Having recently had some alarm bells ringing around my memory, I am feeling thankful for my extremely sharp long-term memory. After some thorough tests it turns out there is no sign of anything nasty and my sometimes hilarious memory lapses are probably caused by chronic insomnia and still loads of stuff to deal with alone. I am chipping away at the stuff and have found Melatonin to be a great sleep assist.
While the old long-term memory is ticking away nicely, I thought it might be interesting to see what memories I could drag up around the sights, sounds and textures of my childhood.
For a start, the street I lived in was full of them. We shared brush fences with neighbours on either side. They were (and still are) a lovely organic way to separate properties. They couldn’t have been too expensive to erect or the working-class people of our street wouldn’t have been able to afford them. Cost a fortune today.
We kids had been told not to pick at them so they’d remain full-bodied, but I was fascinated by the little dry seed pods in them and I did break off a few to examine them more closely. These fences went halfway down, and then at the back, my parents and neighbours had planted Athol pines. Their soft, dusky blue-greyness was like a pair of sheltering arms around our yard and the needles they dropped made soft places for me to lie down on in the sun, and dream of . . . . . . what did I dream of? Learning to play the piano, excelling at sport, being kissed by one of the nice boys I knew, and adventuring. I was reading Enid Blyton books at the time and the thrill of adventure was in me. With Enid’s magical descriptions of the English countryside, I had blissful dreams about being in that part of the world. My sister and I embarked on many exhilarating escapades of our own.
Our neighbours on one side had a cockatoo in a cage near their back door. Their newborn colicky baby was often distressed and the bird had learned to mimic her cry, ad nauseum, long after the baby had been pacified. On the flip side, it had also learnt to mimic my mother’s sneezes. These were loud expostulations that rang around the neighbourhood and caused outbursts of laughter from anyone who was nearby. Of course the talented cocky had these sounds in its wide repertoire as well, which caused perpetual laughter all round until everyone had calmed down.
Down the street was a geriatric cockatoo purported to be ninety years old. A cocky in a cage beneath a mulberry tree was a common thing in the fifties. What torture for the poor things, as all the uncaged ones had a free-for-all mulberry party in bird paradise all around it.
I was five when our house was built. Prior to that we’d been living in a rented stone cottage that, although dark with small windows and flag-stone floors, felt warm to me with my mother’s cheery decorating, perpetual fresh flowers in a vase, a fire burning in the wood stove, and my parents’ love for me and each other.
Our new house was bright and sunny – the aromatic pine floors light, bright and warm on my bare feet. Even today, when I catch the smell of unseasoned pine floor boards, my memories flood back to the beautiful freshness of that brand new house. I was ecstatic about this two bedroom, one bathroom ‘castle’ that would be our home. My parents had designed it and I picked up on their enthusiasm about the home’s modern features. Maybe my love of architecture was born there, or perhaps it was inherent.
My father had grown up on a farm and had a dream of owning one – and later in life he would. But for now, he loved to grow things on our quarter acre block. The first ‘crop’ he planted was peas, out the front of the house. This was in preparation for the lawn to come. He knew that legumes increased the presence of nitrogen in the soil. After opening rains, when the sub soil moisture was right, he worked up the probably two hundred square metre area. The anticipation and picture of what would become of our front yard and how it would enhance our home, had me out there with my dad, following in his footsteps behind the rotary hoe, in my bare feet – loving the tactile sensation of the dirt between my toes, and the smell of it. Still today, when I am driving through the countryside when the farmers are working up the land in preparation for seeding, the smell of freshly ploughed earth gives me a feeling of contentment.
The following year, when we had our lawn, (the biggest and greenest in the street) it became one of the centres of play for the kids of the neighbourhood. My father was a gymnast and would often play with us all out there – teaching us how to walk on our hands, stand on our heads, do somersaults and backflips, and most fascinating of all for me, jumping over a stick held with both hands. Most of the kids couldn’t do it, but Dad had told us ‘All you have to do is BELIEVE you can, and you will.’ I was competetive. I wanted to be the first, at least, to achieve it, and I was.
Another playground was the Pursche’s garden at the end of the street. They lived on half an acre, and Mrs. Pursche was a passionate gardener. This environment was a wonderland for us. The heady perfume of dozens if not hundreds of different kinds of flowers and shrubs and trees closeted us as we picked dandelions and plucked their petals and stamens to discover the often glorious colours at the base of the flowerhead. We organised snail races, or played mums and dads in the grandpa-built cubbyhouse.
Sounds of the neighbourhood – the laughter of children outside playing with balls, climbing trees, wrestling, running through sprinklers, riding bikes, building cubbies, making Dinky car tracks in the dirt, playing marbles. Mrs. Klose playing hymns on her organ. Fathers mowing lawns on the weekends. If all was quiet, the sound of Mr. Weiss’s industrial sewing machine as he made and repaired shoes. Bernie, the teenage boy down the street who never went to school. He had a disability that I can’t name, but his favourite plaything was a wheelbarrow that he pushed up and down their block making very loud vroom vroom noises as he ran. Numerous back yard pens of chooks and roosters. I don’t think anyone in our street had a dog but those from elsewhere would often wander through on some dog mission. There were cats.
I do bang on about those idyllic years. I was fortunate to marry a man whose childhood was equally if not more colourful than mine, and who was as much the adventurer as I was. Together we had an exciting life, and I was never happier than when out on the road taking in the sights, sounds and textures of our beautiful world.
I do like to throw in the odd poem now and then. Found this quirky little thing the other day. Written in 1972.
MAGIC DAYS
Rosemary’s calendar has wheels
Her gardener tightly holds the strings
tows it lightly
stepping spritely
living high on borrowed thyme
Rosemary spends the magic days
the derby days
and teapot days
the gala days
and button days
the protest days
and flower days
sitting poles
and whoopsadays
Finds her fortune in a ball
Summer rose makes Mary merry
Spring’s a sketch of velvet blue
Catch the ever-rolling cherry
Follow Time
It’s wheels are new
Well as usual this blog posted on the death knock. End of the financial year.
Life continues to change, and at a rapid rate. You too may sometimes stop and listen, see and feel.
Warmly,
Sue
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