I once read a quote that said something like, "Childhood is a lot like being drunk: everyone remembers what you did except you." I've never been drunk, but I have been a child and remember very, very little about the experience. Much of what I do know has probably been pieced together from stories my parents and others have told me throughout my life, but here a few ACTUAL memories from my childhood that have stood the test of time.
My earliest memory is of living in some red brick apartments in Orem, Utah just west of University Mall. I think I loved there from about ages 2 through 3. We lived in a basement apartment, and one of our neighbors was a little girl who, according to my mom, was one of the most hyper kids who ever walked the face of the earth. My first memory is of her stomping on my toy organ and breaking it. I also remember being kicked in the eye while walking past her in the swingset (probably my fault for getting too close), and one time she and I were picked up by the police while walking down an island in the middle of a busy street (State Street). I still remember thinking it was pretty cool that I got to ride in a police car :) I also fell off the bed while we were living in those apartments and cracked my head open, and I still remember screaming while the doctor shoved me under the sink in his office to clean the blood off my head before giving me stitches. My last memory of those apartments is of the day we moved to Provo. I was worried that my favorite Christmas present, a spring horse that I could ride, would be forgotten. So I sat by it as I watched everything get loaded into the truck, and my spring horse was the very last item that was loaded before the door was closed.
Our new house was an actual house. It was located in East Provo and had white wood siding. There was a basement apartment with a young married couple and on Halloween just after my 4th birthday I decided to go trick-or-treating to their house ... at 10am. They were more than a little surprised to see me there so early in the day, and they hadn't bought candy yet so they gave me a banana :) A few months later I decided to try my hand at shoplifting. Allen's Drug Store was about a block away and my friend and I went there with a friend. It was Easter time and we decided the Cadbury eggs looked good, so we took a few and put them in our pockets, walked outside and around the corner and ate them. Then (and this will betray my abundant lack of criminal experience), we walked back INTO the store -- probably with chocolate all over our hands and faces -- to get more. Someone must have recognized us because our moms both arrived a few minutes later. To this day I have never forgotten the spanking my mom gave me.
We had a garden while living in that white house. I didn't mind the green and yellow beans they grew, and I think I even liked the peas. But I drew the line at zucchini. One night at dinner my mom was trying to get me to eat some, and it tasted so bad I was gagging. The main dish was stroganoff, which I liked, so my mom said to me, "Maybe if you eat the zucchini with the stroganoff it won't be so bad." So I tried it, and threw up all over the kitchen floor (which, unfortunately, was carpeted). Now that I am an adult, zucchini tastes completely different. Maybe my parents just had a bad variety or something, but if I ever again taste anything that reminds me even remotely of the way that zucchini tasted when I was a kid I'll spit it out of my mouth so fast even Spiderman wouldn't be able to move quickly enough to avoid getting hit by it.
There was an apartment complex across the street from where we lived that had a brick planter box, and one day I was climbing onto the planter box and jumping off when another little boy decided to join me. His name was Clayton, and he was my first real friend. I liked playing outside so much that I didn't want to come in for any reason. Being a boy, it was easy to find a way to use the bathroom without actually having to go indoors. And when I got thirsty, well, there was a convenient gutter filled with water that I could drink out of. One day when I wasn't feeling well my mom said to me, "Were you drinking from the gutter? Our neighbor said she saw you." I vehemently denied it, but that was the last time I drank from the gutter. Having to go inside for water was a small price to pay to avoid having to lie in bed for an entire day.
I remember the day my sister was born. My parents had been talking about how exciting it would be for me to have a sister and I was really on board with the whole idea. When it was time for my mom to go to the hospital I was shocked and more than a little displeased to discover that my uncle had been assigned to take care of me. I had thought my parents and I were a team! A couple years later that same uncle let me watch "Raider's of the Lost Ark" and I had nightmares for weeks. My parents never asked him to babysit again. (Maybe that was his plan all along :) )
My great-grandmother (my dad's dad's mom) lived about a mile away from us and we visited her often. She always wore sneakers, often complained about her ingrown toenail, worked harder than anyone I have ever met before or since (and she was in her eighties by the time I knew her), and made the world's best peanut brittle. To this day I have still never tasted anything that compared to hers. She worried about tripping over the vacuum chord and falling, so when I did chores at her house I always kept the vacuum chord coiled around my arm, letting out just enough to do the job but keep it off the floor. When my parents bought an upright vacuum I was vacuuming at home one day and did that exact same thing. My mom kindly informed me that it wasn't necessary to do that when I vacuumed at our house, and it made the job of vacuuming much easier for me. My great-grandmother loved getting Christmas cards and saved every single one she received. I remember seeing them strung up all over her house. She also adored her iris garden, and would invite my family over every spring to see them in bloom. She had two big walnut trees in her back yard and I enjoyed climbing on them. We occasionally visited my other great-grandmother who lived in Layton (my dad's mom's mom). She always gave me a snicker's bar and her husband always gave me a crisp dollar bill.
