a trip back in time

To distract myself from car woes (and the verdict is that we’re getting it fixed but we won’t have it back till sometime next week. Waaaaaaaah. I hate sharing a car!!!)  and how apparently  it is never ever ever going to be above twenty degrees ever again, I latched right onto this nifty survey from Dragonlady:

1. where did you grow up? Asheville, NC.

2. did you like your schools? No. I only went to two (we didn’t have middle school way back in the dark ages), and I hated them both.

3. did you have a special place where you went to be alone as a child? I would hide out in my bedroom.

4. how did you rebel as a child? By hiding in my bedroom. I wasn’t much of a rebel.

5. what did you hide from your parents? My reading material. I ventured into the adult section of the library at a very tender age, and you can just imagine the sorts of things I found. Actually, I remember my mother taking a look at my stack of library books one day, and being absolutely horrified. She whisked most of what I’d checked out right back to the library, and started monitoring my reading choices. Of course, after that I just hid anything REALLY interesting. It had never occurred to me to hide anything before then.

6. what was your most memorable toy? I can’t think of just one toy, but I did have a whole group of plastic horses that I adored. They all had names and distinct personalities.

7. did you ever get lost? I remember being in the grocery store and looking up at this woman I was following – and realizing she was not my mommy!! I don’t think it took her long to find me, but I still remember that awful feeling of being abandoned.

8. what was the craziest thing you did in your youth? My best friend S was constantly coming up with crazy schemes, so I don’t know why none of them are springing to mind. What does spring to mind is trying to conjure up the ghost of Helen. Some friends of my parents lived for a time on the side of a mountain outside Asheville, and we went to visit them fairly often. S would usually go with us. There was a watertower at the end of the road, and a legend to go along with the watertower. It was haunted by the ghost of Helen, and if you wanted Helen to appear, you had to hit the watertower three times with a rock (at night, of course) and yell "Helen Helen Helen!"

So S and my brother and I made this huge production of calling up Helen. It seems like it was actually more complicated than that, too – maybe you had to hit it in a certain spot? I forget, but I do know we kept throwing rocks at it and yelling Helen Helen Helen and then running like, well, hell, because it was very funny but also very scary out there on the mountain in what seemed like the middle of the night. Oh, and we also had to be sure the adults didn’t know what we were doing, calling up ghosts and all.

So we’d throw rocks and yell and run and throw rocks and yell and run and throw rocks and yell and run.. and we finally DID see lights appear! Although when we saw lights we REALLY ran and didn’t go back, and never could agree on exactly what the lights were or even where they were, and they may have just been car headlights from the road down below us hitting the watertower. Who knows. But it was lots of fun. And scary. And fun.

9. what has changed most about the neighborhood you grew up in? It is FULL of houses. It used to be out in the country, and now the houses are just crammed in like sardines. I really hate that.

10. what do you miss about being a child the most? Probably not having any real money worries. And serious responsibilities.

11. what do you wish you started to learn as a kid? To play the piano. Everybody got to take piano lessons but me! We didn’t have a piano, which was a major drawback.  

12. what were your hobbies? Reading, drawing, writing weird little stories. Drawing complicated stick-figure stories in coloringbooks.

13. what scary creatures did you think were in your bedroom as a kid? Well, I don’t know exactly what they were, but I sure thought there was something scary in there. After dark, at least. I actually remember seeing tropical fish all over the wall beside my bed, and being afraid to sleep facing that wall for ages. Ummmm, yeah – tropical fish.  It was terrifying at the time! I guess I dreamed that, but it seemed very real. And tropical fish are very frightening! 

14. in elementary school, what was the most fun subject? the worse? My favorite was reading. Of course. The worst was math. Or maybe PE, actually.

15. did you try to grow up in a hurry? I don’t remember trying to grow up in a hurry – I remember feeling like I was already a grownup. I never did feel like a kid, for some reason.

16. what is something you often did on sundays? Ride the horse. Read.

17. describe your first memory: I have this amazingly vivid memory of going to the hospital to pick up my mother after my brother was born. I was 2 1/2. I was with my father and my grandparents. It was snowy and when I got out of the car I fell down and got wet. I had to stay in the car with my grandfather. They hung my tights over the steeringwheel to dry. I still remember how disappointed I was – I really really really wanted to go in the hospital too. I must have pitched a fit because I also remember looking down a long hallway and seeing my mother sitting on a chair.

