Starting Point

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This week the new assignment Jay Jagoe gave to my memoir group is to start the chapter about your early childhood.

My grandmother Ellie Hall Keasler Baer will be the loving center of many of those memories so its right to begin that chapter with a few notes about her especially since June 1 was her birthday.

Do you remember how you learned important birthdays- other than your own day - when you were young?  Maybe you still know them, like I do.  For me -  June 1 is still Granny’s day even though she passed more than forty years ago.

Granny dearly loved her grand-daughters and she was so good at it that each of us thought we were her favorite. I think that’s her gift to us. In the picture Ellie and Jack Baer group-up with grand-daughters Lynda, Kathy and Ellouise before the at-home reception for their 25th wedding anniversary.

Granny loved a party and she worked for weeks getting ready to celebrate their 25th anniversary. She prepped the house from top to bottom. I remember being recruited for many of the chores particularly helping with polishing  the silver. It was a very special evening. For weeks, maybe months afterwards she pronounced it a big success.

I am going to boot my remembering with something she always had with her.

Granny never went anywhere without her pocketbook. She favored big leather pocket-books with a loud snap on top. It was like a treasure chest.  When she opened it I smelled butter-rum Life Savers and Juicy Fruit chewing gum which are both still my favorites. You could count on a neatly folded handkerchief- later a small purse-sized packet of Kleenex. And, her coin purse always yielded pennies for the gum ball machine or a dime "for later." And, she was a woman of another time so there was always the sharp smell from a package of Sir Walter Raleigh cigarettes and a little striking box of matches but I was not allowed to touch either one.

 This makes me wonder what my grandchildren might remember about my cavernous "tote bag" - maybe the sketch book, pencils, scissors and glue or my camera , usually aimed at them, but for sure I think they will remember my digging deep down into it  for loose change dropped into the bottom of the bag.

Where would you start a story of your childhood?