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.
(no subject)
Date: 2006-07-22 02:22 am (UTC)When we got there we saw this beautiful play house in the back yard. Big enough for several kids with at least 5 more feet about our heads and a loft, working doors and windows and basically a miniature of our own house. Opening the door revealed that it was fully furnished and loaded with toys.
Imagine my total distress when two weeks later the previous owners came and got it, loading it on a flatbed truck and taking it away to their new house.
I still kind of miss that house.:)
(no subject)
Date: 2006-07-22 02:28 am (UTC)And, totally off this topic, I'm still giggling about your 2 year old making her get away with a blanket over her head. I can relate to that, too. It was torture having to be quiet while my baby brother took his nap. I can remember that so well.
(no subject)
Date: 2006-07-22 02:39 am (UTC)As for that two year old, she's a bugger. Which reminds me that I'm going to have to post something else she did today. *laughs maniacally*
(no subject)
Date: 2006-07-22 02:47 am (UTC)Can't wait to read what she said.
(no subject)
Date: 2006-07-22 02:57 am (UTC)Sean and I usually go up there for our anniversary and we have a girlfriend that lives up in Blowing Rock so we go up there and hang out a lot.
I like Blowing Rock, but if I had to pick a place to live it would be Banner Elk. Only because it's a lot cheaper there.
(no subject)
Date: 2006-07-22 04:32 am (UTC)What fun that would have been, late at night alone in your own room with no mosquitos to worry about.
I remember having a little AM transistor radio that only picked up Tokyo or some strange place in the middle of the night. But, in my own room it was a place where no one else could hear. I was supposed to have my bedroom light out, so since I couldn't read without a light the radio was my friend.
(no subject)
Date: 2006-07-22 10:24 am (UTC)