I lost my first tooth when I was about four or five years old. I was walking down the sidewalk chewing purple bubblegum and suddenly there was something crunchy in it :) I got a blue bike with red tires for Christmas a few months after I turned five. I still remember walking into the living room and seeing it sitting next to the tree in all its glory. I could hardly contain my excitement. My parents used to take walks on Sundays, window shopping in downtown Provo. I started bringing my bike with me and learned how to ride on those walks. I had training wheels for a while, but one day I was riding around the neighborhood and an across-the-street neighbor noticed that I wasn't really using the training wheels and offered to take them off for me. Soon after that I was riding my bike in bare feet and parked it on the lawn, only to step on a bee. I had an allergic reaction to that sting and had to be rushed to the hospital, but I've been stung since without a similar effect. I also had a piece of ply wood fall on me one time and got a splinter so deep we had to go to the doctor to get it removed.
All things considered, I had a pretty fantastic childhood. There are good and bad memories, of course, but I knew I was loved and my parents took good care of me and tried to start me off heading in the right direction. When I tried to wander off in a different direction, they did their best to get me back in line. Now that I am a father I hope I am trying to pass their legacy of love on to my own children.
Wednesday, March 18, 2015
Tuesday, March 17, 2015
Family Vacations
When I was growing up my parents took my sister and me on some pretty memorable family vacations. They weren't always memorable in a GOOD way, like the time we hit a deer in Spanish Fork canyon while traveling home from a vacation at night, but I am grateful my parents took the time to help us explore the world.
When I was quite young my parents bought a timeshare condominium in Park City, and I have so many great memories there. The first time we went they had a microwave, and we were pretty excited because we didn't have one at home. So we bought a bag of large colored marshmallows and microwaved them. One year when we went there was so much snow that we opened our back door and there was snow piled almost to the very top of it.
We had two weeks in Park City, one was in August and the other was the last week of the year (between Christmas and New Year's). So a lot of my childhood New Year's celebrations were spent in Park City. I liked it there for a lot of reasons, but in particular I think I liked the fact that we weren't always rushing about trying to get as many things done as possible while we were traveling. Park City was relaxing (they even had a hot tub and sauna) and we spent a lot of our time just playing card games or monopoly or shopping on main street or skiing or wandering around the miniature mall they had there or going on the alpine slide.
By contrast, our traveling family vacations could sometimes be pretty frenzied. My mom was from Virginia, and we went there several times for Thanksgiving and at least once for Christmas. I remember staying up late one night while in Virginia to finish the 6th "Work and the Glory" book, which ended with the martyrdom of Joseph Smith. When I was 18 I went to Virginia and we visited Monticello, Thomas Jefferson's house. It was being remodeled at the time and all of the furniture was covered in sheets. There was also no heat in the building, and I wasn't prepared for such cold weather. There is something about East Coast cold that makes Utah winters seem like spring by comparison, even when there is snow on the ground in Utah and no snow in Virginia. I think it's the humidity. I had a similar experience while trying to visit the Smithsonian one time. We took the Subway into Washington D.C. only to discover that the museums were all closed. I still remember huddling on one of the porches trying to get warm while we figured out what to do.
