How to Remember

My cousin Jimmy aced a national Latin test and won a college scholarship. Once on campus, he became such a party animal that he actually flunked Beginning Spanish. My mother, a French teacher, was concerned. Had something dreadful happened to his memory? Jimmy put her fears to rest. "There's nothing wrong with my memory, Aunt Marie. I just didn't put anything in it."


An only child can have the advantage of one-on-one uninterrupted attention from a parent whenever the parent chooses to give it. No sibling is going to get jealous and butt in. My parents chose to spend time with me. They also permitted me to spend one-on-one time with quite a long list of absolutely fascinating relatives and family friends. I ended up collecting an enormous batch of potential memories. Because my mother taught me how to store the "special" experiences in my memory bank, they are actual memories. I saved the ones I wanted to save. I can haul them out when I want to, and I often do.

My parents read to me. Stories, nursery rhymes. When Mother read to me, the favored spot was the living room couch. She'd tuck me under her left arm and hold the book with her left hand. When really young, I was on her lap. As I aged and grew heavy, I slid lower and lower until I, too, was sitting on the couch. I could still see the book, and we were both comfortable. Mother would keep the book open with her right hand and would point to each word as she read. I'd make her read the same stories and the same rhymes over and over. Some she absolutely detested, but she read them nonetheless. Sometimes she'd try to speed a story up a bit, but I'd have none of her paraphrasing. By gum, I knew that story. I'd heard it so often I had it memorized. Mother would have to go back. I remember the feeling of being held and the sight of Mother's finger moving across the page. I can still recite many a rhyme and many a story. The whole process of reading together we talked about. It became a story, "What We Do When We Read Together." That story's in my memory bank. I've just hauled it out, and now I put it back. As always, I marvel at my mother's patience.

Before I started school, I used to wake up in the middle of the night with growing pains. My father would sit up with me, telling me terrific make-up stories about the adventures of Flatman or Flying Bunny until I could get back to sleep. Flatman fought crime. A pudgy chef by day, he became Flatman at night, tall and skinny as a piece of tissue paper. In pursuit of criminals, he slid under doors and rugs and squeezed between cracks. He took naps in the dessert section of his favorite cookbook. Flying Bunny had blue eyes and a pink nose. He wore goggles, a helmet with holes cut out for his ears, and a long striped scarf which flapped in the wind when he flew his biplane. Dashing and debonair, he ruled the skies. I remember both Flatman and Flying Bunny well as characters. Alas, their stories, like dreams, faded with the dawn. Had they been repeated or written down, I'd remember them, too. What I do remember and cherish is the larger story, "My Father Told Me Make-Up Stories So I Could Sleep."

My mother's make-up stories were pitiful. All began with the same sentence: "A little boy and his sister went into the woods and met a bear." I'd shout, "Stop! Tell me a true-life story." Mother was a walking anthology of true-life stories about her childhood, her parents, her brother and sisters, my father, her students, and me. Over the years, in fact until her death, she told me hundreds and hundreds of stories. As with stories in books, I wanted to hear these true-life stories again and again. They did not fade with either dawn or dusk. Because of the repetition, they remained vivid. Here's how the true life stories were developed. Take the "Raw Potato" story. First, I did something. At 18 months, I snitched a raw potato from the kitchen and took it under the piano to eat it. Clearly, I knew I was being naughty and didn't want Mother to find me munching away. Well, she did find me. What on earth was I doing under the piano? At the time, we discussed the story "elements." What was it like under the piano? Light. I was near windows. I could feel heat from the radiator. What had the potato tasted like? Like chalk. The skin was tough and tasted like dirt. It was crisp. Did I like it? No. Definitely no. A few days later, Mother would say, "Last week you did a very odd thing." She'd then tell me what I did. She'd ask more questions, and I'd add details. Periodically, she'd bring the story up. Sometimes I'd ask to hear it. As time passed, "Last week" would become "Last month." Eventually, the story would become set in cement. "When you were 18 months old, you took a raw potato from the kitchen and ate it." The stories about her, my father, their friends, her students were set in cement the first time I heard them. I remember the stories about the experiences of others. I don't remember the stories about my "special" experiences. I never ever forgot them.

I also learned early to think of my experiences as stories. I'd been away for a fabulous weekend. Ricky, aged 8, and I baked cookies, played, had a grand time. When Mother asked about the weekend, I said, "Once upon a time there was Ricky." I was three.