Today's Memory Lane
Jul. 21st, 2006 06:26 pm![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
susandennisFirst of all, I love that those who read this are digging these Memory Lane snippets. It's great fun to remember them but even more fun to share them! I've had several comments saying there are those who hope I keep it up. Good news... I've got 53 years worth!! (I really can't remember much of my first 4 years.) There are lots o' miles left on Memory Lane!
For some reason that I can't now recall, my family's move from Missouri to North Carolina was NOT warmly embraced by me or my sister. We were 5 and 6 and our little neighborhood packed with other 5 and 6 year olds was all we knew and I guess we weren't ready to turn out backs. My parents pulled out their best marketing effort. We got maps and promises of great sites on the trip and many motel swimming pools and, when we got there, our very own rooms.
(They also told my sister that she would forget Kansas City very soon. She assured them she would not. Sure enough, the entire trip across the country was peppered with her annoying voice piping up about a dozen times a day "I still remember Kansas City!!" It became the catch phrase used in our family to say 'you are getting really annoying...')
The promise of our own rooms was key for me. I had been forced to share a room with my stupid sister since forever. It was horrible and demeaning and so beneath me. I longed for my own space in a way that is still with me today!
The new house was amazing. It looked soooo big. Our Kansas City house was kind of a track house. This North Carolina one was white and majestic. It actually wasn't that much bigger but the ceilings were so high that to a 6 year old it felt like a palace. We got to pick our rooms - we had three to chose from. I got to pick first because I was oldest...
Two of the rooms were bedrooms. The third room was really a sitting room - it had been an upstairs screened in porch. It had 8 windows. It was painted turquoise and it had these marvelous not frilly but diaphanous kind of tulle white curtains that made the place feel magical. It didn't even have a closet but I loved it and I picked it. And it was mine.
A week later the former owners - by a prearrangement no one told me about - came and got their magical curtains. Whoa. You talk about a crushed 6 year old. I had bonded with those fucking curtains. My parents were amazed that I threw such a fit. My father did build me a closet but I refused to ever have any curtains in that room. And when Daddy wanted to paint it, I made him keep the same turquoise paint.
It was my room and it had a door and 8 windows and I loved it - even after it had it's curtains stolen.
For some reason that I can't now recall, my family's move from Missouri to North Carolina was NOT warmly embraced by me or my sister. We were 5 and 6 and our little neighborhood packed with other 5 and 6 year olds was all we knew and I guess we weren't ready to turn out backs. My parents pulled out their best marketing effort. We got maps and promises of great sites on the trip and many motel swimming pools and, when we got there, our very own rooms.
(They also told my sister that she would forget Kansas City very soon. She assured them she would not. Sure enough, the entire trip across the country was peppered with her annoying voice piping up about a dozen times a day "I still remember Kansas City!!" It became the catch phrase used in our family to say 'you are getting really annoying...')
The promise of our own rooms was key for me. I had been forced to share a room with my stupid sister since forever. It was horrible and demeaning and so beneath me. I longed for my own space in a way that is still with me today!
The new house was amazing. It looked soooo big. Our Kansas City house was kind of a track house. This North Carolina one was white and majestic. It actually wasn't that much bigger but the ceilings were so high that to a 6 year old it felt like a palace. We got to pick our rooms - we had three to chose from. I got to pick first because I was oldest...
Two of the rooms were bedrooms. The third room was really a sitting room - it had been an upstairs screened in porch. It had 8 windows. It was painted turquoise and it had these marvelous not frilly but diaphanous kind of tulle white curtains that made the place feel magical. It didn't even have a closet but I loved it and I picked it. And it was mine.
A week later the former owners - by a prearrangement no one told me about - came and got their magical curtains. Whoa. You talk about a crushed 6 year old. I had bonded with those fucking curtains. My parents were amazed that I threw such a fit. My father did build me a closet but I refused to ever have any curtains in that room. And when Daddy wanted to paint it, I made him keep the same turquoise paint.
It was my room and it had a door and 8 windows and I loved it - even after it had it's curtains stolen.
