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Post by nic on Sept 11, 2009 1:43:55 GMT
I have several half memories from my childhood; instances that I can't quite flesh out, but the imagery remains. One that sticks out, however, involves my very first and last visit to the Smithsonian Institution.
I was around five, and I don't remember the museum we were in, but there was a painting on the wall I liked and I wanted to show it to my father who was across the room. It wasn't a very large painting and my father wasn't paying attention to my cries, so being a precocious child, I grabbed the painting and took it off the wall. Now you'd think somebody would've stopped me, but, no, I marched all the way across the gallery and said, 'Hey, dad, look!"
And of course he freaked. He ripped the painting out of my hand, he started yelling, my mother started yelling, the proctors finally came over and they started yelling and I was caught in the middle.
Ultimate resolution: I was made to sit in the car, because my dad didn't want to leave because "of that damn boy." The car was parked, of course, in one of those bland underground parking garages, except we were near the exit. I sat in the car with no radio, and was teased by the sunlight streaming in and all the people free to go about their daily tasks.
I was not allowed back in the Smithsonian.
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Post by Deleted on Sept 17, 2009 12:32:40 GMT
I still have many memories of being a young child in India. I remember the sand under my feet, the hot sun forever shining. I remember the preparations for the monsoons that come like clockwork each year. Also remember that we had no electricity, water was from a hand pump, no bathroom facilities at all, do doctors or hospitals and no medicine, apart from the herbal kinds that were handed down through the generations. No fridge, or stove, it was all very primitive, but good in it's own way. And ofcourse the temple bells wake us up every dawn and the peacocks that always seemed to be hanging around there...
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Post by rikita on Sept 20, 2009 16:38:59 GMT
wow, nic, that is quite a memory. my childhood museum memory is quite less dramatic. we were visiting the museum my dad worked at, and while going through a hallway there was this huge metall head of a horse on the ground, some historic horse head i suppose. i was one of these horse crazy girls, so even though it was only a metall horse, i had to pet it of course. and suddenly this loud speaker voice was heard, telling me not to touch anything. i got quite a scary, but also was a bit annoyed because my dad worked there, and i assumed that thus i must be allowed to touch things because i am not an ordinary visitor...
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Post by Deleted on Sept 20, 2009 18:46:29 GMT
I remember being scolded by the Girl Scout leader,a bitch of a woman to begin with ,because I wanted to get up closer to an animal exhibit in the Museum of Natural History. I was ultimately thrown out of the Girl Scouts but not for this incident . The docent at the museum was very kind and told the bitch it was only natural for children to want to do what I wanted to do.
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Post by Deleted on Sept 22, 2009 21:26:29 GMT
I remember taking LSD in my university days and driving a car on the incredible rainbow colored freeways of Los Angeles, watching in wonder as the scintillating living autos weaved around, filled with sparkly humanoid creatures. (It was my future sister-in-law's Camaro and we were immortal.). I drove with a friend, keeping within the lanes with great difficulty, and arriving in Santa Monica or thereabouts around midnight.
We parked somewhere and went to the beach, where neon waves sent weird tentacles up the shore. But it seemed friendly, so we weren't scared and walked into the edge of the surf. It was exhilirating and amazing, but all of a sudden the ocean came alive and attacked us. Horrible demons lept from the water and tried to bite us. We ran away shrieking, although once we were back at the car, we were shrieking with laughter and relief.
It was only later that I put the elements together and understood that we had been at the beach at the precise moment that the grunion were running. Grunion are small fish that suddenly throw themselves on the beach at certain times of the year at high tide.
I think we may have missed a few classes the next day.
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Post by Deleted on Sept 24, 2009 12:41:25 GMT
Also when I was in university, it seems as though the first year most of us spent a lot more time sitting in the park than actually attending classes. In any case, we had our little zone on the grass where you could always find some of the group sprawled out before or after a class, and that is where we would remake the world.
There were other groups around the grass, too, plus a few park fixtures regarding whom you never knew if they were actually students of some sort or if they just lived in the park. I know there was a certain little black guy who called himself Lucifer and seemed to have lived five or six full lifetimes already, if you could believe even half of the stories that he told. The only one that I remember was that he claimed to have worked at Disneyland as the Mickey Mouse costumed character. Who knows? There was this other guy called Jason who said he was from New Jersey and his claim to fame was that he had “six children in six states.” I think he said this so that the girls would be aware of his immense sexual powers and ask for a demonstration. We didn’t like him at all and never invited him to sit with us, but he just wandered from group to group oblivious to our opinions.
