Where Bloggers Live: Childhood Memories
Welcome to the monthly edition of Where Bloggers Live. It’s kind of like HGTV’s “Celebrities at Home,” but…Bloggers! Who doesn’t like to peek behind the scenes and see inside people’s homes? Every month a group of six bloggers share their work-spaces, homes, towns, and more!
This month we’re sharing our childhoods.
I started coming at this from many different directions and it was turning into a War & Peace length word pile. So I decided to narrow it down by selecting just some significant memories up to the age of 10 (so won’t be here til 2023) – some I know I’ve shared here before…and to be transparent, these may not be my MOST significant memories, but they’re the ones I can remember at the MOMENT. The pictures may or may not have anything to do with the memories…cuz that’s not the way memories…or snapshots usually work.
Okay, caveats out of the way……
My mother and I would take the train cross-country (3 days/3 nights) from NY to Los Angeles almost every summer from when I was little little, up until jr&high school age when I started protesting cuz I wanted to spend summers with my friends. But I have fond memories of those train rides. I have always loved riding in the car and looking out the window and this was like 72 hours straight of that. My mother would always buy me books and activities for the train, and we’d play cards and eat in the dining car. And we didn’t fight š On the NY->Chicago leg of the trip we’d get a sleeper car, which I thought was so cool…and on the Chicago>LA part we’d sit out in the seated section which was actually better for looking out the window. She bought me my first set of pearls one time when we had a “layover” in Chicago…and she always bought me little trinkets when the train had a long stop in Albuquerque and the Indian women would lay out their wares on Indian blankets – Indian dolls, silver and turquoise jewelry, pottery. And when we arrived in LA, her whole family would be there to greet us. Arrivals in Los Angeles were always so good – whether by train or plane (by myself or with my father, my didn’t fly after I was born). My grandparents, aunt and uncle and three cousins would all come to get us – and this was back in the day when you got to meet people at the gate at the airport. How great it was to get off a long flight and be welcomed by familiar, loving, and excited faces! It’s really shame those days are over…but I’m glad I got to experience it.
Summers in California, overall, are great memories. My cousin pretending he had a rocket ship on the top shelf of the pantry closet and I was not allowed (by him) to go up there with him…and he’d stay “in space” for hours it seemed, and I’d get madder and madder…and only realizing as an adult that I was really the winner in that scenario cuz he was stuck on a shelf in a closet for hours while I was reading or playing piano or watching tv. Ha. Eating out what seemed like every night. Homemade vanilla (with a tinch of lemon) ice cream. Dr Pepper (before it migrated to the east coast). Beverly Park pony rides on Sundays after church. My grandmother’s tuna salad and perfect iced tea. Riding the bus with my grandmother to go shopping downtown LA. The time my aunt made me a carrot cake for like my 9th birthday (VEGETABLE CAKE? WHAT?!?) and my grandfather sneaking away from the table and making me a white birthday cake. Oh, yeah, my uncle worked for Procter&Gamble and there were always cases of boxed cake mixes stored in the garage and my cousin (space ship) would sequester ourselves away in my grandfather’s camper trailer with a box each of cake mix which we’d eat til we were done or sick. I never got sick. After we’d eat a bunch my cousin would tell me there were boll weevils in the cake mix. Never stopped me. I have always had a concrete stomach. I trained it well. Time in California just always seemed brighter and more fun somehow.
When we moved from Long Island (the first time) to Newark, Delaware, when I was 4 or 5, my father must have gone on ahead to get the house ready for us, cuz we drove down in the heat of August and when we got there I was greeted by THE MAGIC OF AIR CONDITIONING. In my HOUSE! It was a MIRACLE. I have never felt so cool in all my life. The feel of air conditioning FIFTY-EIGHT YEARS AGO is still a significant memory for me. I’m a weirdo. Anyway, I loved living in Newark, I think I’ve shared that here before in our “places we’ve lived” blog-post. Living across from a giant preserve park was a child’s dream…as well as down the road from a horse farm where I could just rest my chin on the fence and watch Speedy graze until my mother called me home. Delaware is where I had my first Best Friend…and we’re still friends today. And I wonder now how that magic happened cuz I don’t remember us ever being in the same class at school, and she lived up the hill from us, not in the little “cul-de-sac development” where I lived – so how did we even meet? Maybe she’s reading this and can shed some light on our first meeting. I just remember all the fun things we did…playing horse, playing with Johnny West dolls/figurines (Johnny West was like Barbie Goes West, with horses and chaps and cowboy hats and Indians….),Ā turning the garage into a haunted house by drawing ghosts and scary things on the wall with crayons (Step #1: How to Make a Father VERY ANGRY), sleepovers, walking to Stafford’s (1968’s rural 7-11 but like in a little old house) for rock candy and chocolate-covered ants and Ice Cubes (the chocolate treat, not the frozen water treat), buying goldfish at the Paint Pot (hardware store) with our church plate money…when we wereĀ supposed to be in bible school.
