Life's Funny That Way

My Earliest Childhood Memory

My earliest memory... although I'm unsure if it is truly my memory or one made up from what I was told and stories I heard of the time when I was a young child... I suppose there are a lot of memories like that.  I truly thought it was my own memory until much later in life when I read the headlines and advertisements in the local newspaper.  It happened just as I turned four years old.  Could I truly remember that far back?  To this day I cannot tell you whether it is my memory or if it was later implanted, or if it is something my imagination later concoted... although I have a difficult time believing that to be true.

It was in the early 70s and the dead of winter.  We'd finished eating dinner and my mom helped me change into my baby blue footed pajamas.  There was something wrong between Mom and Dad.  There was tension, but I knew not it's origin.  Shortly after dinner Dad went to the garage, a strange thing to do in January when the temperatures were in the 20s.  But, he said he had work to do.  I wanted to go with him, but he pushed me back and shut the bottom of the old Dutch door, telling me he had to work and I needed to stay inside with my mom and sister.  I heard him putting on his big winter boots and parka, but I wasn't tall enough to see over the Dutch door and down the three steps to the landing leading out the back door.  I had to know, though!  I had to know what type of work could be so important that Dad would not be inside with us when it was cold and dark outside.  I reached up and tried to get my small hand around the door knob of that old door. 

My Mom pulled me away and told me it was time to go play.  My big sister tried to get me involved in a game of some sort - I'm sure it was Barbies or Fisher Price people... "little people" we called them.  "Beckie, do you want to play little people?"  I can almost hear her nine-year-old voice to this day.  I wasn't content to play, though.  I'm sure I tried, although I don't remember it clearly.

How I got out to the garage, I have no idea.  Did Mom carry me?  Or did I somehow get out of the house on my own?  I can't believe that to be true.  Mom was far too diligent for that.  But I can imagine that I threw such a ruccus that she carried me out, just for a minute, to see what Dad was doing.  I'm sure that I sensed she was scared.  I didn't want her to worry and I didn't want Dad to be mad.  Little did I know that their feelings had nothing to do with a fight between the two.  They both felt two different things about the situation they found themselves in.  They both believed in what needed to be done, but it was a scary time.

When I got to the garage I would not leave.  I remember Mom holding me by the back of my pajamas and sliding me into the snowsuit that she had made for me.  It was obvious to her that I would not be leaving the garage until either Dad was done, or I was so worn out that I fell asleep.

I watched intently as Dad drove nails into big pieces of colored paper... that's what I thought it was, colored paper, wrapped in plastic. He was nailing the hard colored paper to long spikes of wood - the spikes Mom used to keep the pea plants growing toward the sky in the summer. Mom explained to me that Dad and the men he worked with were on strike.  She told me that his boss was being mean to them and that it wasn't fair.  I know I had no idea what that meant, but the words seemed ominous, thinking back on it. 

Dad told me that it meant he was not going to be working, but that the union would do it's best to help us.  I didn't know who the union was, but Dad gave "the union" a name - Jimmy Hoffa.  Whoever Jimmy Hoffa was, he was going to help us until Dad and his boss could figure some things out.  Dad told me it would be a "long row to hoe", an expression I grew up with for years after that, but that it would get figured out.  He told me that he would make sure it got figured out.  But, until then, it might not be the best time.  I remember him trying to explain that money would be tight.  I think I remember not caring.  I didn't, of course, have a firm grasp on anything that was happening - but I did know a few things:

I knew that Dad felt really strongly that he and his friends at work were not being treated right.  I knew Mom agreed and, although she was scared (and, as an adult, I can truly understand: with two small girls, a house payment, etc.), she knew Dad was right and she would support him.  I knew we'd figure it out together.. which is weird, because I was so young.

I learned a lot, even at that age.  I learned that it is always important to stand up for what you believe in  (even if you're in footed jammies and your mom is mad at you for being so stubborn).  I learned that what people seem to be feeling may not be the underlying truth.  I learned that adversity is not necessarily the worst thing, and that it can make you stronger.  I learned that perserverence pays off. 

Every time I look back at that cold night in our rickety garage... I remember a happy time that had no business being happy.  I remember two kids who thought their life was awesome when other kids might have run crying.  I remember two parents who were as up front as our ages would allow... and even more so... but who never let us worry or feel bad for ourselves, no matter what happened.

Dad's union eventually settled the strike, of course.  And he also eventually went on to a better job, one he retired from some years back.  I won't get into a political discussion about unions or their usefulness now versus their intent at their inception.  That is not the intent of this blog entry.  My only intent is to relay something that I remember, or think I remember, that truly changed who I am today. 

Without adversity, one cannot truly shine.