Tiny (Scattered) Memories

[Teresa]

1991:  Sitting outside Waikiki's Kuhio Banyan in the shade, counting out all the money I have -- 25 cents.

 

1984: Trying to study for a physics II test while watching Gone With The Wind, notebooks scattered atop a glass and oak coffee table at Quail Walk apartments, the door knob moving during a commercial, a man in red jogging shorts attempting to break in.

 

1971:  Studying the cover of David's Beatle's album in his small attic room, pale yellow light from a square window, strawberry incense burning while Strawberry Fields plays, my brother saying that Paul is really dead.

 

1970:  My mother, sister and I crouched behind a screened aluminum door late on Halloween, laughing at the neighbors who think the dummy we've dressed and put in the street is a dead trick-or-treater.

 

1981:  Dr. Powell behind the sheet covering my sixteen year old knees, his saying, "God I love women" just before my heel slips and hits him in the crotch.

 

2011:  Sitting in a circle of writers in Blowing Rock, a second glass of Three Olives Cherry vodka in hand, reading aloud about a shy virgin named Ernest Ledbetter who hates his job as a law firm clerk, and smelly Adele who mumbles unintelligibly except when admiring Ernest's pale smooth hands and suggesting he model jewelry on QVC.

[Bill Floyd]

The outline/timeline of Teresa.  Lucky to have been there for one of them.    

[Gita]

I like the construction of this phrase and wondered if it just came out this way or you had to fiddle with the sentence: Dr. Powell behind the sheet covering my sixteen year old knees.

You, your sister and mother in cahoots behind the door is nice because you seldom write about that chapter of your life in happy terms.

Your final memory is my fave because, well, it was magical.

 

[Simon Halliday]

Nice.

I have a ''71 recollection, listening to records with my sibs, and my sisters and I telling our younger brother that, because of his un-advanced years, he must refer to Mick Jagger as 'Mister Jagger'.

[Cita]

I was going to say how much 1984 creeped me out until I got to 1981 and then I was laughing so hard I couldn't think!  I mean, it isn't funny, but oh, jesus, it is!!!  Good on ya.  Bravo.  And sniff sniff about 2011.  I miss you.  All of you.

[Teresa]

@Toby ~ I just typed them as they came to me.  Strange, huh?  I don't know how random that is.  1991 was not a happy moment as I was on vacation with someone I had little connection to anymore, and the opposite of this is 2011 when I was in an entire group of people I felt connected to.  As for the rest, who knows?  BTW, I borrowed a gun the night following the 1984 incident.

[Toby Tucker Hecht]

Interesting that you didn't put these in chronological order.  Are they in order of importance?  The 1984 entry is one that resonates with me.  I have been broken into twice:  once in NY and once in Maryland. 

[bolton carley]

wow!  what detail - love 1970 and glad i could be a part of 2011. :)

[Stephen Torelli]

Captivating memories.

[Angela]

Too good.  Really, when does the memoir come out?

[Judy Thompson]

oh, good aim, Teresa.  I keep reading that one and giggling.  Bet he straightened RIGHT  up...