I Remember and Then Some Memories of my childhood houses/Daily-Prompt-our-house

     When I read this daily prompt, I was excited to write. Only problem is that I have early memories of the many different houses I was growing up in.  The first has only a couple of memories because it was when I was 4 years old.  My Mom and Dad were still married at the time and we were living in Tarzana, California in the San Fernando Valley.

       I remember playing with my then best friend-Rachel. She was our across the street neighbor.  I remember  a Passover my Mom hosted in our house. The long table and the many, many guests that were there.  Mom and Dad sat at the end of the table and Rachel and I were sitting in between adults a few seats away.  In my memory, everyone looked so very tall and no one was paying attention to us. I watched as they were talking and laughing loudly and passing food plates and drinking from fancy glasses. Rachel and I were thirsty. We tried to get someone to listen to us but we were told to just sit back down and be quiet.  I remember that we both sat down and right in front of us was a tall, thin green bottle that had fluid in it.  I know I probably didn’t think of the actual word ‘fluid’ but I do know that I thought it was apple juice.  So, we poured it into our glasses.  I remember Rachel and I leaning up against each other and looking around———NOW, what my mom told me to finish this story was that Dad asked Mom where the girls are and why so quiet? That is when Mom looked at our seats and both Rachel and I were slumped down, barely on the seats, leaning against each other, giggling away non-stop. THEN she noticed an empty wine bottle laying sideways on the tabletop in front of our plates!  I guess this early memory is of the 1st time I got drunk!!  🙂  

       That was the happy early memory.  In this same house the next year, I had a scare of a lifetime.  I was laying on my bedroom gold-carpeted floor with my feet up against the bureau. The next thing I know a roses nightlight made from ceramic suddenly fell on top of me. The whole house was shaking like a giant picked up our house and tried to shake everything out.  I ran through the house looking for Mom. I was scared and had a nosebleed. I remember running into my new sister’s room. Her crib was being moved -rocked- side to side of the room all by itself. Mom got me and shoved me into their bed in between her and dad.  My mom was calm but my dad was hysterical. I remember my mom saying “Shut Up Bob! You’re scaring the children!”  I think the earthquake was doing that just fine without him!  I have a memory of the hills on fire behind our house and loud crashing being heard. Other than that the memory of just the sheets I was hiding under.  This was 1971 of the famed San Fernando Valley Earthquake.  

          

Note:  This is not my house or my photo but it shows an image of what it may have been like.(found image in Google Images of the 1971 SF Valley Earthquake : https://encrypted-tbn0.gstatic.com/images ).

        When mom and dad divorced, long story short, mom moved to Canyon Lake, CA with the new husband. I remember had to climb wooden stairs to get into the house as the garage was underneath. It had green carpet. Yeah 70’s!  My little sis and I would jump on our beds and in the very early a.m. we would sneak into our parents room and watch the cartoons as the TV was left on. Also, that it would take almost an hour on the school bus to get to kindergarten.  Then we moved to Las Vegas, Nevada where that became my main hometown. Raised there since I was 5-6 years old till I joined the Air Force at 18.  My other hometown is the San Fransico/Menlo Park, CA where I spent holidays and summers at with my dad and other mom.  I loved summer days there in Menlo Park.  Waking up to a fairly cool morning and listening to the quiet and the doves cooing.  Sitting by the den  fireplace at night if it was cool out and watching tv or reading a book in the living room on  a beautiful Sunday afternoon!  Those are not the earliest memories but some of my favorites!! 

 

Sorry this was so long!  I have even more to say but I will save that for another post!  Have a great day!