remember

the clark brothers

my brother raleigh's childhood club was called "the clark brothers." it had three members, raleigh, who was "peedles clark," derived i assume from our surname peters. his friend michael hamilton was "ham clark." the third brother, despite gender issues, was my sister samantha, "dooles clark," thus named because her nickname was mandy and this became "mandooles" somehow.

bread and board

my parents owned a store in conway springs called "bread and board," where they sold my mom's homemade bread and breadboards designed by my father. among other things, they sold a bread subscription, where people could buy six or twelve months of homemade loaves delivered to their home. each month, members got a different type of bread.

i wish i could buy a subscription now.

toddler speak

as a toddler, my little sister samantha ate "cheerlers" (cheerios) for breakfast, received birthday "presenks" and put "drip whip" instead of miracle whip on her sandwiches.

[written 9 october; posted 14 october]

toy envy

in addition to his thor bag, raleigh also had a very cool evel knievil set. when you pulled on a rip cord and put evil's motorcycle onto a track, he did a 360 loop-de-loop.

[written 3 october; published 5 october]

christmas stockings

throughout my childhood, we spent christmas morning opening stockings, taking turns going around the family and pulling out one item at a time until all of our socks were empty. we all had to gather first, which meant everyone had to be up and ready before we could start.

one year we were at grandpa petie's for the holidays, and he slept later than the rest of us. raleigh and i were impatient, so we made up a song and played it loudly on the piano, singing along with clever and loud lyrics: "petie it's time to get up. petie it's time to get up. petie it's time to get up, get up, time to get up in the morning." luckily for grandpa petie, he had a hearing aid which he didn't wear at night, so this probably was less annoying for him than for the rest of the family.

[written 16 september 2007; posted 17 september]

night-time journeys

as parents of four children, my mom and dad were probably quite wise to do most of their long-distance car travel at night. this was long before the days of car seats and mandatory seat belts, so they made comfortable beds for us across the back seats and even in foot wells, and we set off after dark. i never really understood how they could stay awake.

i loved these car trips. i remember seeing the flashing of street lights through the window above me and feeling the rhythm of the car moving along the highway. i found the closeness of my siblings comforting and the car journey exciting. but my favourite thing about these night-time car trips was listening to the drone of my parents' voices, sometimes combined with a stranger from public radio, as they talked to each other in the front seat. i never could hear what they were saying, but the timber of their voices and the knowledge that they were right there helped to lull me to sleep.

i chose pompeii

in sixth grade, we had to write our first "term papers." we each selected a topic, did research in the library, wrote facts on index cards with source information on each, wrote an outline, then organized the information into a research paper  complete with a bibliography. as a twelve-year-old, it seemed like a huge undertaking, but i think the final paper was only about five hand-written pages long.

my classmates wrote about ferrari, the dallas cowboys and breeds of horses. i was fascinated by a book my parents had about lost worlds and selected pompeii.

black and white

my family had a tiny black & white television long past the time when everyone else's tv was colour.

i always felt out of the loop when kids at school talked about tv shows, because we didn't watch much. in fact, our television viewing was restricted to a very short and somewhat embarrassing list: little house on the prarie, wonder woman, disney movies on sunday nights and anything on pbs.

green sky

we were in junior high science class with mr shoemaker on the afternoon of the tornado. the desks were facing the blackboard; the bay of windows was behind us. someone was daydreaming, and caught the green tinge of the sky in his peripheral vision. soon the whole class was turned around, whispering about the coming storm. we could feel it in the air, and we could definitely see it in the clouds.

i later thought mr shoemaker could have seized the moment and taught us a think or two about meteorology. instead he was annoyed by the distraction, and told us firmly to turn around and pay attention to his lecture.

it was less than five minutes later that the hail started, pounding the roof of the school and threatening to shatter the windows. five minutes after that, the town's emergency sirens sounded from the distance, followed by the school's tornado alarm. we filed out of the room and headed for the downstairs hallway--where sat on the floor and put our hands over our heads surrounded by glass trophy cases praying the tornado would pass us by. it did, but by less than a quarter of a mile.

ten for one dollar

in junior high, i ran the 4x200 meter relay in track and field. i think i sucked and wish someone had suggested i work on longer distance, as i'm not built to be a sprinter.

we had track practice after school and following the 30 hill sprints or other similar work out, my friend teresa and i walked into town. the local general store (j&m hardware) had a special deal on hershey's chocolate bars that year, and sold them ten for one dollar. each evening, we bought ten and shared them, consuming more chocolate and calories that spring than i do annually as an adult.