Recently, my therapist asked me about my first memory. I had been thinking about this, as I became more interested in how recollections lead to associations with other memories.

I told him, “It’s a sunny summer day in western New York state, and the Colonel, my mother’s father, is cutting grass, pushing the mower along forcefully. There is the scent of newly mown grass sprayed across the yard. Over his shoulder is the broad Genesee Valley, low hills to the west, big sky overhead, a few puffy clouds drifting in the light breeze. New York bluegrass country.”

“Bluegrass in New York?”

“Kentucky doesn’t have a patent.”

He shrugged, “Go on.”

“A floppy hat hides his bright blue eyes, but sunburnt skin is visible as is the sweat under his khaki shirt. I am standing at the railing of the porch with my grandmother, Oma, who is smoking a cigarette. She is probably pissed off that they are moving into an 1840’s Italianate mansion, in the town of Avon, where my uncle owns the Rexall pharmacy.

“They bought the mansion for a song from a Kodak V-P, who would be their new neighbor – making it a shorter but still futile drive for him to try to beat the Colonel in chess. The house, grand but really a white elephant, never suited my grandparents; but it and the rolling countryside around – corn, wheat, and hayfields, cattle grazing, apple orchards – kindled a deep love of pastoral living for me. On this perfect summer day, there is no germ of the tragedies to come.”

“Some say the formation of memories, the sedimentary layer, coincides with development of language,” my therapist said, pedantically. This was our third visit, and he seemed formal and tight, wearing a tie and sportscoat. I wasn’t sure we were a good match, and he might agree, as I rambled on.

“Then it must have been 1948 or so, and I was three years old.”

“What do you make of this memory?” he asked.

“Seven decades later, I know the Colonel was the grandparent I was closest to, my model for many things. We both were very active, dashing around.”

“The memory is kinetic.”

“We preferred to be outside, getting our green fingers in the dirt, experimenting with plants, making wines from the native Niagara or Concord grapes. He impulsively bought a cherry orchard, and just as quickly sold it.

“He was a southerner, informal and funky, of small stature like me, though I favored the northern WASP side of the family, with big ears, and a long nose. Nor was I the athlete he was, the Colonel able to ‘shoot his age’ at golf. He was an excellent equestrian, belonged to the Genesee Valley Hunt, played polo, and served in the mounted, later armored, cavalry, chasing Pancho Villa across the border in 1917 to no avail. He met my grandmother, whose parents came from Germany, in El Paso.”

The therapist had been looking out the window. Once I get going, I’m hard to shut up. I had caught him dozing once already. He refocused and said, “Tell me more.”

Irritated, I said, “Unlike our sessions, conversations with the Colonel crackled. He was blunt and opinionated. Family members were not spared the Colonel’s barbs, usually forgiven because we all knew he loved us deeply, but sometimes went too far – like when he teased Oma, calling her ‘hausfrau’ as she struggled to keep the six-room mansion clean.”

“You may be a full Colonel, but you can’t order me to make any more cherry pies, your favorite, if you keep this up.”

We children watched, holding our breaths, waiting for him to say ’hausfrau.’ Like me, he couldn’t resist an audience.

“When he said it, Oma told him, ‘Lawrence, you’re so stubborn! Good thing you sold that cherry orchard, you won’t need any more. Better savor your last crumb.’

“The Colonel retorted, in his soft Tarheel drawl, ‘I’m not stubborn, I’m determined!’” I heard a yawn, and looked up to see the therapist was struggling to stay awake. I cleared my throat, and raised the volume.

“I got my sarcasm from him, but also positive gifts, like his curiosity – for a hillbilly from the Smokies, he got around, as would I. Over nine decades, he stayed open to the world. As I age, I appreciate his resilience, but hope that mine will not be tested like his, doomed to outlive his wife, and one of his children, my mother. After Mom died, and Oma was losing her mind, he had to auction off that mansion, and moved into a doublewide on the barrier island of Ft. Meyers Beach, where he went fishing in the Gulf for Pompano.”

The therapist had closed his eyes. I got out my checkbook, though I was thinking of not paying him. Now I was talking to myself. “He never lost his sense of wonder. We’d go on postprandial walks, him using a cane for his bum hip, along the dirt tractor roads around the mansion, dusk falling, doves cooing in the English ivy. He’d point out the hawk gliding overhead, exclaim about the colors of the sunset – and scold me for dragging my feet and stirring up dust.”

The therapist woke up at the sound of the check ripping out of the checkbook. I slapped in on the desk and abruptly walked out the door, not stopping to schedule another appointment. I heard him say, “It’s not just my fault!”

 

Robert Paviour is a former journalist who became a psychotherapist, living in Charlottesville Virginia. He enjoys hiking in the Blue Ridge and Allegheny mountains with his family, studying plants, gardening, and cooking, especially seafood from the Chesapeake Bay and the Atlantic Ocean. He relishes ‘crackling’ conversations.