In 1966,it would have been hard to look at either of my parents and think that they might actually have feet of clay.We lived in a decent home,in a decent and growing neighborhood,and we really wanted for nothing that we really needed.
My parents had both turned thirty two that year and,as far as I knew were the picture of health and reasonable prosperity.My mother had graduated from high school in 1950,according to her diploma,which hung on the wall of her room,and had been working most of the years since.My father likewise had been working since he left home around the same time,and by 1966,had been out on his own for as many years as he'd lived with his own family.To all appearances,he was a healthy,confident and fit man in the prime of his life,and I would not have dreamed at the time that there was anything he could not do.
To picture him as he was,I think back to a particular day during the warm part of 1966,standing on the corner of Sumner and Crandall,talking to our babysitter,who lived just a few houses up the street.It seems strange to me now that so many of my clearest impressions of people seemed to begin on that very corner,just behind our house.
I clearly remember him,dressed as he often was in those days,in a clean white t-shirt and some sort of gray work pants.He would normally be wearing the same clothes to work that he wore about the house,and some of his shirts would have been stained with spots of oil,but otherwise clean.Some of those t-shirts were the sort with a pocket,so that he could carry his cigarettes,either Players,or Export A.On this day,we'd been going somewhere,though I'm not certain where,when we met the babysitter on the corner.I'm quite certain that my father knew this woman in the past,likely back in Springhill. Or perhaps it was her husband that he knew.In any event,they were somehow connected to Springhill.
The conversation on this particular day was nothing really out of the ordinary.Just the way that friends,or neighbors would chat about nothing when they met on the street."Hi.How are you.How are the kids.how is the garden growing." that sort of thing.The woman,Helen was a smallish woman,who would most likely have been thought of as having a good figure.Her hands,I though were small and birdlike with fingers that twitched a lot,and seemed lost without a cigarette.Her nails seemed yellowed,and the two of them puffed smoke out into the clear air in continuous blue streams.If I'd known the word back then,I might have described her as neurotic.She never really left the confines of her kitchen much when we stayed at her place,so it was a bit strange to see her out of doors,walking down the street.
But as much as the conversation that day was a very normal,everyday sort of talk,it was also a sort of summing up of things as the were. A kind of State Of The Union sort of address on my father's part.I didn't catch the words that brought it on,but I recall him saying clearly to our babysitter."You,know,life is alright. I've got a good job,and a house,and a car that works. We've got food on the table,and I have a happy wife and children.I'm not complaining much." And really,what was there to complain about.We lived in a good,forward moving town and we were growing with it.Aside from the smoke being exhaled from my fathers lungs,there seemed no clue that he would ever be anything other than whole,healthy,happy and fully in command of his world.
My parents had both turned thirty two that year and,as far as I knew were the picture of health and reasonable prosperity.My mother had graduated from high school in 1950,according to her diploma,which hung on the wall of her room,and had been working most of the years since.My father likewise had been working since he left home around the same time,and by 1966,had been out on his own for as many years as he'd lived with his own family.To all appearances,he was a healthy,confident and fit man in the prime of his life,and I would not have dreamed at the time that there was anything he could not do.
To picture him as he was,I think back to a particular day during the warm part of 1966,standing on the corner of Sumner and Crandall,talking to our babysitter,who lived just a few houses up the street.It seems strange to me now that so many of my clearest impressions of people seemed to begin on that very corner,just behind our house.
I clearly remember him,dressed as he often was in those days,in a clean white t-shirt and some sort of gray work pants.He would normally be wearing the same clothes to work that he wore about the house,and some of his shirts would have been stained with spots of oil,but otherwise clean.Some of those t-shirts were the sort with a pocket,so that he could carry his cigarettes,either Players,or Export A.On this day,we'd been going somewhere,though I'm not certain where,when we met the babysitter on the corner.I'm quite certain that my father knew this woman in the past,likely back in Springhill. Or perhaps it was her husband that he knew.In any event,they were somehow connected to Springhill.
The conversation on this particular day was nothing really out of the ordinary.Just the way that friends,or neighbors would chat about nothing when they met on the street."Hi.How are you.How are the kids.how is the garden growing." that sort of thing.The woman,Helen was a smallish woman,who would most likely have been thought of as having a good figure.Her hands,I though were small and birdlike with fingers that twitched a lot,and seemed lost without a cigarette.Her nails seemed yellowed,and the two of them puffed smoke out into the clear air in continuous blue streams.If I'd known the word back then,I might have described her as neurotic.She never really left the confines of her kitchen much when we stayed at her place,so it was a bit strange to see her out of doors,walking down the street.
But as much as the conversation that day was a very normal,everyday sort of talk,it was also a sort of summing up of things as the were. A kind of State Of The Union sort of address on my father's part.I didn't catch the words that brought it on,but I recall him saying clearly to our babysitter."You,know,life is alright. I've got a good job,and a house,and a car that works. We've got food on the table,and I have a happy wife and children.I'm not complaining much." And really,what was there to complain about.We lived in a good,forward moving town and we were growing with it.Aside from the smoke being exhaled from my fathers lungs,there seemed no clue that he would ever be anything other than whole,healthy,happy and fully in command of his world.
No comments:
Post a Comment