There Are Some Memories

Whenever I ask my youngest if he remembers something from his childhood he replies "I really don't remember my childhood." 

The other night we were sitting around with one of his friends and talking about memories and my youngest admitted he only had four real memories of his father, Raymond.  Two good memories and two bad ones.

The good memories were:
Rockets
Chess

Raymond and the boys used to set off rockets in the back field.
Raymond used to play chess with the boys and one time the youngest beat him and there is a terrific picture of that match to commemorate the occasion.

The bad memories were:
The sippy cup incident
Raymond's dying

The sippy cup incident was something none of us ever forgot, certainly not Raymond.  I wasn't in the room when it happened but it involved Raymond throwing a sippy cup at the same time the oldest moved and the cup whacking the oldest in the head.  The youngest was standing next to the oldest at the time and he remembers being glad he didn't get whacked by the cup. 

Raymond's death, as I have written before, was not a peaceful death.  The boys had the option to leave our home at any time that night, there was even a friend here standing by to take them away, but both boys opted to stay.  In fact, the youngest barely left Raymond's side unless he was in school the entire time Raymond was in hospice.  All I could tell the youngest the other night was that I was following what he expressed as his wishes when it came to his dad's death and I didn't know anything else to do. 

I am glad to know he has some memories and that some of them are good ones.

Accomplishment #23, continues and Brings Good Memories

Just threw out a lot of stuff!  Yeah me!

Most of it was little things of Raymond's that I had put in a box until I was ready to deal. 

Also found a bag of my Mom's recipes.  Most of them were from her days in Arkansas because there must be 40 blueberry recipes. My mom was a great cook.  I found her fried apple pie dough recipe.  She made the best fried apple pies.  

One time she made a huge plate full to welcome Raymond and me home for a vacation.  As soon as we walked in the door our mouths started watering.  It had been a long two days of  traveling on the road and we were starving.  Mom told us that several other family members were on their way to welcome us home.  Raymond and I took most of the plate of fried apple pies to the basement and ate them. We did not want to share them.  We figured those other relatives got fried apple pies all the time, we only got them once a year.  Man they were good.  Mom had dried the apples herself.  What a treat!

I have never made her fried apple pies.  I used to make fried chocolate pies, but I stopped frying things back in the '80s.  

Good memories!  My Mom never got over us doing that with her dessert.  She told that story all the time, only not to the relatives that we cheated out of pies.