Most people don't believe me when I say I remember being two and three years old, but I really do. I remember so much from those years, 1972 and 1973, when we lived on Windsor Street in Chilliwack - we moved there when we moved from Saskatchewan in 1972.
I remember being two years old, lying in my crib and refusing to sleep, and finally my sister "Libby" came and got me. That was the last time I napped as a child. I remember shortly after that getting a double bed. I remember one day right after that, on a Sunday afternoon, walking with my parents and 3 sisters to this store called the Bon Marche, which really was just sort of a smoke shop/gift store (shit, remember smoke shops?), and then being tired on the way home and riding on my dad's shoulders, and having to pee really bad, and when we got home, instead of going to the can, I knocked on the door of my room, then went in it and said "yesssss?" and then said "Exuse me madam, may I use your bathroom" and then going back and saying "yes" and then walking over to the wall and peeing on it.
I remember staying home during the days with my mother, and her watching the Edge of Night on this yellow black and white television in her room, that had rabbit ears. I remember listening to "Danny's Song" by Anne Murray and her singing it to me all the time. I remember her putting on make up and "Second Debut", which was either make up or lotion - I am not sure but I remember the smell. My mom had a friend named Verna who lived at the end of the road. Verna had 5 kids, but she always had a box of Nuts and Bolts in the house to feed me, so I loved going there. My favorites were the Shreddies, and I would bite the ends off of the pretzels and put the Cheerios on the ends and make wheels. Do they still sell Nuts and Bolts?
I used to play with these kids across the street with white, white hair. Cory was the name of one of them. One time, one of them puked out on the sidewalk, and there was this spot that was sort of pink on the cement and I was always convinced it was the puke.
Two of my sisters had rooms in the basement, or make-shift rooms anyway, with bamboo dividers. The basement always flooded because of the rain, and we had a sump pump down there and I was always scared when there was water down there. I still get irrationally freaked out by flooded basements and broken pipes and water and such. Really freaked out. I remember going down one morning and my dad put me on this shelf while they mopped the floor up.
I remember I would stand on this wooden mandarin orange crate and watch the washing machine all the time. My strange laundry obsession started then. We had this weird washer with a green agitator.
I will always remember our yard. It was like Eden. We had a huge Golden Delicious apple tree in our yard, and concord grapes on each side - green on one side, purple on the other. We have a picture of my grandma posing with all these grapes and I never understood why until I moved here and realized the shit you take for granted. We also had a blueberry bush back there, and a fish pond. We would feed the fish these big round things that looked like gall stones. In the winter, sometimes ice would form on the top of the pond and they would swim under the ice.
I remember we also took my grandma to Fort Langley and we ate soda crackers out of a big barrel, which I thought was the cat's ass. I also remember driving to Chilliwack from Saskatchewan with my parents, 3 sisters, and my grandma in the car, and then picking up my 10 foot cousin Barry in Calgary and all of us driving through the horrible summer heat in one car, no air conditioning, with towels in the windows to block the sun. Mom, dad, and grandma all smoked, and everyone had the farts from cherries we bought at fruit stands. We also used to stop at this one mountain stream (strange now that I think about it because my parents never stopped for anything other than a pee break and an ice cream cone at Revelstoke, or the A & W in Golden, or at the Swan Lake fruit stand in Vernon that our relatives owned) and fill up on the coldest, best tasting water around.
I also remember being at grandma's at that age, in Herbert, Saskatchewan. Grandma's back yard looked out into a field. I remember the curtains in her bathroom, which my mom used for years after she died. They were gold and had oval holes in them. I remember we slept in grandma's basement and I was terrified of being down there, and the dank smell, and not wanting to look at her wringer washer, because I thought it was some kind of machine that would get you - sort of like the Jetson's robot maid. I also remember the plastic kleenex box cover in her bathroom.
I remember on Sundays we would walk down the road to the Little Mountain Deli where my parents would buy pickled herring (Chilliwack was a Dutch town) and I wouldn't taste it, but it smelled so good. We would also drive out about 5 miles out of town and buy fresh corn from this stand that was a windmill. I remember when the mall first opened in Chilliwack, Cottonwood Corner, and drinking grape pop with crushed ice from those pop fountain thingies (remember those?) in the Skillet at Zellers. I remember we bought our dryer in 73 from Zellers, a Bradford, the brand was, and I now realize my fear of electricity comes from then - when they were waiting for the dryer to come, the wires were exposed where you hooked it up and the folks told me not to touch them or I'd die or the house would burn down or something.
I also know it was from then that I got my fear of the house burning down if a lamp fell over. I don't know why that was, but my sister "Leslie" and I think our mom told us that. I remember running around the house, through the kitchen, into the dining room, then the living room, and over and over in circles and my mom saying "don't touch the stove" and so I did, and burned my hand. I remember we had a room in the basement called "the funny room" which was where we kept the trunks, filled with old clothes, diapers, mom's wedding dress, etc. It was a treat to go in there.
And that, my friends, is my memories of the years 1972 and 1973, when I was 2 and 3. Perhaps tomorrow we'll do the next year. I am sure you are waiting with baited breath.
xo
JT
