I Remember

The white frame house on whose steps I played diaper clad and asked for choc-it ice cream.Sleeping in the crib when company came and loving every minute of it.Asking the ice cream man in Albany GA for an Eck-ee-moe pie and being embarrassed when he laughed at me.The spit of snow we had one time in south Georgia and dancing around with Lori Rivera catching snowflakes in our little mittens.The smell of leather upholstery and heat in the big black car that drove me to kindergarten, the big blackheaded lady who picked me up, the big blackheaded lady who taught me, and the big black crayon she gave me instructing me to color an entire piece of paper.The weak half a Dixie cup of orange ade and soft vanilla cookies with red jelly centers for our snack.Wanting to stay in bed and never go to kindergarten again.Mama saying okay.The glorious smell of grape soda we got at the military commissary.Playing Hangman with Shayne in the car while daddy shopped at the commissary.The purple treehouse with white polka dots in someone's yard near downtown Albany.The Piggly Wiggly Store, Five Points Grocery, the theater seen from my bedroom window.Daddy letting me get back up after Erik and Shayne had gone to bed to watch the Arthur Smith show and eat Neopolitan ice cream and sugar wafers.Mama telling me after we were grown not to tell Erik and Shayne so they wouldn't feel badly.Seeing the kitchen light on under my door, hearing daddy open a bag of snacks and falling asleep in self pity.The rose that a Marine colonel gave me off his trellis to give to mama and the safe place in the dash where I kept it until daddy and I got home.Laying on army blankets on the bare floor of our new residence after being transferred to Norfolk VA, hearing children playing outside, sitting on suitcases to eat at a table left by previous owners, the smell of cooking gas.The small hedge separating our small front yard from the sidewalk, the pieces of slate leading up to the front steps, the cold shady gray concrete bleachers on each side where friends and I would recline.The gold colored 8617 address plate above the door, the small tree between the walk and the street where I fit perfectly in it's embrace.The Bozo lunch box , the wax paper, the medicine bottle full of chocolate syrup to kill the "cowy" taste of the half-pint school milk.The wet lunch trays and my imagination of how they got that way.The smell and vivid colors of the paints in art class - the huge brushes and the ominous iron gate pushed against the wall, beyond where the upper grades began.The scores of rubber balls and jump ropes as we performed like a juvenile athletic dance troupe from China during gym.Mr. Whitson, the P.E. teacher, his grin, and my thinking it was because of my inferior physical performance.