The Summer of 1948
Photo Credit: Floyd Bariscale/Google Images
I perch in my pepper tree.
Pungent scents, fingered
leaves embrace me.
A lady bug, dressed in red
with black polka dots
climbs my arm, tickles.
Ocean sand, white as the rind
of a watermelon, clings to my
bare toes.
Only hours ago I ran through it,
reaching out, stretching to catch
sapphires.
The smell of hot concrete
dampened by rain showers
lingers along with DDT
sprayed from a can with a
plunger like a bicycle pump.
I slip down the gnarly trunk,
enter the house by the
screen door near the
Bendix with the ringer where
Mama found a black widow
yesterday.
She’s melting a blue cube
of laundry starch
in hot water.
“Did you know I’m four
and a half today?”
I ask. She nods, smiles.
The black fan whirrs
in the background.
“Go on over to Stewie’s,” she says.
“It’s almost time for
Kukla, Fran and Ollie.”
Cross-legged on the floor
I watch the 12” screen,
Understand I am.
Fun his-tory/her-story prompt today at dVerse, offered by Brian Miller. This is a really old one about a time way back when. Hope you are able to read…Google Chrome users (only) are getting weird messages. I have no idea how to correct.
Victoria C. Slotto, Author 
Wonderful piece such a lovely visual, brought back wonderful memories of my own children.
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I was there in my mind & in that time…
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I remember this one Victoria. Takes me back again this time too. My mother had one of those DDT machines and a Bendix wringer, I once got my arm stuck between the rollers ….:(
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How fun!! Thank you for the memories ~~
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Such a treat to read, Victoria. Weren’t we blessed to have grown with that brand of freedom? Mothers must have had so much more head space for themselves. We didn’t use the term “extended families” because we didn’t have a name a natural state of being.
My first TV show was The Lone Ranger at 5:00 on Fridays – 8 years of age. (We were rural!) We watched it right after Junior Auxiliary. The minister’s housekeeper served us hot chocolate and cookies. Oh, yes, I think we learned how to crochet! 😀
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I’ve read a few posts today about childhood memories. They all bring me back, just like yours did. I remember the pesticides that were our “friends” back then–it’s amazing we lived through it, isn’t it? Great poem, Victoria!
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Lovely! A really great capture here!
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i just get a sly satisfied smile reading this 😉
““Did you know I’m four
and a half today?”
I ask. She nods, smiles.”
and the 12 inch screen nailed it 😉
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Funny. My first “true” memory is of my mom doing laundry. And I remember the smell of the starch (though it might have been Borax). Very evocative write, alive in its details. Thank you, ma’am.
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i like the third stanza because using scent gives your poem a whole different textural feel
events cocatenated
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What a great closing line: “Understand I am” … At 4 1/2, she might finally feel the reality of her own identity and separateness. In a different light, taken with the previous line, she might feel 12 inches small, like a ruler. We are all screens, are we not? People watching, making us feel big or little, important or not. I notice at the end that she is shooed out of the kitchen and sent to the neighbor’s—innocent enough, but she defies directions, perhaps feels unwanted. (I’m sure you’re just describing fond childhood memories, but I can turn anything dark and gloomy. LOL.)
These are my favorite lines:
“I perch in my pepper tree.”
“stretching to catch sapphires”
“She’s melting a blue cube”
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Wonderful selection of artifacts to conjure time, equally good concrete details to suggest place, but best of all, Victoria, I love how you re-inhabit the mind of a four and a half year old – this is so real! Everyday pleasures and life-threatening dangers, together in a heartbeat.
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You took me with you in your childhood memory…thanks for sharing this ~
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ugh on the black widow…we don’t have dangerous animals over here but still enough things that can make a childhood dangerous, still back in my days we were not over-protected which i think is good for kids and helps them find their borders and also gives them courage cause they mastered things without help… well told victoria..much enjoyed
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Yes, this is very evocative, you can almost step into it. Well done.
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I tell Google Chrome that I’m coming here anyway and yah boo, sucks to you!
I love your poem – on lots of levels, the beauty of the words, the mood it creates and the insight it brings of your young world.
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really nice write. The nostalgia and images from the time are built so nicely here, really a great job. Thanks
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Wow! You take me there! And that makes me happy–the pepper tree, and ddt and sand as white as . . . .a poem cannot get more perfect than to have these details and a conversation too. Thank you, thank you. (I don’t twitter, which is maybe why I can visit unimpeded?)
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love the imagery here.
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Victoria, this was a slice of life, so vivid. Many of us chose an historical event, but yours is simply a little girl, and I love that. I remember Kukla and co., and DDT trucks spraying the streets – even if you outran it, the taste was in your mouth, yuck. Glad you added that detail, because not everything was idyllic in our quite recent history! Love, Amy
http://sharplittlepencil.com/2012/08/04/elementary-school-lesson-dverse/
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You have created a wonderful mood of that period. It would be a great introduction to a novel…really Victoria you should write it.
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it is funny between your poem and hedge…i just had a conversation the other day with someone about going on vacation as a child and playing in the floorboard of the van…no seat belts….it was a dangerous world back then by our standards today and yet we survived….there were a lot of dangerous little elements in yours too but we made it…smiles.
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This is so vivid – all the perfect little details just bring the whole scene to life
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You brought back some long-forgotten memories, Victoria. I would have had to add, laying on the back window ledge of my grandfather’s DeSoto–no child seats then, but then he never drove over twenty miles an hour, probably. 😉 This has a lovely lilt to the language that just sings childhood.
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Oooohhh… such a sweet memory of a life .. the distinct images and details really drew me in. It was like being there. Great job.
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This is the message I get when I try to come to your blog:
liv2write2day.wordpress.com contains content from followmebutton.com, a site known to distribute malware. Your computer might catch a virus if you visit this site.
Google has found malicious software may be installed onto your computer if you proceed. If you’ve visited this site in the past or you trust this site, it’s possible that it has just recently been compromised by a hacker. You should not proceed, and perhaps try again tomorrow or go somewhere else.
We have already notified followmebutton.com that we found malware on the site. For more about the problems found on followmebutton.com,
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Yuck on the black widow…. Yikes. Happy memories Victoria 🙂
I’m getting the message too, Has a malware warning that your website has a ‘follow me; button or some such. Maybe it’s your twitter ‘follow me’ link? Maybe try removing it and see if the chrome users tell you the warning has gone?
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I tried your suggestion. In case you get this, can you check and see if it corrected it and let me know? Merci!
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