The Road Less Traveled

Want to tap into some forgotten part of yourself? I’ve perfected this more than I should be proud of. I have even managed to break myself down into tears trying this out. Heed this warning, though: Trying any of the following might just put you on an emotional roller-coaster that is undeniably out of your control.

1. Listen to a song from your past: This is more successful if you choose a song from a very significant time in your life and if you haven’t heard the song for a long time. The other day, I heard “Freshman” by the Verve Pipe and I was transported to trying to scrunch into the back seat of a Chevy Cavalier with three friends on our way to the mall. Most of those faces are strangers to me now but hearing this song brought all of them flowing back. “For the life of me, I cannot remember what made us think that we were wise and we’d never compromise…We’ve tried to wash our hands of all of this. We never talk of our lack in relationships and how we’re guilt stricken sobbin’ with our heads on the floor. We fell through the ice when we tried not to slip…” Man, that was some good stuff.

2. Watch a movie: This is also more effective if you haven’t seen the film for a while and if you once watched it with someone close to you. I rummaged through my VHS tapes and found my copies of Casino and Goodfellas. Once again, memories of propping my feet up on the arm of my friend’s basement couch with the rest of the group sprawled out on the floor, in lounge chairs, staying up until 4 a.m. for our Mobster Movie Marathon. Other films of this famous insomnia inducer included Godfather I and II (we cursed III), Scarface, and Heat.

3. Read one of your favorite children’s books: This is a sad one. This summer, one of my fellow CWVWP participants taught a grammar lesson in which she passed out copies of Amelia Bedelia books to us. I spotted the one I wanted right away. Amelia Bedelia Goes Camping. Just seeing that book brought a wave of memories that nearly sent me out of the room in tears. And I had to fight them back again as I read the book aloud. My grandfather took me to the Cross Lanes library when I was about five or six and this was one of the books I chose. He read it to me in his gruff smoker’s voice, his country accent adding to the humor. Six years later, he died of a stroke on Christmas Eve. Seeing that book… man… it was like looking right into his face again. Moments like that can sweep you off of your feet before you know it.

So, that’s my adventure into the old vault. Heed my warning, though. Objects in the rear-view mirror are closer than they appear.

Until later– “There’s no turning back now that you opened up to your mind.”

I hate onions.  I know this is odd because they’re in just about everything.  I remember my mother cooking foods that needed onion and my stepfather shouting, “Put a buncha onions in it.”  Mom would wink at me and only sprinkle in a few.

On the other hand, I love ramps.  For those of you who are not up on Appalachian culture, ramps are a special type of wild leek and they taste something like a cross between onions and garlic.  They grow just like wild onions with tall green stalks above ground and round white bulbs below ground.  When you cook with them, the whole house radiates from the stink.  I know a lot of people who will never even try ramps because of their strong aroma.

But oh my gosh, when my mother would fry potatoes and chop up little bits of ramp into the pan, I would savor that smell.  It would last long after dinner was over, but we didn’t care.  I would bite into those potatoes with surprising enthusiasm. 

 My grandfather loved to cook pinto beans with ramps.  Pinto beans were always a childhood favorite of mine, but I remember turning down a bowl while visiting a friend because I could see chunks of onion floating on top.  But, mmm, when I saw my grandfather chopping those familiar bits of green into a huge pot on pinto beans, my mouth would drip with hunger.

I remember spending some time with my father in Ohio and talking to other kids in the neighborhood about ramps.  “Like boat ramps?” one kid asked.  This, I found out later, was very common.

That evening, my father drove me to the northern panhandle and we hiked up a small hill just beside the road.  A few times I kept peering down the hill at the flashing hazard lights on my father’s truck.  But when he said, “There we go,” I turned my attention to a small cluster of dark green stalks and smiled.

The next morning, we ate an awesome breakfast of scrambled eggs, sausage, biscuits, and fried potatoes with… you guessed it… ramps.

Thus the mystery of my hatred for onions but my love of ramps.  Never have been able to figure it out.  Maybe this is a message to anyone who hates onions:  Try ramps.

Here’s a link to a wikipedia article about ramps.  It even says that they are “especially popular in the cuisine of the US state of West Virginia.”

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Wild_leek

Until later– There’s no turning back now that you opened up to your mind.

My favorite game when I was growing up was spotlight.  There is just something unexplainable about the summer nights I spent chasing my cousins around our yard in pitch darkness, trying my best to search for flip-flops poking out from behind bushes or the glint of jewelry in the rays of my flashlight.

Our favorite place to play was at my aunt’s in Poca, WV.  Miles away from big city lights, the yard behind her house became our fantasy nightmare world of shadows, reaching tree limbs, and mysterious noises.  In the beginning, when I was it, my cousins would choose strategic hiding places and torture me with spooky groans and wails.  Little did they know that even as a youngster, I had sensitive hearing and a good sense for where the sounds were coming from.  After a few times of getting caught, they quickly stopped their taunting and sat in desperate silence.

When I finally had the chance to hide, I was probably the biggest cheater.  I would scramble up a nearby tree and sit in silence on the highest branch that would hold my weight.  After a while, though, my cousins got wise and started searching high for my scrawny silhouette perching on the branch of an elm somewhere.

I remember one year, during the fourth of July, our summer night spotlight was made even more magical by distant sparks of the fireworks my uncle was setting off in the front yard.  After a few minutes of searching with the flashlight, I turned it off and watched the dark back yard until a bright flash from the air lit up and I could just see my cousin Jamie’s sandaled feet behind one of the bushes.  Without turning on my flashlight, I ran in the direction of her hiding place.  Another flash lit up the yard and I could see her preparing to run.  The yard went dark again and I ran as fast as I could, reaching my arms out until another flash of light exploded in the sky and I felt my hand barely touch her back.

“You’re it!”

I know I made this all sound so melodramatic, but I don’t think I write enough about some of the positive memories I have of my family, especially my cousins.  And, as I have said before, childhood has some sort of magic to it that we don’t really notice until we outgrow it and look back on it with longing. 

Most of the time, when I bring these memories up to any of my cousins, they smile and say, “Um, I guess…  I don’t really remember.”  They do remember that I was a spoiled child who whined a lot when things didn’t go my way.

But, like me, they remember that there were good times, games we played together, where for a brief amount of time we were all getting along.  In my memory, spotlight was one of those games that kept us busy for a while, that brought us together long enough to get along and remember that we were family.