A Question

Recently, a friend asked me what I miss from my childhood. What a lovely question. I often focus on negative memories, or, because I am surrounded by them, I relive the awkwardness of adolescents. I’ve spent a lot of time thinking about it, sorting memories, trying to differentiate between nostalgia and lack, and the things whose importance or pleasure I may have exaggerated or over-sentimentalized since.

I miss penny candy. It gave me great joy. I would do some chores around the house to earn 25 cents with the sole intention of riding my bike to the Ben Franklin Store to buy candy. I would choose with great care 24 pieces with one cent left over for tax. The process was a long one, and almost as enjoyable as eating. I would make a pocket out of the front of my T-shirt and study the bins of Smarties, rolled licorice with a little sugar dot in the center, root beer barrels. Kits were more than a penny, but worth the investment because they had four individually wrapped pieces in one package. I would empty my T-shirt pocket on the counter, and the lady whose name I never knew who always wore the same matt red lipstick, a blue smock and cat eye glasses would count them, take my quarter and return my purchase in a small paper bag. Back home, I would eat one piece after another, feeling a little sad when I had finished them and was only left with a small paper bag full of wrappers. Years later, after I had moved away, the same lady whose name I never knew who was wearing the same smock glasses and lipstick (I always assumed it came from the Avon lady) told me that she remembered me and penny candy. For some reason, I was embarrassed.

I miss fishing and the silence of my grandfather.

I miss my dog, the one I shared with my dad. Brandy was an English Setter. Her eyes were surrounded by black spots. She wasn’t the best hunter in the world, but she was gentle.

I miss believing just a little bit that life could really be like a television commercial in which people really do spontaneously burst into song because they really like Dr. Pepper.

I miss the apple tree in the back yard. Dad built two platforms in the tree. I spent hours reading in that tree, swinging from branches, daring myself, my siblings and friends to jump from the higher of the platforms. I miss daring to jump, scared of breaking a bone, but doing it anyway.

I miss getting into trouble. Not the trouble itself, but what preceded it. Taking the hose out to the sandbox under the apple tree to make an unholy mess. Jumping waves in Lake Superior despite express orders not to get wet. Eating the peas on the pod before they were ripe and without permission. Too bad I didn’t think to hide the empty pods farther away from the pea patch.

I miss my Spider Bike with the banana seat, plastic basket with ugly plastic flowers on the front and a raccoon tail from the Corn Palace in South Dakota that I bought with my own 50 cents tied to the back. Popping wheelies. Taking the shortcut through the creamery and maneuvering around the fences no-handed. So that bike nearly killed me one summer day, I still miss it.

I miss winter. A kid’s winter, not the one I have to slog through to get to work and back. Walking to the ice skating rink with my skates over my shoulder in a special bag made for me by my godmother, wearing four pairs of socks and jeans made a little uncomfortable by the extra long johns underneath them. Tobogganing down the golf course hill and spilling the sled. The smell just before it snows. Red cheeks.

I miss Christmas. I miss the anticipation of it. Obsessively decorating sugar cookies. Making Christmas present projects at school, wondering if they were stupid or if Mom would like them. The snow village and nativity set that Mom set up on the bookshelves over a layer of cotton, the little skiers and skaters, houses with red cellophane windows that one day we thought would be fun to poke out with our fingers. The red felt stockings that Mom made for each of us (mine has a snowman on it) filled with an orange, a big candy cane and pocket change in the toe. Dad would make egg noodles the week before Christmas. All the chairs were draped with them. Some of these were for the traditional Christmas Eve chicken soup. I miss Christmas carols, not the ridiculous version of Jingle Bells that was playing on a loop in Ikea today, but the kind we used to sing in church. I miss Christmas Mass, especially when we were old enough to stay up for the midnight one, driving to church and picking our way through the cold parking lot early enough to find a good pew. I especially loved the wooden nativity set at the altar and kept track of the Three Wise Men’s progress to it before Epiphany. One of them had a beautiful elephant.