Memories...light the corners of my mind...

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Unfortunately, there's a big black hole in the middle.

If I had a memory, I'd write my memoirs, but I think this blog will have to do.

I remember getting a perm every Christmas and Easter, unless I made a big stink. My hair was always as straight as a stick, dark brown with red highlights and fairly attractive. Back then, though, in the 50s when I was a little girl, curly was de rigueur. Never mind that I always had a mass of frizz on my head for a couple months until it wore off.

I remember the smell of my mother's oily red lipstick. I remember real oilcloth, which she used to buy at Kresge's to use as our kitchen table cover. It had a slight petroleum smell at first, but a drape you can't match anywhere else. And, like plastic, it could be wiped off with a cloth.

I remember my swing in the sugar maple off a front corner of the house. The tree broke in half in Hurricane Donna in 1960, so it had to be cut down. I missed the tree at least as much as the swing.

I remember being called fatty at school. One day, when another girl with buck teeth became the butt of jokes, I thought I'd join in the fun of teasing her, to see how it felt to be on that end. It didn't feel good, and I didn't do it again.

I remember riding into New London as my father drove my mother in to work for her 7:00 a.m. shift. Often, in the warm months, that would be when the fog would drift in off Long Island Sound to cover the city. I developed a love of fog that stays with me to this day.

I remember, when I was older, visiting my mother at the Hygienic Restaurant, where she worked as a waitress. It's now the Hygienic Art Gallery, thanks to a group that wanted to save some of the old buildings in New London. This week I'll be taking a new piece down to enter in their "In the Pink" (ugh) breast cancer show. You can see in the picture below how they painted over all the letters but "art" in the word restaurant in the neon sign. I'll post a pic of my entry soon.

I'm enjoying a beautiful rainy day. Hope yours is as wonderful as mine.

May


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