Re-remembering
I came across a picture a few years ago. It’s a picture of me in the first house I remember. I would have been 4 or 5 years old. I’m sitting on the hardwood floor. An idle box fan sits behind me. I have my hand perched on a 32-ounce glass bottle of Coca-Cola. A Fisher-Price house is among the toys and shoes and things scattered in the background.
I remember all of those things. ALL of those things. I remember the Fisher-Price house. I remember how the fan didn’t have a knob on the switch, so it required a flathead screwdriver or a pair of pliers to turn it on and change speeds. I remember talking into that fan and hearing my voice reverberate through the blades. I remember perching my hands on that windowsill and looking out every time a siren or motorcycle or loud car went by on Fort Avenue, which at the time was a fairly busy north-south artery in Springfield. Today, you’d barely have to look both ways before you crossed it at your leisure.
That little house still stands at 1124 South Fort Ave. in Springfield, Missouri. I lived in that house with my parents from sometime in 1970 until November 1974. My sister was born while we lived there.
I haven’t been in that house in nearly 50 years. I actually was in it after we moved, because my Aunt Becky and Uncle Charlie moved in after we moved out. We sometimes stayed with Becky and Charlie on Friday nights when my parents went out.
I once said, “I could draw that house’s floor plan, to scale, right now.” Just a few minutes ago, I tried it, just to see if I could.
I could not achieve that level of detail on any of the homes in which I’ve lived as an adult, including the one in which I currently live.
Obviously, I spend way less time on the floor now than I did as a child. As a so-called adult, I filter out details I consider unnecessary and only retain details I have actual need to recall. And in that house, there wasn’t much to remember; according to its Zillow page, it’s 616 square feet. It’s probably not a great accomplishment to remember each individual one of those 616 square feets.
It’s amazing to me, though, to recall the attention span I once had. I could focus on so many arcane details. I could remember facts, and figures, and the order of the cross streets as we drove east on Grand Street from Fort to Glenstone. (I just tried to do it, from my seat nearly 9,000 miles away and many many years removed from my hometown. It gets a little murky in my memory once I get past National Avenue — I might have mixed up Fremont and Fairway — but I’m pretty sure I nailed it up to that point.)
What could I accomplish today with that kind of focus? What would I lose if I tried?