The Man In the Park

How early in life do children remember things?  The man in the park, if not my earliest memory, is certainly one of the earliest.  I was very young.  Maybe the war was still on.  Perhaps the war in Europe had just ended.  I know that it was before VJ day, because my younger brother wasn't around, and I wasn't at my grandparents' place.

My mother had a long conversation with a man in a park.  The conversation went on and on.  At the end, he picked me up, tossed me in the air, hugged me, and put me down on the ground.  Even after all these years, I can still feel the love, but I can only speculate as to who he was.  Maybe he was just a guy who liked children. 

Somehow, I thought he would be returning.  I waited and waited for what seemed like forever.  To a small child, even a day can be a long time, but I know I waited much longer than that.  I waited, and I said nothing, as I had possibly been told to do.

One morning, Jack, my putative father, was having one of his frequent tantrums.  I don't know what the problem was. Maybe a button was missing from his shirt.  As I remember clearly from later on, this could result in a forty minute screamathon.  Who knows?  Anyway, he came into the room where my mother was sitting, dancing up and down, with shaving cream lather covering his face, yelling about something.  I had decided to protect my mother, and I had made up my mind.  I slammed the door in his face, and told my mother I didn't want him, I wanted ------.  (I still cannot remember the name I said.)  I expected her to agree with me, and to join me in confronting the ogre. 

That isn't what happened.  In stead, to my shock and surprise, the next thing I knew, I was face down on the sofa, and my mother was holding me down while Jack beat me up.  He had lost it previously, but he totally freaked out now, and I was the chosen victim.

I don't remember it all.  I may have lost consciousness.  I have certainly lost memory.  The next thing I remember, I was standing up at the hall door.  Everything was quiet.  Jack had gone, probably to work, and my mother was again making nice.  She told me, with what I later came to identify as her sneaky smile, that I neede a nap.  I had spotted another enemy.  My mother was always at her worst when she was making nice.

The left temple headaches began around that time.  They always happen when I am not strong enough to do something about changing a situation.  I used to have them a lot.

Welcome to my world of childhood.  The scenery was amazing.  We went through the Panama Canal, to New Zealand and later came to Canada, stopping at Fiji on the latter trip.  There were some very good musicals.  But bullying, beatings, betrayal and spite were a very frequent and unpredictable part of the mix for years to come.

I still wish the man in the park would come back.