I remember watching JFK’s funeral on TV in 1963. I remember my mother crying and the black horse (BlackJack) with the “fallen soldier’s boot.” I didn’t understand the significance of what I was watching, but mother crying + horse had a lasting impact on me.
I remember the magic of our first color television set in probably 1965-66 (I was 5 or 6)…my father brought it home on New Year’s Eve and we got to watch the New Year’s Day parade in color. Or maybe it was the day before Thanksgiving and watched the Thanksgiving Day Parade. MY FATHER BROUGHT HOME A COLOR TV AND WE WATCHED A PARADE THE NEXT DAY. There.
I remember how devastating it felt to be RIPPED from my home in Delaware (I was 9), with my park and horses and friends and small school…and dropped into LONG ISLAND with its billions of people and weird accents and billions of people. What an adjustment THAT was. It would be 20 years before I considered New York my home.
I have wonderful memories of Labor Day weeks spent in Ocean City, Maryland. We’d stay in the Gateway Motel right on the beach, which was always a little shabby but it was clean and affordable and the owners remembered us from year to year. I think we started going there when I was 6 or 7 (a weird story about my mother’s friend – WHAT? MY MOTHER HAD FRIENDS?!? – having to hide from her husband ?? so my mother put me and the friend in the car and we just drove a couple hours…and ended up in Ocean City where we stayed for the weekend) and kept going almost every year til my father died when I was 22. Long days alternating between the beach and the pool, my father teaching me how to respect the ocean and not be afraid of the waves no matter how big, seashell shops, crab-house dinners, boardwalk evenings…my mother hanging the bright beach towels over the balcony railing and telling me STAY IN FRONT OF OUR ROOM when I was in the water so they could keep an eye on me. Sand in the bathtub ALWAYS. My first experience with an ice machine. Getting to bring friends as I got a little older. Meeting boys when I wasĀ even older. It was all good in Ocean City.
Other than moving to Long Island when I was nine…life seemed pretty okay up to the age of ten. It was the NEXT ten years that got a little rocky. But that’s for another time š
I can see your eyes glazing over so I’m gonna stop here.
Make sure to check out my friends blogs today, too:
Daenel at Living Outside the Stacks
Iris at Iris’ Original Ramblings
Jodie at Jodie’s Touch of Style
Leslie at Once Upon a Time Happily Ever After <- Sadly not joining us today.
Sally atĀ Within a World of My Own
Carol Ahuja
Bettye, I really enjoyed your blog today. My sister and I were reminiscing about our younger years today so blog went right along with the theme of the day! You were certainly a cute baby and little girl and seemed to have had a wonderful early childhood. Air conditioning fifty eight years ago was definitely rare and a luxury.
bettyewp
“Air conditioning fifty eight years ago was definitely rare and a luxury.” Yeah, I couldn’t ever remember experiencing anything like that before! It was amazing!
Lovely
I loved reading about your childhood memories. So nostalgic. These throwback pictures are cool.
xoxo
Lovely
http://www.mynameislovely.com
bettyewp
Thanks, Lovely š
Susan Sommer
I absolutely remember how we met! My first day riding the bus to kindergarten; someone (the driver?) introduced us. Just a matter of here is a friend, now youāre fine. And we were! I only lasted one āsemesterā in kindergarten, which was optional in those days. My. Other said it was in the afternoon which was inconvenient, or something like that. Anyway I remember them offering me a choice: kindergarten or a NEW KITTEN. Iām sure we can all guess how that went. I remember your house as being magical. Your mom had a candy jar full of miniature chocolate bars which to this day are the epitome of luxurious living. And your toy room! Also that I was the chosen one for those Ocean City vacays. We spent so much time in the water that I would dream I was in the ocean at night, being tossed around, what fun, remembering this, and you ā¤ļø
bettyewp
What a nice bus driver! Wouldn’t they be surprised to know we’re still friends 55 years later!
Oh yeah, I’m sure my mother was like YOU’RE GOING TO KINDERGARTEN. Optional, no.
That kitten wasn’t scary Bela, was it??
Ha ha the candy jars! We had them in the kitchen til she died. Hershey Miniatures, butterscotch candies, those little square caramels…and I can’t remember what the 4th jar held – root beer barrels?? How did all that last without me just eating it all in like a day?!?
Did we play the Nestles Quik game or was that someone later?
joan
Thanks for this. I’m the same age, so lots of common ground. I miss Ice Cubes so much.
bettyewp
They still exist! Ice Cubes! Go get yourself some, Joan!
EmD
I wonder if your parents got tired of hearing what a stunning child they had. Damn, youāre like movie star perfect. That beautiful face (which you still have, btw), and the horses, and your clothesā¦
Gotta say, i could easily have been reading until 2023 and wouldve enjoyed every minute. You have such a lovely and natural way of writingā¦your descriptions of everything made me wish this was a bookā¦it would be the first one ive read in years.
