Nov 1 - Essay, "Shooting star"

11/1/2013

Today an essay, "Shooting Star," under Essays in the website. FK

RB Rooson

11/2/2013 10:21:37 am

My first memory probably does not hold the epiphany or life-changing datum of either Fred or Cal....how's this guys?

As children, we were not allowed to play in the house. My mother's domain was "spic-and-spotless". No frivolous games or raucous behavior was going to be permitted to change that, and thusly.....

I was perfectly happy to play in the dirt by the front porch. I (possibly we all did) have this bag of green plastic army and spent hours in perfect battles. I do not know where my brother was (undoubtedly out stealing something) and my sister was probably in her room (crying over some perceived slight): mother was continuously yelling or complaining about something (when I was 13 years old and offered the chance to go to Seminary - did I ever jump at it just to get away!): my father worked 12-14 hours daily and seemed to come home often enough to eat, grab his softball gear, bowling ball or pool cue (maybe he was going to a metaphorical seminary also!) and returning to his bed in order to start the cycle all over again.

I was pretty much alone. Like to go the Library and even taught my self German from a textbook (later learned that my pronunciation was absolutely horrendous - never heard it spoken, just read in a book!)....but hey, I was the only kid in grade school that knew German!

I did not become a pervert, murderer, bank robber or "burned out drug-crazed teenager"....no insights into the mind, no great changing of mankind, no realizations of my inner-being.

Sorry, that I am not a cerebral as some others.....just waged war with a lot of plastic, green, army men from my early memories.

Cal Roeker

11/3/2013 05:12:05 am

I too found this topic interesting and worthy of a little more discussion.
My earliest memory is the following:

Someone is holding me. I cannot determine who. I would assume my mother. But I have the sensation of being held. I also have the sensation of being a little cold.
We are outside at night. There is a full moon behind a willow tree.
The wind is blowing because the fronds on the tree are waving back and forth and there are clouds moving across the sky just below the moon. I am thinking how amazing it all is.
Then a bright light comes on and ruins the image.

The memory stuck with me and one time I described it to my mother. She told me that it could have only have been at one place. .
Her aunt Lena lived on a farm in the country that had a big willow tree in the front yard. When you came off the porch to go to where your car was parked you would be facing east towards the willow tree. That would make sense as the moon would be in the east in the early evening. She told me it was probably sometime after labor day as her aunt Lena would always have a fall picnic. She also told me that aunt Lena died in the spring of 1957. That would mean that if would have been the fall picnic of 1956. Since I was born in June of 1953 that would make me 3 years old.
She said the bright light would be the yard light which someone probably switched on because we were headed to where the car was parked.
To this day when I see a full moon in the east I think about the wonder that I felt at that moment. Safe in my mothers arms.

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Nov 1 - Essay, "Shooting star"

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