The REALLY early years….

My earliest memory is living on South Rolla Street. Just snippets-I was probably three-ish. One snippet is when I fell out of the car. So very early 60’s. Kids were projectile objects. We could lay in the back window and sleep-or in the floorboard-or stand up on the seat, lean forward on the back of the front seat. One of those times, we had been to the grocery store. On our way to Sandi and Leisa’s. Mom turned off of Highway 72 into Green Acres. As she turned the corner, the gigantic heavy door flew open, the front seat went forward and I went flying out-sliding on my hands and face. I remember Mom screaming and crying. She called dad, who worked as a lineman for the phone company (United Telephone Company to be exact). I, of course have no concept of the time frame for all of this. It was a thousand years before cell phones. Where she called from, who she called, or how in the hell they found my dad is beyond me-I was a toddler. I do remember Dad picking me up and sitting me in the floorboard of his telephone truck. I was in the floorboard with my head on the seat and I was bawling and bleeding everywhere. He took me to the emergency room at Phelps County Hospital. In the early 60’s (probably ’62 or ’63) the emergency room was nothing like they are now. I remember my dad carrying me in and sitting me in one of the old plastic clamshell chairs-probably orange. We were just in a hallway-all the rooms were dark. Then he walked over to a phone on the wall and picked it up. It was a direct line to the front desk, where an operator answers and you tell them what your emergency was and they send someone down. I don’t remember how long we sat there, but I do remember my dad using the phone again and when he didn’t get the answer he wanted, he picked me up and took me to Dr. Butts office. I got my patience from my dad. That’s a joke, I didn’t develop patience until, well-until I was medicated, and even then I still have, lets call them, issues. Dr. Butts picked asphalt out of a squalling, three year old as best as he could. There is still a piece of asphalt up by my right eye, under the skin. In later years, I would tell people that it was embedded in the bone and if they tried to take it out my skull would collapse on my brain. I would also spin a really nice story about how I had skin grafting done and I could even show you where they took the skin off of the back of my leg. All total bullshit. I also got my storytelling from my dad. Back then I thought it made me more interesting-now I’m mortified.

I have no recollection of how that little house was set up or if we even had bunk beds. But my other memory was one night I saw shadowy creatures whisking Donny and Darren off of the bunkbed and out of the window. I remember screaming and screaming and Mom coming in. Apparently I was running a really high temperature.

Our living on South Rolla Street came to a close when mom and dad got into a fight over God only knows what and Mom took all three of us to the railroad depot in downtown Rolla and she took us out to Arizona. I always thought it was funny that she ran away to HIS mom. I don’t actually remember the next part, but I have been told often enough that it seems like I was there. It is a 24 hour train ride to Arizona. All day on a train and then overnight. The next morning, Mom woke up and I was gone. She said she didn’t freak out, because it was just Tracey being Tracey. She found me in the dining car having breakfast with an older couple. Then when we got off of the airconditioned train into the (AHHHHH!) heat of Casa Grande, I broke out with German Measles and my Grandma was pissed! I remember grandma tying a scarf around my waist and using scarves to tie my wrists to the scarf around my waist. I could scratch anywhere I wanted-except my face. I always felt safe and loved out there. My grandma Sherrill was a force to be reckoned with.

When we came back to Missouri-again, no concept of how long we were gone-but I’m pretty sure Dad came after us. My grandma probably called him and told him to get his ass out there and grow the fuck up. As a point of reference, if I was three, Mom would have been twenty-four and Dad twenty-six. Now we were living on Woodland Lane or Squirrel Hill as it was called. I was probably four or close to it.

Every day after lunch was naptime. Donny was probably in kindergarten and mom babysat because Darren and I were still toddlers.

I would lay there and listen to “C-H-E-E-R!! Cheer washes brighter, brighter by far. The laundry detergent commercial before mom’s soap opera. And would lay there and think, “What if. What if I was someone else who is having a dream about this little girl named Tracey?” Always waiting to wake up and find out how I REALLY was.

I remember laying there and hearing my Mom scream, “Oh, NOOOOOOO” and start bawling when they interrupted programming because President Kennedy has been assassinated.

I remember getting up and walking in the living room and I saw my mom at the kitchen table sewing Barbie clothes. I was excited until she told me that they were for a little girl at church. I got excited all over again when I opened a present at Christmas and there was a whole box of Barbie clothes that she had made. In later years Mom would sew me different things-the purple and white gingham dress for my eighth grade graduation. The atrocious blue jumpsuit that all of us had to wear for the Missouri Junior Miss Program. She also sewed a couple of polyester pantsuits that Darren and I shared. Early polyester was awful. It was scratchy and I’m sure these are still intact at a landfill somewhere, because polyester is forever. I don’t think I ever appreciated any of this until right now.

Back to Squirrel Hill. I remember our backyard fence connected to Dale Riden’s front yard. Dale was in high school. He was a tall, blond really good looking boy. He had a broken leg from playing football and he let me sign his cast-even though I couldn’t actually write. I adored him. He would later be drafted and returned from Viet Nam a shell of the person he used to be. As I got older, I used to keep tabs on him, he was my first crush. He was only fifty-one when he died and I cried. Fucking Nam-Fucking LBJ.

I remember that Gary Workman lived down a small driveway to the side of the Burn’s house. I was at Gary Workman’s house one day and stayed so long they fed me supper and then dessert. I was settled in watching tv, when I heard my Mom out walking the neighborhood, yelling, “TRA-CEY!” I strolled out like, no big deal. I don’t remember getting in trouble-maybe she was just used to me disappearing. It was a different time.

I remember Darren getting into trouble because the neighborhood boys paid her a nickel to pull her pants down-actually Donny got into more trouble because he was out there egging her on. Jesus Christ.

Sitting on the front porch swing my feet back and forth while Donny was throwing a table knife at a piece of newspaper when AHHHHH! He threw the knife into my foot-the very top. This all transpired as Dad was pulling in the driveway for lunch. I was screaming and Dad walked over and pulled it out and took me to the Dr. for stitches. This was also one of my exaggerated stories because I couldn’t leave it as it was. Oh no! The story went that when the knife went into my foot, the tip bent just a little and when Dad pulled it out, it broke the bone. Again, I am now mortified.

I am some other person just having a dream about