Ignorance may not always be bliss but it could be, at times, a blessing.

Being at my uncle’s graveside service on Tuesday with my cousins brought back many memories that date back to when we were kids. This is the ball that my brain flippers keeps slapping forth and back on this Thursday, May 28, 2009. Seeing my cousin John reminded me of the many times we all played together as children. He became a huge hunk of a man who served our country in the Vietnam War where he saw things most of us could never imagine much less to ever have to encounter. I can remember as kids he could play the piano. None of us played any instruments and it always fascinated us that he was learning to play. He and his brother Don, who also is a huge hunk of a man, were our city cousins while I suppose we met the description of being ‘country bumpkins’. When I would visit them in the summer we would take a city bus downtown to the YMCA for swimming lessons. In our rural area swimming lessons came about when you were thrown into the creek and told to swim or sink. On our way back from swimming lessons we would stop at the drug store where they had a soda fountain and there we could order a cherry coke or some other fabulous concoction. That was pretty heady stuff for a country kid!

I’ve written before about the blurred vision of my memory banks prior to my dad’s sudden passing in 1954. Bits and pieces, hits and misses are about all I can conjure up from these first seven years. I’ve heard some from others about those times and some of their recollections are not that pleasant so perhaps I am better off not being able to remember all the details from that period. I know without a doubt that I was loved and my mom and dad did the best they could for us. Life was not always easy for a young couple with six children but the glimpses I see are of happy moments. Sure, it has bothered me that I can’t go back and relive some of those days. There’s a commercial currently running on television that says people always remember important events like your first day of school. I actually have no recollection whatsoever of my first day of school and can only bring to mind a few images of being in school before dad’s death. I do remember a bully breaking my arm and how my mom let his mom know what she thought about it.

My wife thinks I am a memory machine, therefore, it does seem odd that I should have such a void in some of those early files. I’ve read all the literature about blocked memories and traumatic events that tend to overwhelm prior remembrances. I’m sure all of that plays a role in me not being able to go back to those early childhood days. In the end, since I am not a proponent of hypnosis, I will have to be satisfied with those idyllic thoughts of family, fun, and good times, real, imagined, or deduced from photographs and stories. I suppose being ignorant is not always a bad thing and in my case it may have turned out to be a blessing. At least I don’t have anything in particular during my first seven years to blame someone for in terms of how messed up I am and as a result I can only rise each day and be thankful to God for my mom and dad, my grandparents, and everyone else who has done what they could to help me along the way. That’s what I am choosing to do today as I walk down memory lane. May God bless our thoughts of others who have been a part of our lives! Amen. …..More later.