Memory is a strange and tricky thing. I become more aware of this fact the older I get. I’ve even begun some memory exercises, forcing my brain to relive certain experiences from my past just so that the memories won’t fade completely. Unsurprisingly, I have a few documents and spreadsheets that help me in this pursuit. More of a ‘workbook’ phase to the memory exercise rather than a crutch.
No… when it comes to exercising my memory, I have two crutches. The first is that we moved so often when I was growing up. My father, the colonel to you, was an Air Force officer and we never stayed in the same place for very long. Until high school, the longest we ever spent anywhere was three years in New Hampshire. I was lucky to make it through six years of junior high/high school in the same house before the Air Force was to move all that around again. And even that is with one year of The Colonel stationed elsewhere and coming back every so often for extended weekends.
When you move around a lot growing up, you usually can start matching memories with the years in which they occur. For instance, we lived in Montgomery, Alabama for the 1981/1982 school year. Therefore I know I got my bike and a copy of Green Lantern #150 for Easter in 1982 because I remember the house we lived in for that Easter. Get it?
My other crutch is comic books. I remember many of the comics I had growing up. And I can pin some of these comics to certain experiences I had. Now these comic books sport cover dates, which are three months in the future from their shipping dates. So I know all these February comics I have were stuffed in my stocking by Santa Clause.
And I know that we moved from Texas to upstate New York in the summer of 1977 because of this:
(I have a story about this particular comic that I’ll share with you on a later post.)
My MOTHER would say the summer trek from one end of the country to the other was memorable because she was pregnant with my baby sister Robyn. However, that particular bit of sticky drama did not involve me. I was in the back seat. Content with this:
And at some point that summer, we went to Ocean City, NJ. My proof is this:
However, the earlier in my life that I try to illicit memories from, the trickier things seem to get. For instance, until recently I could have swarn that my first comic book was Superboy and the Legion of Super-Heroes #214. And that my Dad gave me the comic when I had chicken pox in our house small first house in San Antonio, Texas.
However, if we check the spreadsheet of childhood comics, we find that this half-remembered fact cannot possibly be accurate:
So no, I can’t tell you what my first comic book was with any accuracy. Nor can the spreadsheet be trusted. As I compiled it, I realized the data was telling me my Mother bought a copy of Captain Marvel #27 in May of 1973 when I was three years old. No. That can’t be right. As I mulled this over, I was stormed with a long-forgotten memory of a older-kid-next-door in San Antonio who loved comics. Who loved Marvel comics, in particular. Loved them so much that he was prone to share them with me and even give me some, cultivating an early love of Jack Kirby. I’ll write more on THAT one later, when I can get through it without becoming emotional.
It’s illogical that my Mom would buy a comparatively obscure comic for her three year old son in 1973. It’s perfectly logical that an older kid would give the six year old next door a back issue from his collection in 1976.
In 1989, I was in college in West Chester, Pennsylvania and when not at class or at work, I was slowly rebuilding or building up my collection of comics. I was focusing on the Legion in particular. I picked up one issue, snapped open the tape on the bag and board, slipped the comic out, and flipped it open. This image hit me in the chest like a lightning bolt.
Images came flooding in. Grell. Measles. The seventies. San Antonio, Texas. And my father… having NO IDEA of the passion he had just ignited. A forgotten memory came storming back.
Thanks,
DCD
What did you get when you were in the hospital after your tonsilectomy? Not a comic? And a spreadsheet for memory exercises and one for dates of comics?!!-OCD is alive and well in this family. Dixiegirl in VT
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ReplyDeleteThe tonsillectomy question gets answered on Monday's post! Already written and ready to go.
ReplyDeleteI think my first comic was when I was in high school. You were living with us for the summer and you brought me to a comic store in Barre and bought me some…hmmm…Chip and Dale? comics. Chip and Dale, Chuck?! No wonder it didn't stick. Though I had the archival bags and cardboard insert to protect them…just in case it did stick. ;)
ReplyDeleteI'm a little behind in my blog reading. Hmmm, my first comics were ones my dad would read to us sometimes. There were only maybe 3 of them and I'm not sure if any of them even had the covers remaining. He would fold them in half so he could hold them one-handed. One had The Hulk going up against The Constrictor. Another was one of the bigger, thicker Conan comics. Later, an older neighbor boy would lend me big paper bags full of comics. That was in our house on Edgemont Rd and we moved out of there when I was halfway through 5th grade, so we're talking probably 1987-1989 for my first big comic book reading splurge. Not long after that I started getting my own comics. My mom would let me get 1 or 2 titles per week I think. Obviously, I got The Hulk. He's always been one of my favorites. I was definitely more into Marvel, probably because of that older neighbor kid. He gave me mostly X-Men stuff. My collecting expanded out from Hulk and X-Men, including the various X-related books and eventually some Spider-Man stuff too.
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