Want more!
And āSpace Shipā š¤£
xoxo
bettyewp
Yeah, no, I don’t think they ever got tired of hearing that…cuz I don’t think they would have heard it that much, ha ha.
“Gotta say, i could easily have been reading until 2023” – oh god, Em, don’t tempt me! I’m my favorite subject and can go on forEVERRRRRR. I originally started writing up to the age of 18…but that was going to be just overwhelming…then I tried to limit to “just up to high school,” and ditto…and finally I was like just stop at 10 cuz enough already, ha ha.
It’s HARD to put all your life things – memories, experiences, hopes&dreams – into words/text. It’s endless. I’ve actually been working intermittently on a timeline of my life, just because as I get further away from younger me, it’s getting harder to keep things straight in my mind, what happened when, etc. It’s really challenging! Some things are totally not making sense, time-wise…so it’s been a challenge. I keep thinking I want to finish it so Katie could have it (like she cares, ha ha).
Space Ship is actually Randy š When were little he loved to torment me…but now we have a good relationship. Wish I could spend more time with him now as adults but he’s all the way in SoCal.
xoxo Bettye
Sally in St Paul
Your memories of train travel make me nostalgic for an experience I never had! Carrot cake for your birthday is just…no. Also, wasn’t that a funny period when girls/women couldn’t wear pants, but super short skirts were OK?
bettyewp
Yeah, I always wanted to train again as an adult. When my Newark, DE Best Friend got married many years later near Chicago, Russell and I did take the train overnight there and I think I enjoyed it – I don’t really remember the train ride so well. I feel like there will be a lot of train rides in my future in S Korea as I won’t have a car and I’ll want to travel around the country. So I’m looking forward to that.
Carrot cake for a child’s birthday is wrong on so many levels.
And yeah, the super short dress vs long pants, I never got that, either. Except that maybe it wasn’t as much of a “modesty” issue as a sexist one BOYS WEAR PANTS GIRLS WEAR DRESSES.
Pamela Smith
I love looking back at all the great pictures and hearing the stories. I live near Fresno, so I’m sure we know of some of the same places from “back then.”
bettyewp
I think all I ever did in Fresno was go to those grandparents’ farm a few times. This was my father’s parents and I hardly ever saw them. I can only recall going there twice…in all the years we went to CA in the summer. My mother and I always stayed with her family in LA. At the time, what did I know? But as an adult, in hindsight I feel bad for my father…he probably spent more time with his in-laws than his own family.
Susan Sommer
We met on the kindergarten bus. I remember someone, maybe the bus driver maybe a teacher, introducing us. And that was that. I was so lucky to be the chosen one for those Ocean City and CA vacays. How much fun we had!
bettyewp
Oh gosh! Thanks for sharing that – I have no memory of even BEING on a school bus in Delaware. I have bus-stop memories (I remember once someone from the neighborhood came up to me at the bus-stop and said, “I think your sister’s cat was run over by a car.” Sadly, they were correct. I don’t even remember if my sister still lived with us then, but).
I did love the OC and CA trips! And El Paso and Juarez! I have so many good memories with you, Suzy š Just last night I saw a “milky bath” at a spa somewhere in Seoul and I thought FISH BATH!!! Poor Chris and Fap š
xoxo
jodie filogomo
You have such a great way to tell stories Bettye. And crack me up with the scissors on the floor and optimal parenting!!
Now I can see why you always loved horses. That should be a theme for another time. It’s definitely not something that was in my life much.
And I have yet to travel on a train like that. Your mom was so good at getting you stuff to make it fun for you. Now that’s good parenting, haha.
XOXO
Jodie
http://www.jtouchofstyle.com
bettyewp
“Now thatās good parenting, haha.” She had her moments, haha.
Susan Sommer
Btw I posted twice bcs I didnāt see my first comment. But this thread is multi post worthy!
bettyewp
Yeah, sometimes WordPress sends good comments into the trash š Iām glad I found you there š
DaenelT.
You look so much the same. Like if I went back in time, Iād totally be like āBaby Bettye!ā LOL
I love your storytelling. We ride the bus from D. C. to Texas and I remember my mom buying us a few little trinkets. I donāt remember what, but I remember her pointing out the window at different scenes. Funny how those things stand out. T
The memory of family greeting you at the gate – gosh, those were good times. And what a way to make you feel welcomed.
bettyewp
My mother always used to refer to our train route across the country as “going through the back yards of America.” And that’s exactly what it was. Trains don’t run through affluent areas, generally. The trains go through the lower income areas where people have back porches falling off the house, rusty washing machines out in the yard…the further west we got there’d be more animals and barefoot children…abandoned cars, etc. I found it so interesting to watch. Pretty is nice but I’ve always found myself more drawn to the old, neglected, abandoned, messy, chippy, broken things. And that is pretty much the landscape of the train route across America.
Family meeting you at the gate was the best.