Photo source: Richard Ratay
My Real Memoir
My Early Brushes with Mortality. I’d spent just four months in my new home. Still, everything had changed. I’d gained two new best friends and emerged from my shy-shell. “Emerged?” Heck, I was dancing on it! The world seemed to be flooded with light. And yet it was also the darkest winter I’d ever experienced.
For the first time, Christmas felt like it looked in the movies: I helped Dad pick out the tallest tree in the lot (our new home had vaulted ceilings). I sipped Ovaltine while Mom disentangled the clumps of tinsel I’d hurled at the tree. And then I hung my stocking on a real fireplace mantel (actually one of Mom’s nylons, because it held more goodies). On the radio, “Jingle Bell Rock” replaced “Jail House Rock.” Little Suzie and Peggy Sue made room for “Rudolph the Red Nosed Reindeer.” And Harry Belafonte, who I loved almost as much as I did Sam Cooke, sang about “a world aglow” in “Mary’s Boy Child.”
But I would soon see darkness and suffering too.
Mom and her sister Tavia were close, so we visited often. The way to their house was through Dairy Valley, home to 118 farm families and 80,000 cows. The source of milk for millions, it was picturesque during the day. But we always drove through it at night. So total darkness is what I remember (along with the smell of 80,000 piles of manure).
There were no lights. Anywhere. And there was fog. Everywhere. Always. Plus it was crisscrossed with milk-train tracks, which would eventually trigger my burgeoning train phobia. However, it was the way to the Prices, and to the nearest movie theater, so it was a necessary evil.
For the first time, I began sleeping over. That was when I discovered that the Price home was a scary place at night as well. Aunt Tavia was nice. And her husband, Uncle Larry, was convivial around Mommandad, although he was a bit of a braggart. But his dark side emerged when my parents left. My cousins and I–Lonnie (the mature one), Frankie (“Pranky,” the uncontrollable one), and “Guy-Guy” (the baby-talker)–were nothing alike. Still, we managed to play together. Then bedtime came.
Kids goof-off at bedtime, it’s a universal rule. At the Prices I learned not to, and yet for some reason my cousins hadn’t. “Don’t make me come in there,” Uncle Larry would warn. Nevertheless, they’d soon be yelling and jumping on their beds. Then Uncle Larry would charge into the room, belt in hand. And I’d watch in horror as, exploding with rage, he beat each of them until they had huge red welts on their legs and bottoms.
Why did it have to be this way? I wondered. Was it Uncle Larry’s drinking? Or his war experience? Did his father beat him the same way? “The sins of the fathers…” I’ll never know for sure. But all three of my cousins’ lives eventually took tragic turns.
On our next trip to the Prices, Dairy Valley added its own tragedy to my memory. I spotted the blinking lights of two airplanes headed toward each other, and pointed them out. Dad assured me that they only appeared to be close.
And then they crashed. For once, Dairy Valley was lit up at night. Flames fireballed out from what we learned the next day was one of the worst aviation disasters in California history.
My childhood may sometimes sound idyllic. But it wasn’t always. We all have to pass through the darkness, it seems…
On our way to the light.
The memories this awakened in me. Not good ones. Yet real ones. Sad ones. Scary ones. Ones I still see and hear.
Thank you for sharing. We all face dark days. Thankful I know THE light of the world.
I feel for you! Praying for you!
🧡
I think uncle Larry knew my uncle Tiny.
I blame both of them.
So sorry to hear that, Mark.
It was a different disciplinary world back then. Some of it, as you have described, was way too harsh. The plane crash would have been a horrendous sight for a child to witness. I’m surprised you’re able to hop on a plane. 🙁
Oddly, I never developed a fear of planes, Nancy.
Tragic. My heart breaks for your cousins.
Thank you, Tracy.
A sad story and even more so when you had to sit helplessly by and watch. I would be curious to know how your cousins turned out in later life Mitch as you mentioned tragedy for each. If they ever spoke of those awful moments frozen in time. And in later years how they spoke of their father, if they ever did. Was he forgiven? I am sorry for the dark memories of Dairy Valley.
I don’t recall hearing them say what they thought of him, Kathy. There were no “later years” for two of them. The one still remaining, like his father and both brothers, is an addict, as was his son who died tragically.
There is something so sad about that Mitch. I am sorry and hope you can remember happier times when life for them was easier.
So sad about your cousins and the airplanes crashing.
Memories, such a gift to be able to tell of your experiences that enlighten, with laughter, sadness and encouragement. Thank you for sharing your childhood growth.
I am struck by the combination of emotions, the sense of anticipation (friends!) and the mix of both impending danger (the beatings; the dark, foggy valley; the air disaster) and humour (the nicknames). Then we’re left with the mysteries. I’d think this would have been a difficult story to tell. Thanks, as always.