poetrybyheart.me

When I think of my childhood I remember words and objects in the house that was home to me for my first ten years. I remember the word “Taylor Tot” though I no longer know what it refers to. I Googled the word and sure enough my stroller was a Taylor Tot. I think it is amazing that the word has remained lodged in my mind all these years. My mother wrote in the Baby Book she kept to chart my growth that one of my first spoken words was “book”. My attachment to words began at an early age. I remember the bookcase at the end of the hall that contained my comic book collection (called funny books in those days). I had three years worth of “Loony Tunes and Merry Melodies” which I eventually sold to a boy across the street for $3, a small fortune to me. I remember my copy of Kipling’s Just So Stories my dad gave me when I was three. I remember the old radio that sat on a low shelf by a window in the living room. I listened to “The Lone Ranger” around supper time every night and to “Let’s Pretend” on Saturday mornings.

I remember the ironing board in the kitchen. It was stored in a closet of its own and was pulled down like a folding bed when my mother wanted to iron. I remember the round washing machine, a tub on wheels, that connected by hose to the hot and cold water faucets of the kitchen sink. I think the brand was ABC but didn’t Google that. There was another round tub with a wringer to squeeze the clothes as dry as possible before they were hung on the clothesline in the backyard. I remember the box of Milk Bone Dog Biscuits in the kitchen pantry closet on a shelf I could reach if I stood on a little step stool. I often sneaked one for a snack. I Googled “Milk Bone” and the brand is still in existence. When my siblings and I gathered six decades later to find our old house it was still there. The funny ironing board was just the same, as were other things we collectively remembered. Coming home to 1933 Lexington Avenue was a magical moment.

The scent I remember most from my childhood was the strong, head-clearing smell of Vicks Vaporub. I had serious asthma attacks years before there were inhalers. My mother rubbed my chest with Vicks and hung a flannel square from a ribbon around my neck that covered my chest to prolong the effects of the Vicks. She melted Vicks in a metal measuring cup for me to sniff the fumes. Both were intended to break up congestion. I reeked of Vicks Vaporub but remember the smell with thanksgiving because of the relief it brought me.

My favorite food memory was eating watermelon. My mother put me, along with my sisters, in the bathtub wearing only my underpants so the juices could dribble off my chin without getting on my pinafore. I also remember my mother’s sewing machine and watching her make wonderful dresses for my sisters and me. When she died my sisters said I should have the sewing machine since they both had one. I liked the idea of sewing but gave my mother’s old Singer sewing machine to my son who enjoyed sewing billowy pants like those worn by men in Middle Eastern countries.