One time while visiting Virginia we decided to take a trip to Williamsburg. My dad wrecked our rental car, so we decided to save a little money and rented a used car from a place called "Fancy Flivvers." It was a really old Plymouth and we all wondered if it would be reliable, but we wanted to see Williamsburg so we took the risk. Unfortunately the engine caught on fire while we were driving back. We pulled over to the side of the road and some friendly people were kind enough to offer us a ride to the Richmond airport so we could rent another car. As we were driving my parents saw a hitchhiker and decided to give him a ride. They were feeling generous because of the help they had received, but picking up a random hitchhiker outside Richmond Virginia at 2 in the morning is a little different than helping a family whose car is broken down on the side of the freeway. My sister immediately crawled into the front seat, and I stayed in the back with our new "friend" while he went on and on about how his boss howled at the moon and other completely nonsensical things. Looking back, I suspect he was high. Or crazy. Or both. But fortunately not homicidal :)
One time we took a trip to New York, and I remember the sky in New York city being red and it really scared me. I liked upstate New York, though. We visited Palmyra and the sacred grove and stayed at my aunt and uncle's house. In the middle of the night I wet the bed, and was so embarrassed about it (I was like 8 years old) that I didn't tell anyone. I just wadded up my underwear and threw it under the bathroom sink, hoping no one would ever find it. About a month later, at Christmas time, we received a package from my aunt and uncle that included several wrapped gifts and my underwear that I had hoped to never see again. My aunt had even washed it for me :) I still haven't recovered from that embarrassment.
One time we visited New England. I remember going to the world's oldest candy store in Salem, Massachusetts and visiting Bunker Hill and Paul Revere's house. We also went to Boston and my one goal was to try a bowl of New England clam chowder in the place that made it famous. On another trip we stayed with my uncle in Connecticut over Thanksgiving. It was on that trip that I discovered the artist Enya, and also got in a huge fight with my mom's overly competitive family while playing the game "Encore." The same thing happened when I tried to play that game 20 years later, and I have avoided it ever since. Some games just aren't worth the contention :)
When I was in 4th grade we drove to Denver and caught a train to Burlington, Iowa for a family reunion in Nauvoo. I loved being on the train, watching the sunrise over the corn field of Nebraska and stealing half and half from the dining car :) It was really fun to be able to move around a bit instead of just sitting in a seat in a car or airplane. We also went to St. Louis on the trip, where I threw a tantrum because I didn't want to go to an art museum. But I did enjoying seeing the gateway arch and taking a 3 hour ride on a Mississippi riverboat called "The Presidential."
Another time we went to Maine for Thanksgiving and I got into a fight with my cousin, a seventh day adventist, about which day the Sabbath should be observed on. We also took shorter trips, such as to Mesa Verde in Colorado or Moab, Utah, or Blanding to visit my cousins. We went to Bryce National Park several times and Yellowstone once. We went camping at Craters of the Moon in Idaho when I was 18, and I felt pretty cool on that trip because we took my truck and I got to drive.
When I was about 7 I spent 3 weeks in St. George visiting my cousins and had quite an adventure. I got strep, walked across a hot road in bare feet on what was at the time a record-breaking temperature for the state of Utah (117 degrees), took a mud bath, hiked to the top of a hill, got head lice, and was attacked by a cactus. That last one was one of the best lessons in physics I have ever learned. I was in the front yard with my cousins and my oldest cousin Nathan challenged me to a foot race. He said to me, pointing across the yard, "the first one to touch the flower on that cactus wins." Never one to refuse a challenge, I gave it everything I had and was the first one to touch the flower. It would have been a glorious moment if my momentum hadn't then carried me into the cactus itself, resulting in several hours of painful cactus needle extraction from just about every part of my body. But it was, without question, a memorable moment in my life :)
When I was quite young my parents bought a timeshare condominium in Park City, and I have so many great memories there. The first time we went they had a microwave, and we were pretty excited because we didn't have one at home. So we bought a bag of large colored marshmallows and microwaved them. One year when we went there was so much snow that we opened our back door and there was snow piled almost to the very top of it.
We had two weeks in Park City, one was in August and the other was the last week of the year (between Christmas and New Year's). So a lot of my childhood New Year's celebrations were spent in Park City. I liked it there for a lot of reasons, but in particular I think I liked the fact that we weren't always rushing about trying to get as many things done as possible while we were traveling. Park City was relaxing (they even had a hot tub and sauna) and we spent a lot of our time just playing card games or monopoly or shopping on main street or skiing or wandering around the miniature mall they had there or going on the alpine slide.
