This is where my memories really start to pick up. My childhood consciousness is fairly well-established beginning my kindergarten year. For parents who have children that are younger than 4: please don’t worry. They don’t need (or remember) any elaborate fancy thing you do. They need to feel loved and taken care of. I could write more but this is selfishly about me, so… back to me.
I don’t remember moving from the First House in Maryland to the Second House in Maryland, but I remember so much more about the Second House. I think that my parents rented the First House, and when they learned we were staying longer, purchased the Second House. So many things happened in this place, kindergarten through second grade to start.
First: the house. It was not split-level in principle, but in theory, the architect dallied with the idea. You walked in the front door and were met with a hallway that had a straight view of our TV in the back room, the family room with the sliding glass doors that led to the back porch. Back at the front door, if you looked left, there were three or four steps that took you to a large open “landing” which was basically our living room, where the Christmas tree would stand tall and wide in front of the huge bay windows facing the front lawn. Behind the landing/large open room with high ceilings, there were about four steps back down to the main floor into the dining room, which faced the back of the house. The dining room stretched length-wise to the left of the small set of stairs, and just to the right of the stairs was a doorway which led into the kitchen. The kitchen was squarish shaped, in the middle of the back of the house, and it opened to the family room on the right (the one with the TV and the back porch). Get yourself back to the landing. Look left, imagine you see the Christmas tree in the bay window, turn right past the stairs down into the dining room, and you’ll see another set of stairs that lead up to the bedrooms on the 2nd (and a half?) floor. Why in God’s name did they add so many steps?! At the top of this staircase was the suite of bedrooms. I’m guessing there were four bedrooms, but I honestly don’t remember. I had one. We all had our own. I suppose there was a bathroom or two up there. Bedrooms and bathrooms aren’t notable until pre-teen years.
There are family videos taken from the landing area, pointed up toward the stairs where my sister and I would descend from our sleepy stupor into the magical world that Santa had created for us on Christmas. Rather, most of the videos were of us coming down the stairs separately because I always, always, always slept in. Even on Christmas morning I had to be woken. So you would see my older sister come down, hair brushed and neat, and then later a shot of me looking like I had been wrestling alligators or throwing back tequila all night long. My hair had no business submitting to gravity, so in defiance it stuck up and out in a 360 degree design of chaos and curls. My eyes would be sleepy with little eye buggers still in-tact. I would still be in my Christmas pajamas.
Go back to the front door. Just to the right was a small study, where I suppose my dad did work things, adult things like filing papers and paying bills. None of us were interested in that room but I have a memory near there. Just diagonal (past the steps to the landing) was a powder room (I think it was there). My sister and I were still at the age where we followed our mother everywhere, including the bathroom. Especially the bathroom. She was a captive audience then! We were both in the bathroom and I’m not sure if this is a fictionalized memory or the real thing, but I remember her telling us she had some big news for us. She was pregnant! We were going to have a baby in the house. I think I was sitting in the hallway between the bathroom and the study, but something about that spot brings to my mind the realization that I would no longer be the youngest sibling. I think we were excited, nervous, and understandably oblivious about what our future with another sibling held. But there we were, in the hallway, finding out about Jessa (we didn’t know it was Jessa yet). Come to think of it, where did Jessa sleep if there were four bedrooms?
Go past the potty-anouncement in the hallway and let’s get to the family room with the TV. There was a long couch and a recliner. There was a tall lamp next to the recliner. When Jessa was born (we called her Jessica then, until my older sister suggested Jessa as a nickname), I was not feeling well. In fact, I had strep throat. My Grandmother, who had come to watch me and my sister, sent me to school anyway, either unbelieving or unwilling to deal with my sudden sickness. I was sent home from school feverish. I remember feeling vindicated with the school nurse’s proof. I can’t remember if I wasn’t allowed to hold or touch Jessa in the hospital because of my illness, or if I put that limit on myself. I think I was better but didn’t feel like I should risk it. The nurses gave me a hospital gown for when I did hold her, likely trying to ease my fear of getting this brand new baby sick. A week later when I was feeling more confident, I donned that gown and sat at the recliner, with the lamp on, and held Jessa for the first time. I was terrified. My parents said I no longer needed the gown, but I wanted to be safe. Soon holding Jessa became easy and natural. Feeding her when she was older became hilarious. I would sit on a stool opposite her high chair in the kitchen while Mom made dinner, and make funny noises to encourage her to eat whatever mushy meal it was at the time.
