I don't have an extraordinary memory - it's just that I slept in this crib until I was SIX! Our family was poor in the 40's and 50's and my two sisters and I shared a bedroom that was not much bigger than my entryway. My sisters slept in bunk beds a few feet away from me. They could reach out and touch me through the bars, and THEY DID. OFTEN. Once, while I was taking a nap, my sisters rigged up a very elaborate Rube Goldberg kind of mechanism with string, cans and books - all perched on the edge of the chest of drawers. The string was tied to the doorknob and at the end of the contraption, a pair of dirty underpants dangled from a hanger inches away from my face. I must have been pretty young because I was still taking naps - oh maybe not, my mother kept me taking naps for a L...O...N...G...time because I was such a handful. She used to tie my arms and legs to the slats of the crib with nylon stockings (no wonder I have insomnia to this day)! When my sisters closed the door from outside the room, the books fell with a loud 'THUD,' the cans clattered and I woke up with dirty underpants on my face. Ah, memories - good times...
Oh, that explains sooo much. ;-)
ReplyDeleteI laughed out loud until I thought about it for a minute...... Funny story but some of the details are actually pretty horrifying.
ReplyDeleteDARLING picture of you though :-)
Do your sisters remember any of this or do they have selective amnesia like my sisters?
I was 'reminding' my sister of this just today, and she didn't remember - but she IS 6 years older than me so the dementia is more progressed.
ReplyDeleteI remember the cot I slept in as a baby but only because my bother and sister also got to use it (three and six years later) and then it went up into the loft in bits.
ReplyDeleteI don't remember too much about it even now but I do remember once it was dismantled my brother and I would use the sides as ladders.
pompoms - I feel no horror when I remember and recount being tied to my crib until I was six. It only made me all the more determined and rebellious. You know that saying about how important it is to "witness, rebel and be free?" My mom is who she is - someone who suffered from Meniere's Disease and atrial fibrilation and the accompanying anxiety disorder. Plus, she grew up with an alcoholic father. I'm frustrated by the personality of my mother, especially as she becomes more narcissistic as she ages (it's a common condition of aging)- but for some reason I've never 'awfulized' her (as much as I would like to blame all my misdeeds on her parenting).
ReplyDeleteI've killed off too many braincels to be either intellectually deft or physically graceful. I'm going with spiritually graceful, "fly me to the moon, let me play among the stars"
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