Tag: memories

Tandem Bicycle as a Writing Tool

When I was really little, my mom told me that somewhere there was a little girl who was going to be my wife. When I was fifteen, I got carried away and drew her. Years later when I met Carol, I had this eerie feeling that I already knew her.

We were married at once. When I was helping her move her things in, I was stopped short by the sight of a photograph. “Who on earth is that?” I said.

“Why that’s me, when I was a senior in high school,” she said, looking puzzled.

“Well, the reason for my stupid remark is that the picture happens to be the very drawing I made once of the girl of my dreams, only it’s a photograph!”

We commemorated our wedding by buying the tandem bicycle which we still ride in the morning on the days when we do our best writing. Some things do indeed work better together than separate, don’t you think?

 Tom Phipps

Forever Four

I woke up four years old on a gorgeous June day alive with bird songs, and hollyhocks brushing the bottom of my window. I scampered out to the end of the sidewalk in the garden to meet Mom and Dad coming up the lane from the milking parlour on one of their Ford Fergusons to fix breakfast. “Good morning four year old!” called Mom from atop a fender. It was a most special day.

As we were eating breakfast, I remember them saying that I’d likely not remember a bit of the day when I got older, in spite of how very important it was to be four years old. What was I to do?

After breakfast I went outside and played amongst the snapdragons for a while. Suddenly I knew. I would perform a ritual that I would remember forever, or at least for as long as I would be able to. I ran to the rusty round bin we used for chicken feed and climbed half way up the ladder which was leaning against it. I paused, listening to the purple martins and the meadowlarks. Then I waved my leg in the air off the side of the ladder four deliberate times, one for each of my years. 

I do remember a much earlier sunny day. Perhaps I was two. I had my black and white teddy bear, wandering amongst honey bees tending the red clover, along the ditch of the South Road, a half mile away from the house.

 Mom heard a loon cry at the pond and thought it was me, so when the old black ’40 Ford which pinched the holy shit out of my finger suddenly stopped across the ditch, she boiled out in her apron with a face like a hornet and swept me off my feet with a hug.

So what happened when your memory came alive? Please let us know.

 

Tom Phipps

The Last Time I Ever Saw Dad

Dad had Alzheimer’s. We never figured this out until well after he stunned us all by selling the farm. A few years after he did that, he came across the yard to my back door. “Do I have my clothes on?” he said as he stepped inside.

“Well yes,” I said.

“People get awfully upset if you don’t,” he said. Then he warned me to be on my toes so that no one would come and take the farm away.

Mom looked after him with endless patience. When we all went out to eat Sunday dinner together, Dad grinned, drew a great breath and let out a noise like a steam engine whistle, reducing the entire restaurant to dead silence. “Harry!” she gasped. “Mercy sakes!”

At three ‘o clock one morning, Mom gave me a ring and sent me out to look for him. I found him in his pajamas, barefoot in the snow. As I led him back to the house by his gnarled old hand, I remembered him tirelessly holding me by the overall straps, ploughing whilst I slept on the running-board. Soon he was making a game of eluding us by hiding in the woods. He was becoming difficult to find.

The last time I ever saw him, I went to the rest home with my banjo to keep him company. He would no longer open his eyes, but they had him dressed and sitting in the common room. I played Camptown Races, Old Joe Clark, Silver Bell, Turkey in the Straw and King’sHead. Dad nodded and tapped his foot in perfect time. Old withered folks shuffled in with walkers to join us. Wheelchairs parked between the davenports. Here and there, frail old voices were beginning to sing.

A minister appeared, pacing about in agitation before coming up to me. “It’s time for my delivery,” he said, shaking his head. “I’m afraid you’ll have to quit.”

I put away my banjo. “I’ll be back in a day or two, Dad.”

He squeezed his eyes tight and nodded. 

 

 

 

Tom Phipps