Back to the family room, let’s go out on the porch now. There is a big sliding glass door to go through. It’s a large deck with planter barrels every 3-6 feet along the perimeter. We had a dog, Bubba, another cocker-spaniel to replace Bacardi, the one who died in Arizona. Bubba was a gorgeous dog with little regard for his people. He liked us fine, but what he liked more was jumping… rather, leaping, from barrel to barrel, making the jumps in easy stride. Again, this could be a memory mixed with imagination, but in my mind, Bubba spent his time leaping from pot to pot on the porch. So much so that my dad eventually created an enclosed side yard just for Bubba to do his business and run amok. The deck was so high off the ground, that my dad needed build a ramp down into the side yard for Bubba, which I suppose they had to train him to use. Jessa’s first word was Bubba.
The back porch was a place of great memories. I had my first surprise party experience there. It was also one path to the back yard, which was a full forest as far as my young eyes were concerned. There was a tree swing that had a flat wooden board as the seat and a holly tree branch as my goal for getting the highest I could possibly swing. Past the swing was a small pond where I found turtles, minnows, tadpoles, and the occasional snapping turtle. Beyond the forest was evidently a golf course, but I never ventured that far. Many of my days and afternoons were spent in that wooded area and now I understand why my mother checked me for ticks so often. I’m certain I got Lyme’s disease at some point. It was a dreamy time for me to be my insular, imaginative self.
One day when I was about 6 or 7 years old, I decided to ride my bike. I did this often, and my boundary was the stop sign and back. The stop sign was probably no more than a quarter of a mile, but it was a fair boundary since beyond that was a country road that had fast-moving cars and no sidewalks. There was an old farm across the street from us, and I wasn’t allowed in there either, but that didn’t stop me from making the mistake of taking our radio-flyer wagon full of my dad’s tools (God knows why?) to the farm and then leaving them there overnight to rust (I forgot them). Oops. On that day that I took my bike ride, just before I reached the stop sign, there is a street that met mine at a 45 degree angle. There at the stop sign between that street and mine was a peer who was riding her bike to her boundary. We chatted, learned we had much in common (basically we were the same age) and she invited me to play at her house. This sounded wonderful, so I agreed. We weren’t going past the stop sign toward the big country road, so I figured I was with my limits. I followed my friend to her house, where we stored our bikes around the back in her yard. She and I played for probably a couple of hours or maybe it was ten minutes. I honestly don’t remember. I do remember riding my bike back home, absolutely thrilled with the new friend I made and excited to tell my family. As I got closer to my house, I saw adults standing around the front yard, people were down the street calling my name and my mother looked like she had heard some very bad news. Apparently, I had gone missing. Relief and anger flooded the eyes of my parents when they saw me. I was confused for a minute and then realized that I hadn’t told anyone where I was, and technically the side street wasn’t my street, even if it was before the country road. I also thought about the unfortunate fact that I had unwittingly hid my bike by following my friend’s normal protocol for storing her bike in her back yard.
The record of that event has been disputed, but my story is this: I was grounded by a tearful mother for a week. She says I was not grounded. I have a lot of memories of my room that week- so I stand by my version. I’m not sure if I ever played with that friend again, I think I was too traumatized to do that. I did, however, tell my parents where I was going every single time after that. I did not even so much as sneak out of the house once in my entire life.
Another story from that time happened without my knowledge. I was at the community pool with my kindergarten teacher (she was no longer my teacher and our families were friends) and it was time for adult swim. I didn’t hear the whistle, or the life guard yelling at me to get out. To be fair, I probably should have noticed I was the only child swimming, but my observation skills hadn’t developed to the special ops level they are now (a lifetime of hearing loss will do that). The lifeguard was getting quite frustrated, and I suppose my teacher hadn’t been able to reach me yet, and he yelled out, “What are you deaf or something?!” to which my teacher retorted, “Actually, she is!” This story was told to me and I suppose it was the beginning of my advocacy days, and maybe also my sense of humor to protect myself. I did have some delight in the fact that the lifeguard probably felt like shit after that, but I hope he learned not to “accuse” someone of having a disability. A lesson like that is helpful to learn as a teenager.
We liked Leonardtown. We were surrounded by green trees, grass, and rolling hills. There was water everywhere thanks to the Chesapeake Bay. There was a blizzard our first winter there, and although I’m sure my parents weren’t impressed, I loved it. We had all four seasons, a far cry from Arizona.
Before my 3rd grade year, my dad found out he was a lucky guy and he got to go to a special school that was important for some reason (see, I paid attention). The only downside was, it was in Montgomery, Alabama. As far as we were concerned, that was the armpit of the world. I think we were just really sad to leave Maryland. Stay tuned for Montgomery…
