. A few seconds later he realized that this was his own son, you know, the kid who'd lived in the same house for 18 years, who was making him poor in order to attend college, and who shared half the same genes as his. I hoped he felt stupid, but I'm not sure he did. Later in the game, he came over between innings for a quick chat with my girlfriend and I. In those 30 seconds, he decided to tell us about the abscess he'd just had lanced from the back of his throat, which had been giving him bad breath for weeks. He felt the need to tell us about how much of it drained into his mouth, and how awful it tasted. Then, with a quick, "Man that abscess was wicked," he was off to his duty as third base coach.
Shortly after that was my grandmother's 75th birthday get-together. This was maybe the 3rd time that Michaelene, now my fiancee, had met my parents. We drove an hour from college to meet up with the rest of the fam. Our first stop was my parents' hotel room. We were there a few minutes early, so my father hadn't had time to fully primp for the occasion. As we were talking to my mother, I noticed my father walking toward the other side of the bed and pulling his pants down. He had to tuck his shirt in, but instead of going behind the closed door of the bathroom he felt that in this 10 foot by 10 foot room he'd be invisible if he were on the opposite side from us. My mother didn't see him, which was fortunate for everyone. A look of panic made its way to my face. When Michaelene first saw me, she didn't know what was wrong, not yet having seen his black boxer briefs which have so painfully burned their image into my memory. Then she looked and saw him doing his thing, and managed to keep a straight face long enough for us to regroup in my car. I had to explain to her a lot of what I've just written about my father. Then things seemed to make more sense. But yeah, my dad's a weird dude. You're frickin' A right, he is.
Sunday, August 14, 2005
New Idea
Well I've obviously not done a great job of keeping this up-to-date, as far as a journal goes. So I've decided that from now on, it'll be less of a what's-going-on-with-Adam blog, and more of a collection of "random musings." So here's the first entry, as far as that's concerned.
I was in Wegman's today and saw that they now sell pre-packaged cotton candy. Of all the awful crap I've ever eaten, that may be the worst. I used to enjoy it, though, in the context of a toy, rather than food. My favorite thing to do with cotton candy is to spit on it. If you get a decent amount of any liquid (saliva has just always been the most readily-available for me) on cotton candy, it eats through it. I like trying to spit enough on that it goes all the way from one side to the other. Try it sometime.
Also...as I was watching Secondhand Lions (good movie), I discovered something rather peculiar about my living room electronics. My TV is an RCA, and the stereo I bought last week is a Sharp. On the stereo remote, there is an "X-Bass" button, to boost the bass. When I hit that button, it turns the TV off. How random that, with all the possible frequencies, these two functions are the same. I thought it was kind of fun, but Michaelene seemed less amused. Oh well...
I was in Wegman's today and saw that they now sell pre-packaged cotton candy. Of all the awful crap I've ever eaten, that may be the worst. I used to enjoy it, though, in the context of a toy, rather than food. My favorite thing to do with cotton candy is to spit on it. If you get a decent amount of any liquid (saliva has just always been the most readily-available for me) on cotton candy, it eats through it. I like trying to spit enough on that it goes all the way from one side to the other. Try it sometime.
Also...as I was watching Secondhand Lions (good movie), I discovered something rather peculiar about my living room electronics. My TV is an RCA, and the stereo I bought last week is a Sharp. On the stereo remote, there is an "X-Bass" button, to boost the bass. When I hit that button, it turns the TV off. How random that, with all the possible frequencies, these two functions are the same. I thought it was kind of fun, but Michaelene seemed less amused. Oh well...
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