Memories of Childhood

There are times when I can remember being a child.  I close my eyes and a vivid vision comes to play dancing across the neurotransmitters that record the memories of life.  It can be in the form of a sense, a smell or a touch.  They are good visions, not sad ones.  Recollections of moments of happiness.  The kinds of memories that I dare not contemplate before I sleep because if I do, sleep will never find me.

As Christmas rolls around once again I remember the days as if they were yesterday.  My father is unquestionably one of the most talented people I have ever known.  Christmas always seemed like an opportunity for him to put his talents to the test.  There were nights when I would lay in bed waiting for sleep to take me on Christmas Eve and I would hear strange sounds in the house.  I wasn't allowed to investigate so my mind and imagination would just capture my sensibilities.

I can remember one Christmas so vividly.  I must have been six, seven or maybe eight years old and when I woke up and ventured to the living room.  We were living in our old MacINNES St., house in Anchorage Alaska and from my basement room I crept out.  The basement was my kingdom.  Half of it was unfinished, used for storage and laundry.  The other half was my room.  My father had built custom shelves across one side that held my collection of valuable artifacts.  A large wooden crate held buckets of little plastic pieces, guns, bodies and parts that each had value in its own right.  Many eventually succumbed to the Kirby vacuums awesome power ending as a pop before disappearing into a mass of dust and dog hair.  The wonderful thing about the place was the space.  So much space to battle my friends, play games or build kingdoms of my own creation.

As I crept up the steps that Christmas morning from my subterranean fortress I peered around a railing and discovered a massive cowboy town constructed by my father.  It was probably smaller than I remember yet at that point in time it seemed to be its own massive frontier world.  Summoning his architectural design ability he had taken sheets of fiber board and cut them out into elevations.  He glued each section together to make mountains and hills.  A blue plexiglas river ran one length of the square.  In a corner behind an elevation was an Indian village.  Three teepees created from sharpened dowels wrapped with a varnished Naugahyde material formed a village.  Each teepee was translucent and inside a flickering light bulb gave the sense of a fire blazing away. 

On another corner on top of an elevated mountain was a fort he had constructed complete with corner towers.  It was built of dowels glued together and had it's own lighting.  The best part however was underneath.  A passage led to a mine tunnel that ran out the side of the mountain.  There was a small bulb hidden deep within making it seem as if it was truly a passage to a mountains depths.  The hours I spent creating around those formations would be impossible to count.  Several years later when it came time to move my father had to destroy it, as it was too large to save.  I was by far too old to play yet it was a sad day  Despite its loss my memories still held it deeply inside.  I can imagine there was no other child in the world that had such a wonderful gift.

As you age the day of Christmas seems to lose its luster.  Were I religious I could console myself with the spiritual meaning.  In its place I like to focus on winter solstice and the coming of spring, the return of life.  I have a son but he is growing older and the star filled eyes of the child he once was are vanishing.  They are replaced with functionality and need.  Toys give way to more sophisticated desires.  My father will visit and we will be together as a family which is nice even if the mystery has gone away.  Eventually if my son falls in love I might have a grand child who will rekindle my own memories.  I suppose life travels in cycles.  In some ways the day is a celebration, in others it is a box of memories that I can never reach for again.  It can be a sad time as I remember those gone that I loved so much yet some how in the little traditions we still practice they live on. Well no matter, I can always close my eyes and imagine the Indians dancing by the roaring fire in their teepee as I refuse to allow sleep to carry me away in the arms of Morpheus.