The house we moved into when I was six and a half, in October 1962, was at the end of a block-long street. Next to us on the east was a vacant lot. That lot remained vacant until well after I no longer lived with my parents, though at some […]
Continue readingTag Archives: childhood
Infrastructure, circa 1962
There’s been a lot in the news in recent years about infrastructure. Which projects are “shovel ready”? Which will create more jobs? How do we bring our aging roads and bridges into the twenty-first century? When I hear about infrastructure, I think of the development of the interstate highway system […]
Continue readingOn Strings and Things
I’ve written before about what a picky eater I was. Cooked carrots were my worst nemesis, but I also hated all foods with strings. You’d be surprised how many foods have strings. Bananas, for one. Kids are supposed to like bananas, and I did like the taste. But before a […]
Continue readingMy Earliest Memories: What Is Real and What Isn’t?
As we begin the new year, I’ve been looking back at my life. From time to time I try to decide what my earliest memory is. I recently wrote about the first Thanksgiving I remember, in November 1958 when I was two-and-a-half. But I have earlier memories yet. I might […]
Continue readingSecond Grade Anonymity
Throughout my first-grade year, I felt exposed. As I’ve written, I was a superstar during my three weeks of kindergarten and in the first first-grade classroom I attended, because I could read and the other pupils couldn’t. Even after we moved and I came into a new first-grade class […]
Continue readingNo One To Ask About My Tantrums
I had to deal with a financial problem the other day, right in the middle of working on the last edits on Now I’m Found, the novel I hope to publish within a few weeks. Turning my mind to taxes was the last thing on earth I wanted to spend […]
Continue readingOutlived Its Usefulness: The Reader’s Encyclopedia
Among the books I found when I cleaned out my bookcase recently was a two-volume set called The Reader’s Encyclopedia. These books had been on my shelf for many years, but they originally belonged to my parents. I remember the volumes from childhood. When I had nothing better to do on […]
Continue readingKy-Bee-Chee-Bee Did It
When I was a small child, I had an imaginary friend named Ky-Bee-Chee-Bee. To me she was very real, and she went everywhere with me. I don’t know where the name Ky-Bee-Chee-Bee came from—that was her name, and I didn’t question it. The spelling of Ky-Bee-Chee-Bee is phonetic. I didn’t know […]
Continue readingFlags and Foreboding
For the Fourth of July when I was seven, someone gave my brother (who was almost six) and me U.S. flags—one for each of us. Each flag was about 12 inches by 18 inches, and it was stapled to a thin dowel about two feet long. The dowel had a […]
Continue readingNo More Libby Jacksons
My kids and their cousins often visited their mutual grandparents (my in-laws) when they were children. When it was time to leave, my father-in-law would call them aside and hand them each a $20 bill. I told my children not to expect Grandpa’s generosity and to thank him when it […]
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