Sunday, July 13, 2008

Childhood memory

We had an interesting family living kitty-corner from us when we grew up. The kids were always running wild. Whenever anyone on our street had a yard sale, they would hurry and set up a (cheap) jewelry table in their yard and get in on the action. I remember one time when I was like 6 or 7, I was with my next door neighbor (who lived across from them), and we were sitting on her porch in the summer and the mom and oldest son (maybe around 14 or 15 years old or so at the time) had just come home from the store or something. The son took some things inside and the mom was bringing in something too. Somehow, she fell down on her back. Their driveway was quite steep, kind of like a big bump. And she was a short little ball of a woman. Probably not even 5 feet tall. Anyway, she could not get up. She was rolling back and forth trying to get on her side or something and she started yelling for her son. "Jeffrey!?... Jeffrey!?" My friend and I were just frozen in shock. Her son never came out. Eventually she found a way to roll over and get herself up and then she went inside. Wow, I can still see it so clearly. It was such a strange thing to see as a kid. I had never seen anyone else's mom fall down and not be able to get up. I already thought they were a strange group and that didn't help my opinion at all. I know, I sound mean but this was just my view of when I was a child. They moved away before I was out of elementary school. But that moment is forever imprinted in my memory.

2 comments:

Chelsea said...

Did they live next to me?

Chelsea said...

Do you remember in elementary school when they would line you up and check your head for lice, well one time we were in line and this neighbor was one of the volunteers checking the kids heads. All I could think was "please don't get her" and of course I did. I was mortified, I was sure I was going to get lice from her touching my head with her nasty hands, I could just feel them jumping off of her and onto me!! Ha Ha thank goodness they moved.