While I am an only
child, I really don’t want to give the impression that I had a bad
childhood. Was my childhood
lonely? Perhaps, but I think I was
so accustomed to being alone that I didn’t know what I was missing until I was
older. There were a few kids
in my neighborhood that I played with, but most of the time, I spent time
alone, doing my own thing. I suppose, as childhoods go, mine was fairly normal. I spent vast amounts of time with
grandparents, and to me that was perfectly normal. As I’ve written this blog series, I’ve often wondered how it
came to be that I spent so much time with grandparents-did my parents just need
somewhere for me to go and they dumped me off, did my grandparents ask for me
to come, or with my great grandmother, was we there to watch one another?
Narrowing down a
list of my five favorite childhood memories was actually a relatively simple
and amusing process.
CHRISTMAS:
To me, Christmas
was, I believe, everything that Christmas is supposed to be to a child-Magical,
Memorable and Perfect. Most of my
memories of the greatest Christmases ever occurred in the early 1980s. Christmas Eve was the time that my
mother’s side of the family would gather.
Most of the time the holidays were held at what could be referred to as
“The Old Home Place”…my grandparent’s “old” place in Pine Orchard where, after
my grandparents moved to McMinn County from the late 1970s through the
late1980s, my aunt Jean lived in their home until she and my uncle moved into
the house they were building. Christmas 1981 stands out in my mind. I recall spending Christmas Eve with my
mother, grandfather and Great Grandmother visiting cemeteries in the Catoosa
Wildlife Management Areas on the Cumberland Plateau. I recall vividly that it was a cloudy, snowy day as we
visited the graves of my great-great grandparents in Hebbertsburg Cemetery in
Cumberland County and Great Grandfather and Great-Great Grandparents in the
Catoosa Cemetery. Later, we
returned to the old home place in Pine Orchard where our family gathered to
celebrate the traditional Christmas Meal and exchanging of gifts. That year, I received my first Bible
from my Great Grandmother.
In 1984, when the
old home place became vacant, my Great Grandmother moved there. She and I were very close. I would
spend most of the Christmas Holiday with her. I recall watching holiday movies together on TV (back in the
days before cable and VCRs).
My favorite memories are those Christmases after she moved back. The holiday was always held at her
house. My grandparents would
arrive on the afternoon of Christmas Eve, the music would be playing from the
stereo with wall-to-wall holiday music coming from WIVK in Knoxville. The family would gather. I can still taste the turkey, ham, green
beans, sage dressing, mashed potatoes and lime-green frozen punch with ginger
ale. The festivities would begin
around 5 or 6 PM, and it wasn’t just a gathering of family, but it was, it
seemed, a gathering of the community. I recall my aunt’s mother in law and father in law
would drop by, as would friends of the family in droves. I don’t think it would be unreasonable
to say that we could have 25 or more people coming and going throughout the
evening. That may not really sound
like a lot, but for a family of 9 or 10 people, that’s a lot. Everyone was welcome, everyone
had a great time. Christmas with this side of my family in my childhood mind
was epic. While I’m sure that it
took a lot of effort to pull off the feast, the gifts and everything else
involved, which was something as a child, I didn’t know anything about. It was family before family
became convoluted. My
favorite Christmases occurred between 1981 and 1987. After 1987 Christmas never seemed the same. Maybe it is because the magic of
Christmas had somehow lost its spark.
Maybe it is because the individuals who would drop by married and had
families of their own. I don’t
know. What I do know is that
Christmas, in those tender childhood years personified what a “Tender Tennessee
Christmas” was all about to me.
MY 13TH
BIRTHDAY:
For my 13th
Birthday my parents took me on what may have been the best vacation we ever
took. It may sound trite as I
attempt to relate it, but to this child turning 13, it was beyond incredible.
We traveled a couple of hours west of home to Nashville, TN. For my birthday, we toured the Ryman
Auditorium, went to Opryland Amusement Park and even went to a performance of
the Grand Ole Opry! To a
young Country Music Fan, I could have died and gone on to Heaven right then and
there. I had lived my life! Actually, this particular birthday, and my parents
might even be dismayed to learn, was more memorable and outstanding than the
trip we took on my 12th Birthday to Disney World. Yes, yes, it was.
GREAT GRANDMA’S
BIRTHDAY:
I can’t recall the
exact year, but I think it was probably in 1985, when I was staying with my
Great Grandmother (as I often did in the summer). I somehow talked her into baking a cake. If this was 1985,
she would have been 75 at the time.
Once the cake was made…and I helped her make it, I sent her out to get
the mail. It was a long walk up
the driveway to the mailbox—so I was buying myself some time—I locked her out
of her own house (and back in those days, the doors were NEVER locked) When she
returned from the mailbox, I opened the door after she begged me to let her in.
I had decorated the entire dining room in streamers and throw her a birthday
party. I don’t know if she
knew the whole time what I was doing and just played along, or if she was
blissfully oblivious to what was going on, but I know that June 24 was a
special memory for me, and I can only hope that it was a special day for my
special lady with whom I spent so many wonderfully amazing childhood
experiences.
BUFFALO BOOGERS:
THE ULTIMATE PRACTICAL JOKE:
Growing up as the
youngest of six grandchildren on my dad’s side of the family certainly came
with its downsides. When I was may 7 or 8 my cousins, Dean and Clayton, decided
one afternoon that they would throw pickled pimentos (I believe) at me in our
grandparents’ living room. They told me they were “Buffalo Boogers”. After several minutes of being
pelted with these disgustingly slimly “things”, I began gagging and ran from
the front end of the house to the back porch (it was a zig/zag pattern from
point A to point B) and puked my guts out. It’s been one of those running jokes all these years.
THE WALKS AND
TALKS:
The walks and talks
I would take with my great grandmother into the woods have to be some of my greatest
childhood memories. While I am not
an extremely outdoorsy, there was a vast amount of fields and acres upon acres
of wooded area we could explore.
We would walk and talk and it is from her that I learned so many family
“secrets”. I spent a large
amount of time on the weekends, holiday breaks and just about any time I could
with her. I didn’t see her the
last few years of her life, but I visited her with my letters, and her mind was
not extremely agile, because she would tell me in her letters of people who had
come to see her that I knew had not.
I often hope that I visited her in her dreams, so she knew I was there
in her thoughts. I never told her
that I am gay, and I wonder if she knew, or if she was completely
oblivious? I mean, she did allow
me to play dress-up all day long when she lived with my grandparents and made
sure I had things cleaned up by the time my grandfather returned home from
work. And, well, much to the
chagrin of my grandfather, maybe we didn’t always get everything put away…
Here’s my
confession: In retrospect, my
childhood was good. I had grandparents who loved me. I had parents who provided
for me and loved me as much as they possibly could. It wasn’t the perfect
childhood by any stretch of the imagination, but as I am getting older, I am
thankful for the childhood had.
I’m thankful for the people involved who shaped me into the person I am
today. I don’t know that I
would change a lot, even if I could. What I do know for certain is that writing this and
reliving the memories has made me smile with gratitude.
No comments:
Post a Comment