Snowy Beginnings: A Memoirist's Dilemma

Navigating the Complexity of Recalling Happy Childhoods and Crafting Conflict in Stories

Good morning, and a Happy New Year to you.

I took a break from posting last Monday which was Christmas, 2023. The post I’d prepared wasn’t very Christmas-y, and while nobody said it had to be, my editor and I weren’t sure it was right. So I skipped posting for the week.

For this week I dug deep into my files of works-in-progress to find something about the holiday season and came up empty. But there was one short piece of wintery writing which came came to mind. It is among my most precious memories, and there’s a reason I wrote it down.

There are many ways to tell stories, but there are some must-haves to be successful in the storytelling effort. Today I want to mention two of them.

First, a story-teller must set the scene.

Sometimes this is as simple as, “Once upon a time, in a land far, far away…”. It might be the most natural part of the story, and I’d argue you can’t tell a story without this part. You do this all the time.

I was at work today when… (When: today. Where: work.)

Or

Last night, as I was driving home… (When: last night. Where: in a car, during a routine trip home.)

Or

When I was in high school, my English teacher told me… (When: probably during the teenage years. Where: probably in a classroom somewhere.)

It’s critical information and if we don’t provide this information early, the reader, listener, or viewer will become confused and stop reading, listening or watching.

In the article you’re reading right this very moment I set the scene by wishing you a Happy New Year, and then explaining why I didn’t post on Christmas Day. In doing so, you know at least when I was writing, if not where. I could have provided even more information. “The truth is, from a weather perspective, it doesn’t feel all that Christmas-y anyways. I mean, 7:28 in the morning on December 27, 2023. It’s 60-degrees and raining outside, which will likely prevent me from completing the fall clean-up for my elderly in-laws.”

Now you’ve got the date, the temperature, and the fact that there are other things on my mind. But I share all that because it didn’t seem like necessary pertinent information.

As I try to be a memoirist, I am trying to set the scene as to what things were like for me in the past.

I want my readers to know that I remember my life as being good. I tell you where these good things happened and how where it was helped to create some good events in my life. They were, for sure, good events. More than that…

They were easy.

They were filled with love.

When I think about my life as a child I get warm feelings. I didn’t have a care in the world. I wouldn’t necessarily call the feelings nostalgic because while I had a happy childhood, I also enjoy being an adult. I don’t want to be a kid again or long for the days when I was. It’s a simple but profound sense of gratitude.

The trouble is, setting the scene of a happy childhood has made it difficult for me to accomplish a second task any good story-teller should be able to achieve.¹

We must create a sense of tension or conflict.

I’ve found that as I try to create the tension I’ve come across as being somewhat whiney about 1st-world problems. Nobody wants to listen to someone whine. I think I’ve found a solution to my conundrum, but I’m still working it out, so I’ll share it with you another time.²

As for today’s post, I wanted to share a little part of my earliest years with you. By “earliest years,” I’m referring to the first memory I have, and perhaps one of the most meaningful, which includes snow. These were easy to write, a lot like my story about Casey and Bear. (Oh, by the way…this story was just published in a journal. You can read it here or buy it here, which would be awesome. I don’t get any money for it, but the Eastern Shore Writers Association does, and they play a big part in making me what I am today.)

I hope you enjoy reading these stories as much as I enjoyed living them decades ago and then writing them as a adult. A special thanks to my family for making them possible.

(As always, remember what comes below is un-edited writing, for the most part. It’s my way of letting my paid subscribers see my works in development. You may encounter typos or incomplete thoughts.)

My Earliest Memory and Some Fluffy Snow

It’s not much of a memory, only a few fleeting moments which occurred on a sunny morning when I was about 18 months old. I was walking down a hallway, holding the hand of my mother on one side and my father on the other. I remember light cascading at a downward angle through windows inside the bedrooms at the end of the hall. The dust in the air was visible in the sunlight, floating as I suppose it always does when not lit up for our view. As I gazed down the hallway in front of me,

the black and brown tiles on the floor shone as if recently polished. The sheen proved difficult for my 18-month-old-self in stocking feet and I slipped frequently. This produced a certain amount of frustration buffered only by the strong, warm, reassuring grip of my mother and father who were holding each of my hands. While I remember a feeling of frustration due to the slippery floor, I don't remember being upset. Quite the contrary. I was confident in the hands holding me up and safely leading me down the hall.  

