Crooked Memories

A whisper of wind rustles through the leaves of the "formosa" trees. This gentle breeze, warm from the summer sun, doesn't disturb the sturdy lad up in the branches. He is carefully selecting only the very best "green beans" for his companions on the ground. Dark curls, with just a hint of gold, cascade down the back of a small girl reaching up to receive the bounty. She passes on the flat, slender pods to another member of this diligent crew of cooks. This third child, pushing her chestnut-colored bangs out of her face, balances one of Mam-ma's kitchen pots against her body and collects what will become tonight's "supper." Together, after the harvest, Frankie, Janice and Dee Dee would "snap the beans" just the way they learned from Mam-ma.

It would be years before I would discover that those trees were actually called "mimosa" trees. In fact, I had just moved with my husband and three children into an older ranch-style home that sat at the end of a long driveway lined with those beloved trees. Unfortunately, there had been a drought the previous summer, and the former residents had obviously neglected the thirsty timber. Jim was trying to decide whether the trees would make it, while I gazed on the scene, letting my mind wander back through the years.

Mam-ma's front yard was a vast playground for me and my cousins when we were small. We particularly liked the crooked trees that let us climb endlessly through their branches. They were better than any of today's elaborate playground gadgets. After all, how many teeter-totters and slides have you seen that actually "grow green beans"? One of the largest of those "formosa" trees in Mam-ma's yard stood near the front porch. This was the one that Frankie, Janice and I spent countless hours in and under making memories to last a lifetime.

Frankie and Janice were my first cousins on my dad's side of the family. Frankie's mom and Janice's dad were two of eight siblings in this particular lineage of the Reeds of western Kentucky. There were a lot of cousins, but the three of us were especially close, having been born within a four-month period at the end of 1950.

Harry Truman was President and the Korean Conflict had just begun. Volkswagens had become the largest-selling automobile import just the year before. A Coca-Cola in an ice-cold bottle could be purchased for a nickel. For LESS than a dollar both of my parents could go to a double-feature movie (complete with cartoon and news reels) AND have a Coke and popcorn (provided they could come up with a dollar to start with, of course).

Oblivious to all this history-in-the-making, the three of us kids spent endless hours in Mam-ma's front yard letting our imaginations run free, playing make-believe at what we perhaps thought our futures would hold.

However, I'm certain that I never even pretended that I worked in a junior high school library, directing students with purple hair and nose rings to the card catalog. Or that I would have four children who would be anything less than perfect, super-intelligent, talented, polite and totally obedient.

Janice and I probably pretended to be a "wife and mommy," just like June Cleaver, or perhaps even a successful, have-it-all woman of the '70s like Carol Brady. More than likely Frankie, being a typical boy, never thought much beyond the moment.

It's amazing how imaginative we thought we were as children until we see the realities of what we have become and how the world we live in has evolved since those "Wonder Years" of our childhood.

I'm certain the "perfect, drop-dead gorgeous and wealthy husband" that I fantasized there with me (the "perfect, drop-dead gorgeous and capable-of-spending-all-that-money-wisely wife") did not even begin to parallel the not-so-perfect, not-so-gorgeous (I won't even get into that) couple that Jim and I actually are. I suppose I can't count the wealthy part either -- unless you consider my collection of Gone With the Wind memorabilia and Jim's Chevy pick-up to be representations of great wealth.

As the years have passed, Frankie, Janice and I have scattered to different parts of the country. We see one another now only at an occasional family reunion. It's sometimes the kind of reunion where all these oft-forgotten people from your past gather at the home of some ancient aunt you didn't even know you had. (Did I really know these characters? Worse yet, am I actually related to them?!) You reminisce, laugh and cry together. Historical, and not-so-historical events, are recalled and discussed.

Inevitably, someone always manages to dredge up the most embarrassing moment of your life. And Aunt Prudence is sure to loudly state her opinion that "you look more like Great-Aunt Hortense everyday since you put on all that weight!"

"Thanks for that observation, Aunt Prudence. And I see that you still haven't found a doctor who can do anything about those cauliflower ears of yours, have you?"

Frankie, now the father of two girls, wasn't just a cousin. He was my best friend. He's, also,, the only one of us who still resides in Kentucky. I couldn't say my f's, so I called him "Shrankie," and he answered to it as though that was the name bestowed upon him at birth.

At my fourth birthday party he suggested I practice blowing out my candles by blowing on the half-full ashtray sitting next to my vanilla icing-covered cake! I did. My mom, doing what moms do, rescued the "peppered" icing somehow and the party went on. Frankie's lucky that the wish I made when I blew out the candles didn't come true.

I'm sure that Frankie's memories of the "formosa" trees are not nearly so pleasant as mine. As a teenager he fell from that big one near the front porch and broke his back. The long months in a body cast probably wiped those "fun times" right out of his brain!

Janice and I both moved from Kentucky when we were young: she to a suburb of Chicago and me to Vicksburg, Mississippi. Our summer stays and holidays in Paducah were the only time we had together, and we made the most out of it.

We spent hours cutting out paper dolls, having tea parties, playing house and all those other things that little girls did in the days before little girls knew they should be "more assertive" in their role-playing. We may not have become the "perfect" people we envisioned ourselves becoming, but at least we didn't grow up and give birth to someone we called "the Beaver"!

More often, the reunions that Frankie, Janice and I find ourselves at now are the kind where you say "good-bye" to those you suddenly realize were more a part of you than you ever knew or valued enough. As this type of family gathering becomes more the norm, a sense of urgency often begins to flow through one's blood. Your realize your own immortality, as well as that of others. You want to see everyone again. Talk to them, laugh with them, cry with them. One last time before it's too late.

And I, with all my blessings, need to stop more often to say things like "thank-you," "I care" or simply "I love you"; to give away a smile or a hug - or BOTH ; or to just "be there" for someone who is alone or hurting.

I need to reflect back on a time when everything was so simple. All the three of us had to worry about was getting enough "green beans" for "supper" from the formosa tree in Mam-ma's front yard!

~ written in 1996