Memories

Everything we do or see in life either creates a memory or reminds us of past. Scents, sights and songs can trigger happy moments with loved ones and bad times between friends. What is your happiest memory? Or your saddest? I bet there is something that would trigger that memory.

Juicyfruit gum and pipe tobacco remind me of my great-grandpa. He always had a pack of gum in the front pocket of his overalls. The pipe tobacco was for his smoking, which great-grandma didn’t like. My earliest memory of him was when I was about one, he was trimming a tree in the backyard. I was on the back porch, about six feet or so off the ground, and wanted to be down there with him. One of the railing slats I was holding onto came loose, and I fell. I fell to the bottom of the stairs where a concrete slab caught my fall. Cracked my head open enough for six or seven stitches.

The rest of the time, was happier. The smell of fresh cut grass reminds me of how he would drive his Indian lawn mower everywhere. He would take it to town instead of driving his car, unless he had to take grandma with him. He had a little trailer that he would hitch up to the mower and drive me around with him.

My worst memory of him, was the day of his funeral. He served in the army during WWII, so it was a military funeral with the bugle and 21- gun salute. For the years I couldn’t hear taps being played without breaking down. The sound of three gunmen, firing rounds was the most torturous. Each shot was another stab in the heart and another realization that he was really gone.

He was buried with the rest of our family, and one thing I always remember doing with him on memorial day was visiting his mom’s marker. She never had a headstone, just a metal placard marking her place, and grandpa would always put flowers down. As his funeral ended, I wandered off to visit her because he couldn’t. I felt that I needed to, because I knew it was important to him and the others wouldn’t.

I miss him very much, but it’s the little things in life that keep me remembering. Like right now I’m chewing juicyfruit and remembering his hugs.

Creative Writing Assignment-Memoir: Setting

Small cramped room, with a solitary window clouded over with plastic to keep the heat in. Four walls painted a light sea foam blue, yes sea foam blue not green. One white beam above the window, with the words “Sing me back home-The Hag” scrawled across it in clumsy cursive. I painted that a few weeks back, to make the room more mine and sort of as a rebellious act against my step mom. The head of the bed is pressed against the far corner and the foot rests under the window, I feel safer away from the door and backed in a corner. The multicolored scrap quilt my grandma Bert made me, using scraps of clothing and handkerchiefs from my great-grandparents, lay on my queen-sized bed. My room isn’t exactly dirty, but cluttered. A plastic tub full of books, school supplies and other odds and ends sit at the foot of my bed against the third wall not leaving an inch between wall, tub or bed. Then there’s my stereo, black three piece 5-Cd disk changer with two tape deck. On the top is my little ceramic pug figurine my dad bought me, with my class ring resting next to it and my senior key swirled around the two. They are still on the radio because I haven’t put them back on since I went to bed last night. In the corner next to the stereo is my “dresser.” Really it is just 4 or 5 small shelves I have to roll my clothes up and place them on. There’s no room for an actual dresser or anything bigger the three feet wide shelving that sits nestled in between the corner and the tall freezer next to the door. The carpet is thin and threadbare, some dark blue color. I never cared for it, so I’m glad only a five foot rectangle path of it was visible.
Above my bed is the room’s one decoration, my dad’s old Stetson. Slowly losing it’s shape from non-use but I still love it because it was his. Every week or so I sneak into the bathroom and steal his Old Spice aftershave and sprinkle some on the hat because I miss the smell during the week…and lately the weekends. Holding oneself captive is a bit harder than one may think. My forgotten room is chilly as the heater doesn’t quite reach me from the living room two rooms down, but not too bad; or I’m just so used to the cold I no longer feel it. I don’t want to go outside the plain brown door, I know what waits for me. my step mom throwing me disgusted looks as she cares for my toddling brother, my younger brother no longer speaking just sitting in a chair waiting for breakfast. Then dad, the man I’ve only known for a few years (off and on at that) cooking dinner completely oblivious to the melancholy of his children. It is early morning on a Saturday, Dad was home and cooking his stupendous hash-browns. Bacon and eggs were sizzling on a second griddle and the smells wafting in under the door were driving me mad with hunger. Dad was trying to earn brownie points with me as I could hear “Swinging” by John Anderson blaring from the big stereo in the living room. Slowly I grab a pair of blue jeans and pull them on, grab my necklace and ring. Dressed and no longer feeling naked without my ring, I paint my smile of conformity on my face and prepare for another day of lies and avoidance. I place my hand on the round silver door-handle, and pull hard against the sticky jam. “Good morning.”