That’s it, the memory in its entirety.  

The memory is from our family’s first tour of the church parsonage where we would be moving in soon. I wasn’t born there, but from my perspective, the home on Unica Street was where my life began, and I remember nothing but warmth, safety, joy, and contentment. Even the days when I was sick and puking everywhere. I remember the love of my mom as she cared for me, plopping me down in front of Sesame Street and Mr. Rogers in between trips to the bathroom. I felt like everything was going to be OK. Seems like that might be an appropriate goal for every parent everywhere, at least for the first 5 or so years. Well, Mom and Dad, mission accomplished. 

As a predictable result of a toddler showered in love, affection and care, I doted on my daddy. My first significant memories of my father were of him as a pastor. Everybody looked up to him. Literally. He was 6 feet 2 inches tall, but also stood on a platform every Sunday and people looked up to him and listened to him talk. They looked to him for instruction on how to live. I learned that just by watching.  

Dad tells a story from early in his ministry when I was still small but at an age when walking was no longer new to me. Once, while preaching, he saw me in the back of the sanctuary and – as preachers often do - he saw the opportunity in that moment to create what he calls “a spur of the moment illustration.” Dad stepped down from the platform onto the level of the pews where the congregation was sitting. From there, he got my attention and called me to run up to him to give him a hug, promising to catch me. It didn’t take much prompting. I took off down the center aisle running as fast as my chubby, toddler legs would take me. When I arrived at the front, I leaped into the waiting arms of my crouching father to deliver my hug. Dad tells me he thinks he was probably more nervous than I was. But it was pretty clear I trusted him, and it seemed the congregation understood his point – that it’s good to respond to God’s call when it’s given. God will follow through. I loved my dad (still do) and knew he’d catch me ‘cause he said he would. End of story. I knew he would, because that had been my experience with him. 

The Fulton Church of the Nazarene being a somewhat small congregation, dad would wear many hats. So, on most Sundays he would also lead the congregation in the singing of the hymns. One time, while people were sitting around our dining room table at Utica Street, I told them I wanted to be a preacher like my dad so I can wave my hands around, “like this,” and I waved them all over the place like I was directing the congregation as they sang the hymns.  

I imagine there are thousands of ways to build confidence in a young boy, but I remember wanting to make my father proud when I made that announcement to everybody. I wanted to be just like my dad. His pride in me instilled confidence, and I imagine my pride in him had a similar effect. Mom and dad created a household where I learned to believe in myself. It’s suited me ever since my days in that home on Utica Street. 

A child’s mind (well, my child-mind anyway) is a fascinating thing. With such vivid memories of the area, it strikes me as surprising that the world in which I lived - the world which burned impressions into my memory bank - was very small. Today, when I look up Utica Street, I can see that all my memories are restricted to an area less than a quarter-mile square. Our house, the church and private, Christian school between, the Parkhurst’s house across the street, my little friend’s home just two houses away, the gravel parking lot behind the church, the meadow next to the parking lot, the Patel’s motel on the other side of the meadow, and the man with twin Doberman Pinschers not far from it. It’s as if I could draw a border around the area where my earliest childhood development took place. And I can’t be sure, but it’s likely the twin Dobermans helped to create the border of where I’d roam. 

This was in those days when kids just yelled, “MOOOOOMMMMM, I’m going out to PLAAAAAAAaaaayyyyy!” before running out the door. It was a safe neighborhood. We all watched out for each other. I’d go out with my sister to see just what adventures we could have in our less-than-a-square-mile kingdom. This was where I learned to climb trees, an activity my older sister and I would engage in daily during the warm seasons. Just down the sidewalk from our house to the left of the gravel church parking lot entrance was a large maple tree. Sticking out from one side of the tree was a branch just out of my reach, and high enough that my older sister, Traci, had to jump to grab it. She’d boost me up into the air so I could reach the branch. I’d climb up, she’d follow, and we’d ascend into the branches of the imaginative world the tree provided.  

