A Childhood

Remembering: A List

Inspired by Joshua Rothman’s latest piece in The New Yorker, What Do You Remember? When you start to write it down, so much more comes up.

Drawing by me.

I REMEMBER

I remember going on chores with Dad on Saturday.

I remember him timing Mark and I running around the house.

And timing me speed-reading Hebrew.

I remember our hill on Kirk Place being the place to sled.

And walking baby Ellen in the stroller with Mark and letting the carriage roll a few feet down the hill with us running to catch it.

I remember Mark and I sneaking to the top of the stairs to watch Mom and Dad watching TV after our bedtime.

I remember bumping down those stairs on our asses for fun

I remember spinning around to get dizzy and hitting my head on the TV and having to get stitches.

I remember Mark and I going around the neighborhood trying to sell weeds. They looked like flowers to us.

I remember the Bradishes’ radishes.

I remember Mark jumping off a bridge.

I remember Dad accidentally shutting the car door on Ellen’s finger.

I remember having to buy paper underwear the first time Mom let me pack my own suitcase for Ocean City.

I remember Atlantic Court, the swingset in the sand in the middle, and playing cards on the balcony with other kids on rainy days.

I remember Dad teaching us how to dive under waves.

I remember Clint Newman letting us bury him under sand.

I remember sand crabs.

I remember elementary school Valentines Day.

I remember the Jewish kids getting our own bulletin board for Hanukkah one year and feeling so embarrassed that it looked so amateurish compared to the Christmas one, which the teacher helped with.

I remember keeping my mouth closed tight whenever Jesus’s name came up in Christmas carols.

I remember Mom with a beehive hairdo.

I remember that dark pine table in the kitchen that was so soft it retained impressions of our writing when we did homework there.

I remember the time I ran out of gas and left Mark and Billy West as collateral.

I remember Dad and I going to peace marches in Washington.

And hating Richard Nixon.

I remember listening to the Watergate hearings while I typed invoices at Food Chemical News and screaming to everyone after Alexander Butterfield revealed there was a recording system in the Oval Office.

I remember Forrest Mansfield, a high school crush and classic bad boy, a redhead with a high forehead even then, who rewarded my interest by shooting the windshield of one of our cars with a BB gun.

I remember Dave Davis, who made us go around all the yards on Kirk Place and pull out wild onions because he said his dad liked them.

I remember making potholders.

I remember making treasure hunts when the Newmans came over.

I remember getting a football and a Polaroid for my birthday one year.

And another year being sick on my birthday and always associating the Yardley perfume Mom got me with being nauseous.

I remember going to charm school in the basement of a church on Saturday mornings and hating it.

I remember walking in the woods with Lisa DeFilippis.

I remember hanging out with Jenny Berle and her older sisters in their kitchen, as they peeled apples.

I remember the bead doorways in Jenny Berle’s house and the hanging chair in their living room.

I remember four-square and hopscotch and being very good at the pogo stick.

I remember Mom getting very tense about messes in the house several days before throwing a dinner party.

I remember getting paid to clean up the dishes after those parties.

And Mark suddenly jumping out from the dining room to scare me while I loaded the dishwasher.

I remember candy cigarettes.

I remember Tiny Tim singing “Tiptoe Through the Tulips.”

I remember Herb Albert and the Tijuana Brass’s album cover with the naked lady covered with whipped cream.

I remember Love Story and Jonathan Livingston Seagull.

I remember going to the Sterile Cuckoo even though it was considered too mature for a kid my age to see.

I remember Zadee slipping us money whenever we visited, and his thick Russian accent.

I remember Grandma and Grandpa's house in Pottsville, with the glider on the front porch and a bed in the living room for Grandpa after he had his heart attack.

I remember a bat flying around in that house once and Dad and Grandpa chasing it with brooms.

I remember “Ice Cream, You Scream, We all Scream for Ice Cream.”

I remember loving the trip to the store to buy school supplies.

I remember the summer before college being so sad that our family would no longer live together.

I remember getting to U.Va. and getting over that within hours, seeing the four of them standing at the end of the balcony and waving goodbye.

Painting by me

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