By contrast, our traveling family vacations could sometimes be pretty frenzied. My mom was from Virginia, and we went there several times for Thanksgiving and at least once for Christmas. I remember staying up late one night while in Virginia to finish the 6th "Work and the Glory" book, which ended with the martyrdom of Joseph Smith. When I was 18 I went to Virginia and we visited Monticello, Thomas Jefferson's house. It was being remodeled at the time and all of the furniture was covered in sheets. There was also no heat in the building, and I wasn't prepared for such cold weather. There is something about East Coast cold that makes Utah winters seem like spring by comparison, even when there is snow on the ground in Utah and no snow in Virginia. I think it's the humidity. I had a similar experience while trying to visit the Smithsonian one time. We took the Subway into Washington D.C. only to discover that the museums were all closed. I still remember huddling on one of the porches trying to get warm while we figured out what to do.
One time while visiting Virginia we decided to take a trip to Williamsburg. My dad wrecked our rental car, so we decided to save a little money and rented a used car from a place called "Fancy Flivvers." It was a really old Plymouth and we all wondered if it would be reliable, but we wanted to see Williamsburg so we took the risk. Unfortunately the engine caught on fire while we were driving back. We pulled over to the side of the road and some friendly people were kind enough to offer us a ride to the Richmond airport so we could rent another car. As we were driving my parents saw a hitchhiker and decided to give him a ride. They were feeling generous because of the help they had received, but picking up a random hitchhiker outside Richmond Virginia at 2 in the morning is a little different than helping a family whose car is broken down on the side of the freeway. My sister immediately crawled into the front seat, and I stayed in the back with our new "friend" while he went on and on about how his boss howled at the moon and other completely nonsensical things. Looking back, I suspect he was high. Or crazy. Or both. But fortunately not homicidal :)
One time we took a trip to New York, and I remember the sky in New York city being red and it really scared me. I liked upstate New York, though. We visited Palmyra and the sacred grove and stayed at my aunt and uncle's house. In the middle of the night I wet the bed, and was so embarrassed about it (I was like 8 years old) that I didn't tell anyone. I just wadded up my underwear and threw it under the bathroom sink, hoping no one would ever find it. About a month later, at Christmas time, we received a package from my aunt and uncle that included several wrapped gifts and my underwear that I had hoped to never see again. My aunt had even washed it for me :) I still haven't recovered from that embarrassment.
One time we visited New England. I remember going to the world's oldest candy store in Salem, Massachusetts and visiting Bunker Hill and Paul Revere's house. We also went to Boston and my one goal was to try a bowl of New England clam chowder in the place that made it famous. On another trip we stayed with my uncle in Connecticut over Thanksgiving. It was on that trip that I discovered the artist Enya, and also got in a huge fight with my mom's overly competitive family while playing the game "Encore." The same thing happened when I tried to play that game 20 years later, and I have avoided it ever since. Some games just aren't worth the contention :)
When I was in 4th grade we drove to Denver and caught a train to Burlington, Iowa for a family reunion in Nauvoo. I loved being on the train, watching the sunrise over the corn field of Nebraska and stealing half and half from the dining car :) It was really fun to be able to move around a bit instead of just sitting in a seat in a car or airplane. We also went to St. Louis on the trip, where I threw a tantrum because I didn't want to go to an art museum. But I did enjoying seeing the gateway arch and taking a 3 hour ride on a Mississippi riverboat called "The Presidential."
Another time we went to Maine for Thanksgiving and I got into a fight with my cousin, a seventh day adventist, about which day the Sabbath should be observed on. We also took shorter trips, such as to Mesa Verde in Colorado or Moab, Utah, or Blanding to visit my cousins. We went to Bryce National Park several times and Yellowstone once. We went camping at Craters of the Moon in Idaho when I was 18, and I felt pretty cool on that trip because we took my truck and I got to drive.
When I was about 7 I spent 3 weeks in St. George visiting my cousins and had quite an adventure. I got strep, walked across a hot road in bare feet on what was at the time a record-breaking temperature for the state of Utah (117 degrees), took a mud bath, hiked to the top of a hill, got head lice, and was attacked by a cactus. That last one was one of the best lessons in physics I have ever learned. I was in the front yard with my cousins and my oldest cousin Nathan challenged me to a foot race. He said to me, pointing across the yard, "the first one to touch the flower on that cactus wins." Never one to refuse a challenge, I gave it everything I had and was the first one to touch the flower. It would have been a glorious moment if my momentum hadn't then carried me into the cactus itself, resulting in several hours of painful cactus needle extraction from just about every part of my body. But it was, without question, a memorable moment in my life :)
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