The First Day of My Memoirs
It all started when I was very young.
One day, a long time ago now, I remember my first memory. My parents lived at my great grandmother's house, with whom my mother had grown up, and where my mother was born, in Miami, Florida. It was a lovely day, and I was not yet able to talk, and still in diapers. I was put outside in the front yard to play.
I was having a grand time and explored around for a while, when it occurred to me to check out my father's car. I crawled up the driveway and into the coral carport behind the car, and then around the side. Oh, yes. Perfect. A baby clubhouse. I crawled under the car easily with room to spare, and was thinking what a great spot it was, when my father came out and jumped in the car and started the engine. I was frightened, especially when he began to gun the engine. How many times would my parents tell me in later years not to gun the engine? Well, he would have been a young man then, and probably didn't know any better. Treasured father.
My first thought was to crawl out the way I had come in, which would take me right behind the wheels. Trying my best to think as the engine roared, I thought that as sure as I did that the car would roll over me with the wheels. So, Plan B. Plan B was to grit my teeth and allow the car to pass over me. For several tense seconds the car drove over me, then away into the street. I saw my father with the window down and his arm hanging outside the window, wearing khaki clothing for his work at Eastern Airlines. He never noticed me, which infuriated me.
And so I survived being run over, and decided then to go into the house. I climbed up the green steps and opened the screen door. My mother and great grandmother stood on the far side of the huge room and as my great grandmother looked on without comment, my mother rushed over, shouting, "Look at your diapers! They're all greasy and dirty!" Again, I felt little baby fury.
End of that story.
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