In my earliest memory I am two and a half, sitting in the cab of a pickup truck next to Theresa. Mom is driving, and has just realized that she has left the cap of the gas tank at the gas station. We turn around and head back.
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At three years I am standing at the foot of the stairs at our house on 47th Street. I look on silently as a wet, steady stream cascades down the wooden steps. My eyes follow a trail of broken glass to where Theresa stands at the top of the stairs, gazing down at her prized possession lost: a giant pickle jar once lovingly filled with river water. Tadpoles, shells, slimy pebbles now lie strewn about and encroaching upon the front entryway.
She looks upset.
The musty smell makes me think camping: plastic mugs hung on tree branches, a hammock. For that split second time halts, and we both stare dumbfounded at the scene, anticipating Mom’s frantic investigation.
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A tornado came through the neighborhood. We went to the basement, and someone set me on top of a tall dresser near a window. A distraction occurred and for a brief moment that seemed interminable I was stranded alone on my perch. I turned to the window to watch the branches falling outside.
Mom put you and I on top of the cabinet in the 2nd floor bathroom while the storm was approaching. We watched it until it was clear it could be a tornado and then we went into the basement. I remember watching Cindy in the pool in the neighbors yard. The storm came so quickly and so badly that she almost didn’t make it home in time….from next door.
That must have been it. On the cabinet in the bathroom, not in the basement on a dresser. I just remember being high up 🙂
Your mom put you ON a dresser next to a window for a tornado?!
It amazes me how you can remember that you were two when you had a memory. I think I have memories from when I was that young, but have no idea how old I actually was.
Anywho…
If we weren’t on the dresser we wouldn’t have been able to see! 🙂
I was there too!! 🙂 W loved to watch storms roll in:)
One would need to understand the relationship Brown’s had with ‘storms’ before you could understand why we were watching storms out of windows.
And the storm you are referring to could quite possibly be the one I was caught in while riding my bike home from a cancelled softball game…dodging tree limbs (and even trees) all the while.