Olan L. Smith's Short Stories

Becoming Aware

©2016, Olan L. Smith

Looking back to my childhood, I can see when life began for me—not in those moments just after birth but when I first remembered. That was the moment I knew that I was an individual apart from the world. My first perception of life came to me when I was a mere eighteen months of age, when my mother asked, "Cotton, what kind of ice cream do you want?" We were inside Martins Drug Store, and it was during the hot days of the fall fair.

The hamlet of Dugby held early each fall an Old Settler Get Together, which was a fun time for everyone. In this town, you were either a descendant of the settlers or you were an outsider. We were descendants, and if you were an outsider, you were not accepted into the inner circle. This created a class structure, but in the inner circle were more class structures. We were poor, but my mother was a city politician, my grandmother was a teacher, and my grandfather was the city police judge. My great-great-great grandparents gave a quarter of their land to form the town, which elevated us ever so slightly.

In the drugstore, I asked for a strawberry ice cream cone and once dipped, but my mother tossed me on her shoulder, and we made our way to the front door, where we met a throng of people coming into the drugstore for refreshments. This amazed me. Where did all these people come from? I pondered, and as I gazed upward in utter wonderment, I became startled. My eyes opened wide, my jaw relaxed, and my hand holding the ice cream cone relaxed, and it tilted just enough that the ice cream fell off the cone and splattered onto the blazing hot sidewalk. I screamed and began to cry. My mother pulled me close to her bosom to comfort me as I sobbed, and the memory faded. Even today, the memory is so vivid, as though it happened yesterday.

Another incident was a time when my mother was visiting with my aunts at our kitchen table. I crawled under the table and sat among the giant legs. To me, they were large trees of netted nylon. Their dresses were like dark canopies draped over their knees. I knew they were my aunts from Kansas City coming for the funeral. I listened to the conversation. It was like whispering leaves in the wind, and I heard one of my aunts say, "I think Cotton can understand what we are saying."

I remember thinking, and of course I can understand you. What do you think I am stupid or something?

My memory continued to build in small bits and pieces, and I recall the time when my father was holding me in the back seat of our car while we were parked. Suddenly, the vehicle was struck from behind as my dad was changing my diaper and my mother was standing outside the car talking to people. Later in life, I asked my father about that incident. He said, with some surprise, "Can you remember that?"

I replied, "Yes, but I do not recall how old I was. Do you?"

He replied, "No, but you couldn't have been any older than two."

It wasn't until I had a concept of time, as in days, months, and years, that my memory began in earnest. The year was nineteen fifty-nine, the year I began school, and the year I became an individual. It was the year I became me. We lived in a four-room house at the end of the street. This street, at least two blocks from our house to the highway, was my world. You see, I was not allowed to cross the highway because my mother would explain, "The gypsies would steal you away." However, in this world, I felt like a king and was able to roam and do as I pleased. Every kid on this street was my friend. I was in my element.

Across the street was where the Bailey brothers lived, and they always maintained a huge garden, and I'd always see them tending it. Every time I walked past, they would shout out, "Hi there, Cotton Top." They were the people who added the top to my name. I was constantly over at their place, talking. They treated me as though they were my kin, and most likely they were.