18. what was the remedy for the common cold in your home? Orange juice and soup. The remedy for a cough was honey and whiskey. Don’t tell the Child Welfare Agency! 

19. what details do you remember of your childhood bedroom? I had a twin bed with a very girly frilly pink bedspread and canopy. I wasn’t a girly pink-frilly kid. When I was a little older I got to pick out a new bedspread and canopy and got a patchwork one with a lot of brown and blue. I had white furniture with little pink flowers. I STILL have it – it’s in the spare bedroom right this minute. The floor was grey tile and it was SO COLD. When I was 14 I got carpet, which was very exciting. It was apple green. The walls were fairly dark panel wood, and I begged my parents to let me paint them for 17 years, but they wouldn’t let me because it was panel. After I moved out, they painted the walls. I never did figure that one out.  

 20. what is your most vivid memory of elementary school? I have many memories of misery. I don’t know that just one stands out. I was a weird shy kid with very few visible friends.

21. what is the best thing your parents taught you about life? That things could always be a lot worse.

22. do you have the same color hair as you did when you were a child? No, because I am a dyed woman now. It’s always been kind of dark blonde, though.

23. who did you look up to more, mom or dad? My mother. My father was an alcoholic and was kind of functionally absent most of the time. I do remember looking up to him when I was very young, though. It’s weird to think about, since he hasn’t had a drink in some 25 years, so is a totally different person now.

24. do you remember singing your first song off the radio? As opposed to singing my first song on the radio? No, I don’t. I have avoided letting anyone hear me sing for as long as I can remember, though.

25. do you remember a scary dream from your childhood? I think the scariest dream I ever had was one where someone was hiding inside the cabinet where I kept my clothes. I could see part of their shirt sticking out from behind the door. It was a very long complicated dream, and was WAY WAY scarier than it sounds. Really, it was!! Almost as scary as tropical fish on the walls!

26. what magical or unbelievable things happened in your childhood that you still do not understand?  Well, let’s start with the troll who lived in the drainage ditch behind my aunt and uncle’s house! A cousin who was quite a bit older than I am would take us back there to talk to him. I remember having long conversations with him – I’d ask him things and he’d reply. In a booming troll-voice, way back inside the drainage pipe. Later on I wondered how Lisa did that. Then a few years ago my other cousins and I were reminiscing, and laughing about Lisa taking us to talk to the troll. When I asked them how in the world she got him to talk back, they were like, "Ummmmm……. the troll talked back to you???? Gee, we just talked to him – Weirdo!!!"

I also have a very vivid memory of being in the pasture up above our house, looking up at a very tall blue woman. Who was wearing a huge widebrimmed hat like Chinese rice-pickers wore.

For starters. I have a lot of weird childhood memories. But not because I was a weird kid – no, no, not at all!

27. did you like to play with bugs? I did. I also loved scaring my brother with ants when he was little. For some reason he was terrified of ants. It was lots of fun.

28. do you remember catching lightening bugs when you were young? I do – we used to love to chase lightening bugs.

29. do you remember your great grandparents house? I do remember my great-grandmother’s house. It was very small and dark and had a cistern in the kitchen. I also remember my mother’s uncle, who lived with her. He was by far the youngest child – he was around my mother’s age. His name was Cricket, and there was something wrong with him, although nobody knew exactly what it was. My mother said when they were young he told her he used to wake up and be blind, and it would take a long time for his vision to come back. He would just kind of lurk around in the shadows when we were there, although I don’t remember being afraid of him – he seemed friendly, but very shy. Then right before my great-grandmother died, they had to put him in a home because they found out he was beating her. I don’t know how long that went on – she wouldn’t tell anyone. I don’t know what ever became of Cricket, although I’m sure he’s dead by now. Well, maybe not – he’d be around 80. That’s kind of weird, not to know. I’ll have to ask my father if he knows.

30. do you miss the looney tunes? No – I never cared much for the Loony Tunes. But I guess a spitty "That’s all folks!" would be appropriate here.