march 21--strong (strange) memory

here's the second of the postings i wrote over my past few internetless days...

i don’t know how old i was, but i have a strong memory. i went somewhere (i don’t remember where—that’s not part of the memory) with mom and aunt pearl. we had car trouble (or was it a snowstorm?) on the way home and ended up hitching a ride in a semi. i remember that i was boosted up into the sleeper compartment of this semi. i had a brown paper bag of old dolls—naked and with frizzed hair—from wherever it was we went—could it have been an auction or antique stores? there was a snow storm. i have a distinct memory of a dead bee up in that sleeping compartment of the semi. i spent a long time examining that bee, convincing myself that it was indeed dead. i never touched it, just in case it wasn’t. but i have a very, very clear picture of it in my head—that and the snow are the clearest aspects of this memory. somehow that paper bag of naked dolls got thrown out and i remember going back with my mom and looking in a snowy ditch (ala that scene in fargo where steve buscemi is looking for the money along the row of fence posts) for them. as i remember, we did actually find the bag, but that memory might be more wishful thinking than truth. memory is that way sometimes.

ASIDE: after writing this, i talked to mom to confirm. she has more to the story...we were shopping for curtains with pearl in various good will stores—starting in mitchell, then apparently on to sioux falls and sioux city—tho’ i have no recollection of the “where” of this story. mom says i was 3. this must be one of my earliest memories. she did confirm that there was indeed a really bad snowstorm and that we did indeed find the lost bag of toys.

let’s hear some early memories from some of the other authorized bloggers here on TLN..and if you have a story you’d like to share, but aren’t yet an author on this blog, send me an email: jknachti (at) gmail (dot) com to be added. big thank you to monica for sending out proper instructions to the group.