I’m not sure which of these is my very first memory. It’s difficult to date them. I remember riding up a road that I am pretty sure was US 11, on the way to see my grandfather. And I remember him alive in a recliner in those old apartments on Purdue in Oak Ridge, everything brown in my memory. He died a couple of days after I turned 2, and I have no memory of the funeral or anything like that – just that one day he was there and then, some time later, he wasn’t.
Competing for that as my oldest memory is rain. Rain at night, audible through red curtains in the dark of my parents’ bedroom. For whatever reason, I had in my mind that it only ever rained at night. And that it rained every night. I had to be under three years old for that, but I can remember it, and I can remember remembering it, if that makes sense. From a young age, I remember knowing I used to think that.
I say all this because I see the children of friends and I wonder how much they remember about days gone by. I wonder if they remember a mysterious figure from California who breezes in out of nowhere – or did, once or twice, long ago. I wonder if they remember being flopped like a burrito on my chest, or if they remember being dressed up like a little baseball at a Vanderbilt tailgate.
I wish some of my memories were more tangible. I wish I had some more of the sort of memories I wanted.