Memory Lane

Sometimes I like to think back to when I was small.

I remember my first bicycle. My Dad wouldn't let my older sister get a 2 wheeler until she was 9 years old. On her 9th Christmas, he got her a beautiful blue bike. There was one problem though. He got me one too, and I was only 8. She was hoppin' mad.

One year I got an umbrella for Christmas. It was hanging on the front doorknob with a big red bow on it.

I took it on a walk with me and the neighborhood boy said something that made me mad. I don't remember what he said, but I thunked him over the head with my closed umbrella and bent it.

I remember learning to skate on skates with metal wheels and a skate key to adjust the size. They hooked onto my sneakers. I remember how much I hated going over the cracks in the sidewalk.

My Dad was a big fan of roller derby.

I also remember going with him to the jalopy races at Speedway Park in Albuquerque NM. We used to go down to the pits. I was so jealous that my brother got to sit in the Unser's car. My father was a race car driver before I was old enough to remember. And then he was a flagman for awhile. I remember my mother making the track flags. Green and checkerboard.

My father also owned 1/2 a racehorse. People always asked me which half. I remember my mother sewing the jockey silks. They had a Zia on them (a stylized New Mexico sun symbol).

I remember having a family with 7 people and one bathroom. To this day I take short showers. Sometimes my boyfriend asks me if I even got wet.

I thought we were pretty poor. Then one day we went to visit our jockey. He lived with his wife and 4 or 5 kids in a single wide trailer. You literally had to go through the living room to get to the dining room to get to the bathroom to get to the bedroom and so on.I remember they had an electric pole with a hot wire so all the kids would get in a big circle and send the electric charge around and around.

It's odd the things you do to amuse yourself when you don't have much money.