But the one who remains engraved in my mind was a certain Denny, the typical hippie in Indian pajamas. He was friendly and generally stoned out of his mind, and he had an inseparable companion – his big black Labrador. The dog was as friendly as Denny and would come around to greet and lick everybody and would play Frisbee and run around happily. One day when the dog was jumping around and playing, somehow his chain link collar got caught in his mouth, and it quickly became apparent that he was choking to death. Denny tried to get the chain untangled but it looked like he would have been forced to break the dog’s jaw to get it loose. And so we all stood around in a horrified circle and watched the dog die. Once the dog had stopped moving, it was finally possible to remove the chain, and Denny even tried mouth to mouth respiration, but it was too late. He finally picked up the big dog and draped it around his shoulders and walked away. I don’t remember ever seeing him again after that day.
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Post by Kimby on Sept 24, 2009 21:07:20 GMT
What a horrible memory, k2! I hope you weren't tripping on acid that day - you could have been scarred for life....
I loved the sea story in the post before, though.
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Post by Deleted on Sept 29, 2009 11:45:29 GMT
When I was relatively young, shiny military jets would fly over the house quite often. From time to time it would be even better, because there would be a suddenly little sparkly burst from under the planes, and a few minutes later there would be a fantastic shower of long strands of silver tinsel floating down and scintillating all over the lawn and trees, exactly the same as Christmas tinsel.
Of course I would collect as much as I could find, because it was a real treasure. My parents explained that all of the tinsel was to test the radar at the big air force base in the next town. They did not add that it was because the United States and the Soviet Union were busy preparing the end of the world.
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Post by Deleted on Oct 2, 2009 10:53:17 GMT
Triggered by my OP in the collecting thread. In the mid 70's I met a young man( while out with someone else)on a wonderful nightime trip by ferry from Montauk,L.I. to the tiny Block Island,R.I. We began a relationship almost immediately. He was the gardener of a huge estate in Southampton and needed to hire some summertime help. I implored him to hire me,and although he worked me like a horse,we had a delirious summer together. The estate was just off the Atlantic and during lunch time we would walk on the beach and together look for beach glass. We used to talk about how cool it would be to find a red one. The summer went by quickly and toward the end of the season our honeymoon together winded down and I took a job in NYC in the fall. We saw each other occassionally on weekends but it was clear the relationship was over. Fast forward to 1977,and living now in NOLA,one day during Carnival season I received a small package in the post,special delivery. Inside was a piece of beautifully worn down red beach glass. No note.
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Post by lola on Oct 2, 2009 16:07:21 GMT
Casimira, Kerouac: delightful.
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Post by Deleted on Oct 2, 2009 16:28:34 GMT
That was a great story, Casimira.
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Post by auntieannie on Oct 4, 2009 16:20:13 GMT
I remember being told off by my parents for decorating flatish stones with greased chalk pens. Well, mostly because we had sold some to the neighbours. ahem.
I remember being on a seesaw thing on a 1st August (Swiss National Day) when I was 5, with my sister, my brother and another friend of the family. two of the others kind of jumped from the seesaw and since I was so small opposite a quite heavy adolescent, my hands lost hold of the handle. I cut my chin on the metal. ensued some waiting time at the doctor's - thankfully just off the open space where the celebrations were happening. I still sport a small scar.
I remember my reaction the first time I saw the sea. must have been aged about 7) I thought it was fab, but at the same time I was terrified! What noise!
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Post by Deleted on Oct 5, 2009 11:16:07 GMT
As a child I was very much of a loner(still am in many ways). I played games that I made up that required no one else to participate in. I grew up directly across the street from this windmill and one day I feigned illness to be able to stay home from school. I did this on this particular day because I saw that the door to the windmill was unlocked(it is generally locked except for tours). My mother let me stay home and went off to work. As soon as she was gone,I went over to the windmill and spent the morning there. It was dark and musty inside but way up top there was a platform in the rear of the mill where the wheels that grind the grain are exposed. Way up there,I could see most of the village,my school(where I was supposed to be) and other wonders that could only be appreciated from on high. Just before lunch time I saw my mother's car in the distance,headed toward home. I quickly vacated my morning post and ran home to get back in bed.
