Small Memories

The very first memory I have is going into the kitchen to get a bottle of milk from my mom, returning to the living room and flopping on the couch to watch cartoons...always the TV, right? And this would have been back to around 1956 or 1957!

I also remember a dog named Sweetie who wasn't sweet at all. Whenever I would run, she would chase and snap at me. She had to go when she attacked my knees and bit me so hard they bled.

I remember my grandparents would come and pick me up to take me berry picking with them. I loved it! Blackberry bushes weren't as much fun, if I remember correctly--the branches could scratch you. Grandma used to take me to the grocery store with her on Saturdays and there I could pick out a Little Golden Book to bring back to her house. All the books were shared with my cousins and I got over that minor annoyance by telling myself that I was the one that got to pick them out.

I was luckier than most kids nowadays because families tended to live within close proximity of each other. Until I was 10, my cousins were also close playmates. In this picture, my mom holds my brother Pete. My arm is around my cousin Robert and that's my cousin Anne to our right.



When I was 5, I went to kindergarten. Our bus driver was a Ketcham, a distant relation of mine through my grandmother's family. Everyone knew everyone else back then. I could go to the corner deli by myself as a very little girl and buy red licorice whips with money my parents gave me.

This is my kindergarten picture. My hair used to be a shade of auburn!



This handsome young man is my very first fiance, Glen. Everyone thought we were so adorable saying we were going to get married when we grew up. We would sit together on the bus and it wasn't always so great. Once Glen stepped into a pile of dog poo and it didn't all quite come off his shoe. He was pretty stinky and I think I would have sat somewhere else except that we were engaged and I felt obliged to stick by hi. Pee-yoo! We would visit each other for play dates and here we are, graduating from kindergarten!



I've often wondered what happened to Glen and if he is happily married now. Before second grade, my parents bought a house in Brentwood and we moved from Islip. I remember how my grandmother cried and my mom tried to reassure her we'd just be 10 minutes away. I think Grandma enjoyed the fact that we could walk back and forth to visit. This picture was taken while I was in first grade but I'm not sure if I was still going to Islip or if we'd already moved to Brentwood.


This picture was taken in third or fourth grade. My hair had already darkened to brown and I'm now totally brunette except for the gray.