Tag Archives: childhood memories

January 11, 2018 · 1:33 PM

French Toast

A neighbor, a hefty woman with floppy arms, lived alone, and liked children. Whenever I stopped in for a visit, she’d have a treat to offer me. She handed me a large chocolate Easter bunny once and then asked what I wanted for breakfast.

“French toast!” I sang, bouncing up and down. The neighbor put on an apron and shooed me out of her kitchen with her jiggling arms.

In the dining room, I sat on a chair with my legs swinging. I got up to stretch. I walked around and traced my hand over a flower arrangement, almost knocking the vase over. My eye caught a candy dish that sat in the center . . .

“Don’t you touch anything,” the neighbor called from the kitchen.

“I’m not,” I replied and returned the purple jellybean that I had licked.

A black cat-shaped clock hung on the wall. I followed the big, moving eyes and long, swinging tail—back and forth, back and forth, tick-tock, tick-tock. I gazed across dusty photo frames that filled the shelves and windowsills and wondered if any pictures were of her as a child. I wanted to thumb through her assortment of worn-out picture books and Life magazines stacked on bookshelves and floor. But I didn’t dare.

The aroma coming from the kitchen made my stomach rumble. I heard footsteps and raced to sit back down. The neighbor put a plate in front of me stacked with golden-brown French toast. She poured warm maple syrup over the fluffy slices of sweet bread. I knew I never smelled or tasted anything so delicious. My one regret: eating too fast and becoming full too quickly. Then I watched, horrified, as she collected my plate and tossed the rest into the trash, because I had eaten half a slice and tried to hide it in the bottom of the stack. I would have brought the rest home to share with Mama and eat later.

picture credit to 12tomatoes.com

(An excerpt from “Running in Heels – A Memoir of Grit and Grace“)

Bump in the Night

In our tiny efficiency, as I lay in pitch darkness, my eyes remained open, growing accustomed to the dark. The yellow moon peeked through the window shade. Eerie shadows traveled across the walls and bounced off a tattered chair whenever headlights from cars passed by.

Mama and I shared a narrow bed then. Because my stepdad, Warren had “accidents” in bed at night, he slept on the opposite one from us. Like the sound of a freight train, his incessant snoring rattled my eardrums. Asleep in her underwear, Mama’s gentle snoring came in spurts. Those sounds became my lullaby in the evenings, lulling me to sleep.

But not tonight.

I was never afraid during the night, but with a sense of foreboding I couldn’t shake off, I got up and propped a chair under the doorknob. Time passed. Thump! The chair toppled over and my heart hammered against my chest. Then I heard the knob turn and the door creaked. The hair on my scalp pricked me.

In the dark, I turned ever so slowly, peering through half-closed lids.

The silhouette of Warren’s weird friend crawled, cat-like, on all fours. He inched his way closer. And closer. Warren snorted and rolled over. El Creepo froze. Then he continued his way toward Mama. His hand reached her leg and started feeling upward . . .

With sheer determination, I hopped up, screaming at the top of my lungs. Like a wild animal caught in blinding light, El Creepo jumped and made a beeline toward the door. He crashed into a chair, tripped over the box fan, and then collided with the dresser before hightailing out. Crying and shaken out of my wits, I turned the light switch and called out to my parents in zombie-land, to no avail. It took a long time before I shut my eyes.

The next morning, I gave a full report. With stupefied faces and mouths agape, they attempted to process my words.

“What?” Mama shrieked. “I didn’t hear anything!”

“Mama, he touched you!”

“How did he . . . ?” Warren stammered.

Mama gave him a dirty look. “The door doesn’t have a lock, you dope, remember?”

“Well, you just wait ‘till I see that jerk again,” Warren hinted, getting up to check the knob.

One may think that this frightening episode caused a rude awakening in my party-animal parents. It changed nothing. Sometimes, I think Mama didn’t know what to do with me. Some days she wanted me close. Other days she didn’t.

Excerpt from Chapter 5 in “Running in Heels: A Memoir of Grit and Grace”
© M.A. Pérez 2017, All Rights Reserved

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Filed under Memoir, reflection

Tagged as childhood, childhood memories, excerpt, frighten, innocence, memoir, memoir writer, personal, Running in Heels: A Memoir of Grit and Grace

April 10, 2014 · 11:33 AM

Memory Lane …

Do you remember something as a child that stood out? I have plenty! Here are some of mine mentioned in my memoir, Running in Heels:

“I remember the unpleasant chalky taste of Phillip’s Milk of Magnesia and the fishy tasting cod liver oil by the spoonfuls, administered for any complaints or discomforts given to me for cures by Grandma. Those included the green rubbing alcohol, Vicks VapoRub, and Mercurochrome for fever, colds, or scrapes respectively. They were Grandma’s tried-and-true remedies coupled with a prayer or two.”

Here’s another one:

Photo Credit: deeplifequotes via Compfight cc

“Fascinated with ant piles, I liked to dig apart their colonies to watch the different activities of the workers, the soldiers, and the queen ant that I read about in books. I never developed a fear of grasshoppers, even if they spat “tobacco” on my fingers, or of handling caterpillars that pricked when they crawled on my hand, or of sneaking up on lizards that left their wiggling tails behind, wondering what the funny red thing on their throats going in and out was all about.”

And one more:

“As a treat before bedtime, Grandpa always gave me a cup of eggnog made with warm milk, an egg yolk, and sugar. He said it would help me to sleep after a hot bath. He was right. Sleep came like a welcomed friend.”

As a memoirist, I find that one word can trigger an event. I dig deep and write some pleasant ones as a child: bubbles, puppies, balloons, swings, ice cream, Easter...!

Definition of memory: 1) The faculty by which the mind stores and remembers information. 2) Something remembered from the past; a recollection. The mind is fascinating and stores a lot of information and images. We know that there are two types of memories – pleasant and unpleasant.