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Post by rikita on Oct 6, 2009 18:40:50 GMT
hm, when i was sick during my kindergarden time my mom always took me to work with her (she worked in the local library) and i would sit in the back room, looking at books, listening to cassettes, and feeling important because i was in the back room where normal library visitors couldn't go. I also made a book, that is i drew the pictures and glued them together as a book, and told a girl who was doing an internship there what to write into the book... then i insisted my mom glue a card into it like wit hthe other book, and put it on the shelf with the children's books. the girl that had written the text then was the first to take it home. later i forgot about it, but when one day i remembered, i learned my mom had taken the book home and kept it, rather than leaving it in the library. i was a bit annoyed at that.
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Post by Kimby on Oct 12, 2009 16:46:17 GMT
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Post by Deleted on Nov 1, 2009 20:19:34 GMT
Every so often,I have a vivid memory of something that happened to me on one of the saddest days of my life. In order for the memory to occur certain conditions have to be in order,the sky crystal clear,blue,blue. A certain crispness to the quality of the air. And I have to be alone outside and a small airplane then flies overhead. We had just buried my brother whom I was very,very close to. After the cemetery, we all went back to my mothers house. I remember all I wanted to do was go and hide in the woods by myself. I did not want to be around anyone. A very dear friend of my mothers came by the house. She whisked me away and she drove us to a very small private airport nearby. She took me up in her little airplane and flew me all over the area where I grew up with my brother. We flew over ponds that we had ice skated on,the high school,our church,the farm, and then over his house and the house we grew up in. Neither of us spoke a word. I did not cry. We landed and went back to my mothers house. I will never,ever forget what that woman did for me that day. I remembered it all again today.
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Post by Deleted on Nov 1, 2009 21:46:03 GMT
I think that a low flight over places of importance might be one of the very best things that anybody can do in a time of need. I think that all of us who have had dreams of flying know how peaceful the sensation is. If only more people had such an opportunity in real life.
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Post by Deleted on Nov 1, 2009 22:47:20 GMT
That's very touching, casimira.
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Post by imec on Nov 2, 2009 3:25:04 GMT
It's a beautiful memory casimira. Thank you for painting this very personal scene for us.
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Post by auntieannie on Nov 2, 2009 19:54:28 GMT
Casimira.
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Post by Deleted on Nov 4, 2009 13:42:03 GMT
Flash back this morning.One year ago today, I spent one of the longest,and most memorable days working at the election polls for the U.S. Presidential election. I will never forget pulling into the dark parking lot at 4:30 a.m. to unlock the polling place and set up. There were already a good 300 people standing in line in the dark. When I got out of my car and saw this sight,I nearly wept I was so choked up. I called out a "good morning everyone" and in unison was greeted back.Shivers done my spine! What a day!
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Post by imec on Nov 4, 2009 14:37:43 GMT
Cool. It was inded quite a day - a good day in my opinion.
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Post by bixaorellana on Nov 4, 2009 16:16:54 GMT
That was a year ago?!
Wow. *moment of silent respect*
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Post by Deleted on Nov 14, 2009 22:03:13 GMT
There is talk of reviving zepplin service in the Paris metropolitan area. In terms of passenger traffic, I think it is just media hype, but apparently it is also an excellent non polluting way to transport cargo.
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Post by Deleted on Nov 22, 2009 11:51:32 GMT
We used to go blueberry picking in the woods every July. All of us each had our own little bucket or bowl and set off in different directions for hours at a time. I loved the time alone,away from bullying brothers and parents. There were all kinds of different sounds one was unaccustomed to hearing while there.Even the cars on the road outside the woods sounded different. Mostly though,birds. There was a bobwhite that my father had taught me about,how you could imitate it's call or whistle,and the bird would return the call. For what seemed like hours one day I whistled in response to this sound. Every time,the bird called back. On the way home, in the backseat with my brothers,tired from being out in the sun all day roaming around and puckering my lips,I heard a bobwhite whistle. I suddenly looked up and saw my father in the rear view mirror smiling at me.
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Post by Deleted on Nov 22, 2009 21:14:21 GMT
When my brother and I spent a year in France with our grandparents, our grandfather would take us hunting from time to time. He was the only person carrying a gun, of course, but it was absolutely fascinating walking along the hedgerows, listening for rustling sounds, seeing a hare suddenly bolt from the bushes or a flock of partridges fly in a panic out of high grass.
I have never wanted to hunt myself, but I fully understood how hunters commune with nature on such excursions, with the dew on the fields, the distant or nearby odors of manure or chimney fires, the sounds of cowbells, tractors or churches in the distance. We would examine strange droppings (just as Deyana does), admire unusual arrangements of mushrooms or the colors of late unidentified berries.
Sometimes my grandfather would shoot a hare or two and maybe a partridge, but other times we came back empty handed but not empty headed.
