Spit it out

Ok, so the tobacco spitting contest the other day in Checotah caused a memory to surface that I hadn’t thought about in years. Even a few weeks ago, when at a class reunion I asked about the person and found out he had died it did not trigger this memory. It triggered a lot of other memories of the short amount of time we actually spent together. Including my brothers threatening to beat him up if he didn’t give back a t-shirt I had loaned him. Pretty stupid really. And it prompted me to examine the calve on my left leg to see if the scar still remained where I burned it climbing into his blue pickup truck that had those pipe things on the side. It had long faded. And so what was left was just a sadness that this life, who had been a small part of mine, was no longer in this world. Until the tobacco spitting contest.

It was in my Junior year of High School. We were at an assembly in the new Assembly center at the High School. I was sitting with my friends behind a row of boys including Dickie Shults, who I had a major crush on at the time. When he turned around and offered me a sip of his “coke”, I was super excited. I took it, without even a second hesitation, took a big sip, jumped up and ran outside to throw up. What was in the cup was not coke, but spit from the tobacco he was chewing. What I can’t remember is if this was before or after I went out with him a couple of times. Surely, before that and then never again? Would I have been so smitten that I would have gone out with him AFTER that? Can’t remember. But it does explain my aversion to spittoons. Not that anyone likes them necessarily.

Talking to some old friends lately have surfaced some wonderful memories, things I hadn’t thought about in years. Do you realize how flattering it is for someone you haven’t seen in 38 years to remember how your forehead wrinkled when you smiled or the exact place you had a first kiss? One friend remembers me getting off the bus the 1st day at the new school, new to Stillwater in detail from what I was wearing to the fact that I tripped and almost fell down with my Cornet case. Another remembers this really dumb song I made up about a guy in 8th Grade band. One remembered singing a duet with me at a music contest in Tonkawa. I don’t even remember being in vocal music and certainly don’t remember singing a duet. It has truly been a joy while chatting on line with various classmates to do the “Remember when…..”game. One classmate remembers stealing one of my boyfriends and actually apologized and asked my forgiveness 35 years later. I didn’t even remember that he had been my boyfriend until she mentioned it . LOL The short purple mini dress I wore to an 8th grade dance stayed in the memory of one guy and when I found the picture later I had to laugh because it was exactly as he described. The trip down memory lane has been good for the soul.

I got out all of my old yearbooks and read the inscriptions and thought about the people who wrote them. Some I have no memory of at all. If you read enough you can piece together who you were dating, who you were in class with and even what your personality was way back then. I get a lot of “you are a really sweet girl” and “stay sweet”. A lot mention how quiet I am. That I find hard to believe. I think I have accomplished the stay sweet part. But quiet is definitely a thing of the past.

A couple of my childhood friends are planning to come and visit me this summer. I can’t wait. These were my best friends from the time I was 6 until I moved away at age 12. Its amazing that we have kept in touch all these years. It will be so much fun to go through old photos and talk about our childhood days on Longview Street in Mesquite, Texas.

Every time I am with my niece and nephew they want me to tell them a story. I tell them stories about when their mom and I were little girls. I tell them stories about when they were babies. I tell them stories about when their now grown up cousins were little boys. They could sit and listen for hours. And some day they will out of the blue remember sitting with me, on the back porch, and listening to me tell them stories. These stories will become part of their memories and someday they will repeat them to another generation. I remember Chris and Andy singing the words Tell me a story, tell me story until I would give in, no matter how busy I was, and stop and tell them whatever story they wanted to hear for the umpteenth time.

Memories can carry us through a lot of things. Remembering what it felt like to be truly loved gives me the desire to have that kind of romantic love again. Remembering the pain of betrayal will keep me from ever inflicting that pain on someone else. Memory of how hard it is to lose weight will keep me motivated to keep it off for good this time, memory of what if felt like to lose my mom will give me empathy and compassion for the friend of mine that just lost hers, memory of that abusive relationship long ago prompted me to offer shelter to someone that is going through that very painful experience. Every memory serves a purpose. Every experience has some value in shaping the life we have.

That song from The Way We Were says, Memories may be beautiful and yet what’s too painful to remember, we simply choose to forget.. I don’t want to forget the painful. They are as important to me as the beautiful.

Ok well, maybe drinking someone else’s spit is one I’d like to forget!