My Earliest Memory

Memoir #1

My earliest memory is the vague recollection of a family trip from Merced, California to Sequoia National Park. It would have been in late 1951 or early 1952. I have this frozen image of our car driving out of the tunnel made in a sequoia tree. My mother, my big sister, my big brother, and I were standing next to the car which was stopped still under the tree. My mother might have been holding my little brother, who would have been an infant at the time. I would have been 2 years old, which casts some doubt on this memory. It’s quite possible I saw the photo (my dad must have taken it, since he wasn’t in the picture), and it lodged in my mind as remembering the event rather than the photo.

We were only halfway through building our family. Basically, there was Donna, the eldest. She eventually became the surrogate mom, since our growing family required two incomes. I think she lost the most from our family dynamic, since she never really got a childhood. John was next, 11 months later. He was my father’s image of an ideal son. He was athletic, loved fishing and hunting and baseball. He also became the family enforcer when mom and dad weren’t home. Eleven months later, I arrived. I somehow became the “smart” one. I could read before I started school and I truly loved reading. We all eventually had chores, but Mom decided that if I was reading, I didn’t have to do chores. This would eventually cause resentment among the other kids, since they had to do more work than I did.

A note about being the “smart” one. I bought into the concept and accepted the title. After all, I got the highest grades in school. In second grade, my teacher suggested to my mother that I jump to third grade. My mother nixed the idea, because she saw possible conflicts occurring if I were moved into John’s class. Disruptions to the pecking order could have been calamitous. Now that we are all senior citizens, I know that we all had varying intellectual strengths and weaknesses. I make no claims to being smarter than any of my brothers and sisters.

The fourth member of our family, Jimmy, was born a full 17 months after I was. We somehow created a grouping. The first three became “the big kids.” Jimmy and the rest of the children were permanently excluded from this status. Jimmy was bold, outgoing, likeable, and in constant trouble. I will add some of his adventures in a later post. Ricky came next, then Sheleigh, William (nobody called him that; he was Buddy), and finally, Pat (called Bubba until the Big Kids moved out). An interesting thing happened here. Sheleigh became the senior member of “the little kids.” That left Jimmy and Ricky in the middle, but we never called them “the middle kids.” They missed out on having a group identity, which may be common in large families.

There were two other children born to my mother. Max would have been the eldest, but he was a blue baby, born Rh positive while my mother was Rh negative. Modern medicine has solved this problem, but in 1946, this was often a fatal conflict. Max died soon after he was born. After Buddy and before Bubba, Little Max was born. He was healthy, but I remember one night waking up and seeing my dad running outside with Little Max, patting his back and trying to get him to breathe. It was explained to us that his head had lodged between the mattress and railing of his crib, and he suffocated. I think we lived on Randolph AFB in San Antonio at the time. I remember Mom and Dad left for the funeral and burial in Waco, Texas. I think my maternal grandmother stayed with us until they got back. It’s sad and ironic that Mom and Dad had named him after the first Max.

So that’s it. Our family. I often say if you want to know what it was like growing up in my family, read Lord of the Flies.

Next: Mom and Dad.