As we navigated the branches of our imaginary home, we would use the full scope of our creative power to play “house.” We’d make soup with ingredients from the large leaves, acorns, seed pods, and various sundry items Mother Nature provided for us all over the property. We’d get the avocado-green and mustard-brown Tupperware bowls from mom's kitchen and bring them to our pretend kitchen to make “dinner.” We’d carry and mix water with the ingredients for the soup. I don’t recall ever eating the pretend soup, but it filled us with warmth and energy just the same. 

I learned about grasshoppers by catching them in the meadow next door, fascinated by the juices they spit out if you held them just right. I learned that if you have two bunnies living together, for some reason they will have lots, and lots, and lots of other baby bunnies. I learned how much fun it was to have your own garden. I learned how to ride my Dukes of Hazzard Big Wheels three-wheeled bike, and then my cowboy themed two-wheeler, complete with a banana-seat. I spent as many waking hours as possible with Ann Marie, the girl my age up the street. We’d make mud pies together using dirt and pee. We knew we’d get in trouble if our parents found out because, well, pee belonged in the toilet. That just added a bit of intrigue to the hilarity of what we did. Besides, it was convenient. The hose was all the way back at the house and who wants to carry those heavy buckets of dirt anyway? At that age there was no thought of “private parts” being sexual organs. It was just how we peed. Innocence abounded. 

The winters there were glorious for children. Fulton is roughly 11 miles from Lake Ontario. When the warmer humid air from the great lake combines with the cold air from Canada, the mixture creates gigantic, fluffy snowflakes which pile up in amounts measured in feet, not inches. The region averages over 9 feet of snow per year compared to the United States average of just over 2 feet and as a small child I loved every inch of it! The winters on a snow belt in upstate New York are a dream for young boys.  

In fact, one of the warmest memories I have of time spent with my mother occurred in the snow. The snow was coming down the way it might if we could actually live in a snow globe. Mom had plopped me on our sled - a Flexible Flyer - and pulled me to the local convenience store to buy me my favorite fruit at the time, bananas. This was outside the imaginary, Doberman-drawn boundary just past the Holly Drive motel. Mom put the paper grocery bag containing the bananas on my lap and pulled me home through the snow. 

Ahhh, the ol’ Flexible Flyer! Anyone who had one knows what I’m talking about.

 

Anyone who owns a Flexible Flyer sled will tell you that it needs some pretty specific conditions - smooth, compacted snow - to work well. Those conditions were the opposite of what we were experiencing. The thin, metal runners would cut right through the fluff in some places and grind against whatever ground was below. But should the runner come over a place where mom’s foot had compacted the snow, one side would lift as the other sank making for a difficult sliding experience. As I recall, I fell off the sled multiple times. She’d pick me up, straighten the sled, plop me and my bananas back on top of it and try again for the next ten feet or so before we’d have to repeat the process. We laughed and laughed as big, fluffy, lake-effect snow fell all around us. It’s not hard for me to think now that mom probably could have carried me and the banana’s home and still pulled the sled with no problem. But in this case, the problems we were having served purposes I don’t think mom could have planned for or would have changed for the world. I’ll take the hilarity and warmth of that memory to my grave. And, someday, when it comes time to put her to rest, I imagine the memory will place my aching heart at ease.

1. This footnote is completely off-subject…sort of. When I was writing this article, I had trouble with this sentence. I wasn’t sure how to end it after the word “story-teller,” so I turned to the newest tool for writers, ChatGPT. Here’s how that went.

I would have been happy if the Artificial Intelligence device had simply provided, “…should be able to achieve.” That’s what I was looking for. But it also added, “creating a sense of tension or conflict.” I didn’t necessarily ASK for the second task, but it gave it to me. This was a wonderful confirmation that I might have a clue what I’m trying to do, because that is, in fact what I was about to say. Story-tellers must create tension. Chat GPT then went on to describe the exact problem I have after setting the scene.

I can’t decide if artificial intelligence is awesome or scary. I’m going to choose awesome this time.

2. If you must know now, I’m doing this by confessing my personal failures.