When you are small,your mind works very differently.My sister says I have a great memory for things of long ago,but it's not true.All that I recall about those very earliest days I've written down,save one which I will soon reveal.I've held it back for a purpose.Those things that I've related are all that I recall and really,they seem such a small handful.Though more memory might indeed come,I fear that my memory fades with age.
Memory.It's such a strange thing.What is a memory?I can recall chickens in the yard,and cows and Mormon children and old Dodge pickup trucks,but really there must have been much more.We lived at that farmhouse for about a year and every day would have held new experiances.So why do so many of them just drift away.What is a memory anyway?Where does a remembered thing go until it is recalled?And where do the ones that are never recalled live?
My mind worked very differently in those days than it does today.I've studied developmental psychology in school,and why I mention it is that,in looking back,I can see that children are far from being small adults.I can see it in the recalling of things.For one thing,I had no real idea of anything in the world except what was happening in the moment.Recalling it is something like standing in the same river twice,but not exactly.For me,as a child,the world seemed to emerge a little bit at a time,as though I were swimming in the ocean and then a reef appeared,then another,then perhaps an island,an archepeligo,then a continent.
Most of my world at that time was inhabited by people larger than myself.I had a little sister,whom I viewed as a baby.We were not so far apart in age,but months make a huge difference when you are very young.It was almost as though my sister were not a part of my life at all,young children being rather self centered.Today when I look at children,it seems as babies have nearly no interest in other babies,and that confirms a reality of my very youngest days.
Things in those days didn't make a lot of sense to me.they just happened.Such was the nature of the very first thing I remember and know for certain that my memory about it is reliable.In talking to other people,especially other writers,I've often heard them say that they can recall being born.I'm sure that we recall that on some level,that it's submerged somewhere in our minds,but I have to say,I really don't recall it.I think that it's very difficult to recall anything without a certain level of language development.Memory that cannot be expressed is lost,or so it seems to me.But in Redmondville,I was able to speak and respond to speach.And so I experianced my first detailed memory.
Many people recall where they were on the day John F. Kennedy was assinated.I'm not among those people.Ironically,though,that first detailed memory must have occured around the same time.The weather was fine but cool and I was out playing in the driveway.Cars rushed from north to south and from south to north on the road in front of our house.It must have been afternoon.A panel truck approached from the south,a bright blue one.I recognized it,even then as belonging to the phone company.There were chickens behind me and the barn door was open and squeeked on it's hinges.There were some crows in the sky too.The truck came nearer and nearer until it seemed to almost stop,really,more of a pause than a stop.It paused.Then it went across onto the wrong side of the road.It went into the ditch and it rolled over.And I stood there among the chickens and watched,having no idea of the signifigance of the event.I had no experiance at that time that would have told me what to do.I don't think it had ever occured to me that cars could have accidents much less that anyone could be hurt.
I don't recall how anyone found out about the accident,but I'm sure it was not from me.As I say,it must have been afternoon,likely around four o'clock.The next thing that I really remember is being at the accident scene with my father.I wasn't standing on the ground-he was holding me.There was a small.thin man there,with a balding head and a dark complexion.He had a bandage around his head and his ear was bleeding.It was his right ear and the cut must have been very bad.He was walking about though.We stayed and watched a tow truck pull the truck upright,and as it did I remember pink and yellow invoices covered with blood fluttering about inside the truck.
And that is the first memory I have that I know is reliable.It amazes me though,how I thought about it at the time.I hope I was not the cause of that man laying in the ditch for longer than he had to.To me.then,it was just something that happened,like a blue van going past on it's way to Chatham or New Castle,or like a pig rooting up the garden,or a kite flying in the sky.It points out to me now how very different we are as small children.
Memory.It's such a strange thing.What is a memory?I can recall chickens in the yard,and cows and Mormon children and old Dodge pickup trucks,but really there must have been much more.We lived at that farmhouse for about a year and every day would have held new experiances.So why do so many of them just drift away.What is a memory anyway?Where does a remembered thing go until it is recalled?And where do the ones that are never recalled live?
My mind worked very differently in those days than it does today.I've studied developmental psychology in school,and why I mention it is that,in looking back,I can see that children are far from being small adults.I can see it in the recalling of things.For one thing,I had no real idea of anything in the world except what was happening in the moment.Recalling it is something like standing in the same river twice,but not exactly.For me,as a child,the world seemed to emerge a little bit at a time,as though I were swimming in the ocean and then a reef appeared,then another,then perhaps an island,an archepeligo,then a continent.
Most of my world at that time was inhabited by people larger than myself.I had a little sister,whom I viewed as a baby.We were not so far apart in age,but months make a huge difference when you are very young.It was almost as though my sister were not a part of my life at all,young children being rather self centered.Today when I look at children,it seems as babies have nearly no interest in other babies,and that confirms a reality of my very youngest days.
Things in those days didn't make a lot of sense to me.they just happened.Such was the nature of the very first thing I remember and know for certain that my memory about it is reliable.In talking to other people,especially other writers,I've often heard them say that they can recall being born.I'm sure that we recall that on some level,that it's submerged somewhere in our minds,but I have to say,I really don't recall it.I think that it's very difficult to recall anything without a certain level of language development.Memory that cannot be expressed is lost,or so it seems to me.But in Redmondville,I was able to speak and respond to speach.And so I experianced my first detailed memory.
Many people recall where they were on the day John F. Kennedy was assinated.I'm not among those people.Ironically,though,that first detailed memory must have occured around the same time.The weather was fine but cool and I was out playing in the driveway.Cars rushed from north to south and from south to north on the road in front of our house.It must have been afternoon.A panel truck approached from the south,a bright blue one.I recognized it,even then as belonging to the phone company.There were chickens behind me and the barn door was open and squeeked on it's hinges.There were some crows in the sky too.The truck came nearer and nearer until it seemed to almost stop,really,more of a pause than a stop.It paused.Then it went across onto the wrong side of the road.It went into the ditch and it rolled over.And I stood there among the chickens and watched,having no idea of the signifigance of the event.I had no experiance at that time that would have told me what to do.I don't think it had ever occured to me that cars could have accidents much less that anyone could be hurt.
I don't recall how anyone found out about the accident,but I'm sure it was not from me.As I say,it must have been afternoon,likely around four o'clock.The next thing that I really remember is being at the accident scene with my father.I wasn't standing on the ground-he was holding me.There was a small.thin man there,with a balding head and a dark complexion.He had a bandage around his head and his ear was bleeding.It was his right ear and the cut must have been very bad.He was walking about though.We stayed and watched a tow truck pull the truck upright,and as it did I remember pink and yellow invoices covered with blood fluttering about inside the truck.
And that is the first memory I have that I know is reliable.It amazes me though,how I thought about it at the time.I hope I was not the cause of that man laying in the ditch for longer than he had to.To me.then,it was just something that happened,like a blue van going past on it's way to Chatham or New Castle,or like a pig rooting up the garden,or a kite flying in the sky.It points out to me now how very different we are as small children.
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