Bringing My Childhood Home

Day 13: Reminds You of Childhood

I think I have a terrible long term memory.  I don't remember major events from much of growing up.  What I do remember is details and randomness.  When I think of my childhood it is more about tastes, and feels, and sounds.  I vividly remember the feeling of hot asphalt on my bare feet as I ran from our friends house back home.  Running as long as we could and throwing my towel down on the ground to give my feet a break.  I can remember sitting in the golf cart while my dad would tee off.  I would choose that moment to chomp off a bite of doritos.  He would be distracted and hush me.  Any time I take a swig of a luke warm Coke I am transported right back to that same golf cart. The strangeness of my memories continues  so thinking of something tangible that reminded me of childhood was kind of hard.  I have lots of things, but most were not needed in our smaller house here in VA, so they are in storage in GA.  As I started to think about this task, my eye fell on my birthday present from my dad last year.  I had asked him for it for months.  He didn't deliver it until October (my bday is in July).  I reminded him a million times.  He didn't want to hassle with it.  It was a free gift.  What I wanted was this

An ugly, dirty, damaged piece of wood painted 1970's orange.   What the heck would I want that for?  If you look closely, you can see pencil marks on the board.  Those are height records for my brother and I. My dad was in the Air Force.  We moved.  Not a lot, but enough that we never had a door frame or a pantry wall to measure us.  My dad built my mom an ugly orange cabinet shortly after they were married.  It went with them to every single house they lived in.  That is where they measured us.  As I started to watch Doodle grow up (or not grow up so much) I wanted to carry on the tradition of the orange cabinet.  So I made my dad destroy the cabinet.  It was stored under their house and was already rotting away, so I didn't take anything that useful to him.  I had a friend cut the rotted part off.  I have plans for this board.  I am going to paint some of it (while keeping our markings) and then I am going to measure Doodle and anyone else that joins our family.  I may not be able to take my kids back to the house I grew up in, but in this small way I can bring the house to them.