I also remember the last time I visited my grandfather. I already knew that he was slowly dying of cancer and was in considerable pain. He didn't feel like doing much anymore and was extremely disagreeable with my grandmother and my parents, who also happened to be visiting on a separate trip. But he asked me if I wanted to go for a walk with him, which of course I did. We walked the same route as we had ten years before when he was hunting, and he seemed to savor every detail of what we saw, heard or smelled, as though he had been missing it for a long time and knew that this was the last time he would ever be in these fields.
Luckily, I had reached an age (17) where I was not completely obtuse and understood what was happening. I still treasure the walk I had with him that day. He died the following year, after much time spent in the hospital.
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Post by lola on Nov 23, 2009 1:23:01 GMT
He knew the walk would live on in you.
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Post by Deleted on Nov 24, 2009 14:58:04 GMT
At five years old.
My mother would then show the girl her purse and then it was understood that there simply wasn’t enough money to cover the bill for the groceries. So some of the food would have to be put back, until it all came to five pounds or under. Being a normal child who wanted whatever every other little girl wanted, occasionally I would ask my mother to buy me something, one thing that I had my eye on was a beautiful Spanish Doll, that had a lovely red dress on with frills on the sides. This doll stood on the top shelf above the produce section in the supermarket, and I wanted it so bad. I very rarely asked for anything for myself, knowing the answer would be no. So you can imagine my surprise when one day my mother surprised me, she picked the doll up and gave it to me. I almost cried from the happiness I felt at being able to have this doll, I couldn’t believe that I was actually going to own my very first toy. I treasured that doll for a long, long time, I played with it until the dress started to look raggedy and the arms and legs started to fall of it, it was the only toy I would have for many years to come. I still don’t know how my mother managed to pay for it. She must have hidden some money away, where my dad didn’t know, and saved up for it for a very long time, in order to be able to afford it.
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Post by rikita on Nov 24, 2009 23:31:51 GMT
the other day, my mom and i visited a friend from my childhood - who still lives in a region where we used to spent our vacations quite often when i was little. as always, everything looked smaller... we passed a road (so narrow! wasn't it really wide when i was a child?) that we used to call the "roller coaster road" because if my dad went very fast on it then we, who were not used to driving over hills at all, could sometimes get this strange feeling in our stomachs, that you get on a roller coaster (not that we then had ever been on one).
this road led to a lake, that we sometimes went to swim at. and when i was ten or eleven, my brother, my friend and i were fishing at a different lake, in the village we stayed at, and got into a fight. i was very angry as my friend took my brothers side, so i decided to go away, take a little walk, to let off steam, and maybe scare them a bit. it was already six p.m., though still light as it was summer. i decided to walk to that other lake, the way never seemed very far, and i was sure i would remember the way, and somehow it just seemed a nice day to hike. i took along a comic book that i was reading while i walked - the roads there are lonely, so there is no need to watch out for traffic.
much of the way leads along fields and forests, at one part the road goes right through a forest. when i got to that part, the sun was setting, i had needed more time than i estimated, but i had set it into my mind that i wanted to reach the lake. i found the forest a bit scary, but there was still some light. by the time i reached the lake, however, it was really dark, and i only dared to go to it really quickly, and then turn around - i didn't want to spend time at a lonely dark lake surrounded by trees.
on the way back i really started dreading the moment i would have to enter the forest again - by now, it was really night, no light left, and of course there were street lights only in the villages. just before i reached the forest, however, a car stopped next to me. it took me a moment to recognize my parents' car. my dad opened the window and said "get in". he didn't say any more, and his voice was more angry than i could remember - usually if he got angry he'd shout, this time he said the words quietly, but i could tell he was angry.
when we got back to the holiday-house we stayed in - other than us, there was a big group of teenagers from our church staying there, and i remember how they were all standing in the garden, staring at our car when we came back, obviously they had all been out looking for me and now informing each other that i had been found. i felt embarrassed but also a bit angry - i had just gone on a walk, no need to look at me like that...
with the youth group, there was some kind of social worker or something too, and the next day or day after she asked me to come along to the nearby town where she wanted to do some shopping. she bought me ice cream and then started asking me questions. obviously she seemed to think i have some problems at home or wherever, since i had tried to run away. it was really difficult to convince her that running away was not that i had in mind - that i had just wanted to take a walk to let off some fume, and had underestimated the time that walk would take me.
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Post by Deleted on Nov 25, 2009 6:30:33 GMT
And yet some of those children are never found again...
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