HOPSCOTCH REMEMBERED

THE SUN CAME OUT this morning, so Laura and Hannah were out in the driveway. Hannah was drawing on the concrete with big chalk. I walked down and was drawn into the chalk drawing. Hannah lay down so I could trace her outline. This was so fine that Laura lay down and had hers done. I laid down but rather than flat-on-back, arms-outspread, I tried a lying-on-side profile. When I drew a cross for my eyes, the driveway became a crime scene. Naturally Laura insisted on her own crime-scene profile, which she got. I did two cross-eyes for this but it disturbed Laura considerably and she tried to wash out the "dead eyes" because, she said, "this is beginning to look sick."

She took the kabosh off our crime scene by drawing a familiar figure farther out in the driveway: a hopscotch matrix – one, two, three, double, six, double, nine, heaven. We showed Hannah how it was done. She refused to get into the racket but demanded that we continue.

I returned to my studio (proclaiming my intention to "use the potty," since Hannah is in the midst of intense potty training, big girl pants, &c) and looked down at the hopscotch matrix. What a familiar figure and how evocative! It was probably a game played when Gilgamesh was king. Of course it was a girls' game. I can't remember the play or the scoring and refused myself the time for Googling "hopscotch." It made me consider the flow of time, yet again this week.

When I began seriously fooling around with computers the industrial design studio with which I worked in Providence, RI, had a memory hard drive with a 2 GB capacity, a larger drive than I'd ever seen. We thought this amount of 0's and 1's was extraordinary, amazing, who could use so much? Sitting next to my keyboard presently is a SanDisk thumb-drive as big as a French fry with a memory storage capacity of 4 GB. I bought a pack of three at CostCo for under $30. Things change.

My first commercial flight was aboard a DC-4. The service of the “stewardess” was attentive and pleasant. We walked out onto the tarmac to board via a rolling set of steps. Our friends came to see us off (we were flying from Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania, to Tampa, Florida, by way of Atlanta, because Wheeling had no commercial airport). A 5’ chain-link fence separated the onlookers from the runway. In the air I got ear-popping gum as a matter of course. Later a meal was served handsomely with airline-monogrammed silverware. Each diner had tiny salt and pepper shakers. I was invited to look at the cockpit. It was more impressive than contemporary cockpits because radial engines need more complex monitoring than jets, require a "flight engineer" and have close to a hundred dials. The cockpit door was open most of the time. No one had highjacked an airplane. What a crazy idea. They'd know where you were going, right? You couldn't get away with it. What kind of a nut would highjack an airplane?

I'm proud to say that I received Flying Wings as a bona fide flight passenger when we reached Tampa.

I flew the week after 9-11 (I had lost a friend, Anne Judge, in the Pentagon crash that day) but haven’t flown since exploding underwear came into vogue, so I don’t know the drill of not covering one’s lap, drinking liquids or humming “The Battle Hymn of the Republic” during the last half hour of flight. One crazed Islamicist attempts to light his sneakers and millions of Americans take off their shoes. One supposes that next year we’ll be flying naked with a mood probe up our ass.

I’m one of those people who remembers early-childhood experiences, like the texture of the cast-iron crib at my grandparent’s summer place in the West Virginia mountains, or the sound of cars passing on the dirt road directly in front of that cottage, or the smell of the green, slightly translucent wallpaper cleaning dough my mother used at our house on Wheeling Island, or the smell of the pineapple-flavored rum my gramma and grampa brought back from Cuba. I remember the gritty feel and stony smell of Lava soap, always beside the sink because my grandfather, father and uncles worked in the shop. I liked the smell of Jergen’s Lotion, Lifebuoy soap, and my father’s green Mennen’s Aftershave. That was his smell. I loved spaghetti, partly because (in our Wonder Bread world) it was so exotic.

We sometimes took road trips with my Uncle Charlie and Aunt Mary. One of the trips brought us to Washington, DC. The Smithsonian was wonderful. I put my nose into the tiny porthole of the Explorer II high altitude gondola, a black and white sphere sent manned into the actual stratosphere by the National Geographic Society. The old, uncirculated air smelled musty and dry. There were two sets of drinking fountains; it was disappointing that the fountains under the “COLORED” sign offered plain, uncolored water. At the National Zoo the keeper at the primate house showed us that the monkeys ate well, breaking off a dense, sweet cornbread made with honey, bran, seeds and vitamins, fed to the chimps. When he took a bite my mother, who was definitely a delicate creature, almost fainted. When I took a bite from the keeper before she could stop me, she was forced to sit down and recover. It was delicious. I wish I had a piece right now.

Things change. My G-4 Mac computer is now, ahem, "old." The notion of air travel as an elegant way to go is antique. Presently it's a feedlot experience. I’m an old guy now. Thank God for stents, Zoloft and Viagra. And also, thank God for the beautiful sun that burned through the rain and fog at last. Maybe I'll Google "hopscotch" tomorrow.

BRAXINOSO SPEAKS

Childhood memories are odd artifacts. One wonders if they're honest. Things Adkins' grandson Max has said seem to reflect the long labor of his birth as a memory of his mother "trying and trying to get me out." Still, I must be aware that Himself can grow morose with too many memories. Looking back too earnestly ensures a stumble in the present.