Remembering the Past

Remembering the Past

musings: saying or thinking reflectively (Webster)

The human brain is a wonderful thing. I know, because I have been using mine for many, many years. Know what I like most about my brain? It's the part that gives me the ability to remember the past.

I can remember as far as back as my fifth year on the planet. Two eventful happenings were my first memories.

One summer day I decided to eat a red, ripe tomato from my dad's garden patch. I took a large five-year-old bite and while looking at the tomato I saw a piece of a wriggling worm! I ran screaming to my mother that I had bitten a worm in half. Her calming instructions were "spit it out," which I did. Life's lesson #1: Be calm and think it through.

The second event took place when, as a kindergarten I boarded a bus to travel to school. Because there was no bus to bring me home at noontime, I went directly into first grade. During one typical New Jersey snowy winter day the school closed early. Somehow I missed the bus, or there was no bus so I walked the 3.4 miles home. When I arrived home and walked into the apartment my startled mother said, "What are you doing home so early, and why are you all wet?!" "I missed the bus, Mom, so I walked home." She began to cry and hugged me 'til my breath was about gone. The next morning she was on the public telephone to the school. I suspect that her Irish temper just about melted the phone lines. I never walked home again. Life's lesson # 2: If you need help ask for it.

How I knew in which direction to walk home I can never explain, but I have been good at directions ever since.

Good direction-finding hasn't always been in our family. I still chuckle when I recall driving incidents with my dad. When my folks decided that they had had enough of Florida, I flew down to drive them back to New Jersey. Every time we left a restaurant, with my dad driving, we would stop at the highway entrance, and he would say, "Which way?"

Today, when dear wife and I travel the highways we alternate behind the wheel. She enjoys driving while depending on me to navigate. Fine with me. I like reading maps, don't you?

More, later.