Memories from my Childhood

Fluffy was a cat. Persian mostly, long white and gray with bird or mice guts tangled in her fur. My memory from the late 1950’s and very early 60’s is that she had a litter of kittens nearly every five weeks. As a small child I asked my mother, who was sober that day, why none of the kittens ever looked like Fluffy.

“Fluffy’s a whore.”

“What’s a whore, mom?”

“Ask your father when he gets home.” She sneered. “He’ll know.”

I’m not sure if that conversation ever actually occured, but it could have. Maybe. Or something like it. I am looking at the events through the fog of 45 years and from the remembered viewpoint of a small child. I make no claim for accuracy, only the accuracy of my memories.

I was born in Northwest Hospital in Miami, Florida on January 28th 1953. I spent my formative years in the northwest section of unincorporated Dade County, near NW 17th Avenue and 27th street.

THE HOUSE

Whenever I think of those first ten years, I think of The House, as I remember it. It was built by hand out of Florida coral stone. Big jagged round stones. One on top of each other, and plenty of concrete smothering them. Like building a house out of giant meatballs and gravy. The House was two stories, and in my small child’s eye, it was a huge castle. A big rectangle. We survived major hurricanes in that coral castle without any difficulty. We probably could have survived an atomic blast. The gentleman who built it was Happy. No, I don’t mean his disposition. His name was Happy. He and his wife lived on the first floor, and my family rented the entire second floor. We had a concrete balcony that overlooked several tall Australian pine trees. (There are several stories about my older brother Mike and those trees, but they will come later.) The best part was the roof. It was flat. And had a concrete railing three quarters of the way around the edge of the roof. (Happy either ran out of concrete or patience.) The second floor had a hallway down the center, with a bathroom on one side, kitchen and bedroom on the other, and another bedroom at the end of the hall. In the middle of the hallway there were stairs that went straight up to the roof. About eight stairs if I recall correctly. A sliding wood door we referred to as “the hatch” capped the top of the stairs. It just slid over the opening. On the roof, you were out in the open. There weren’t any other two-story houses in the area. So, we had a beautiful view of the sky. The wonderful south Florida sky of the 50’s. That was before all the traffic and high rises, before the drone of everyone’s house air conditioners and rap music. Sitting or laying up on that flat roof with the sky stretched out above us was wonderful. The warm breezy summer nights were awesome.

My mother had a clothesline up there and clothes were always blowing in the breeze. I have very fond memories of sitting up there playing with my toy soldiers as the summer rain would start to fall. Suddenly, I would hear my mother scream and the wood hatch would pop open like explosives were released. My mom would come storming up onto the roof in one of her flowery house dresses, cursing and screaming, trying to yank the clothes off the line and toss them down the hatch before they got soaked. Often Inky, our black dog, would help her by barking and nipping at her ankles, which would cause my mom to stand on one leg so she could kick at Inky with the free foot, while reaching and pulling the clothes off the line. Cursing all the more. It added to the ambiance of that special moment. The whole circus would be over with in just a moment, and the hatch would be pulled back over the top of the stairs, as mom, the clothes and Inky tumbled down the stairs.

I would stay out there in the rain playing with my toys on the roof. Eventually, the hatch would slide open a crack and my mom’s head would poke out and she would scream at me to get my ass in the house, what was I doing out there on the roof in the rain, was I whacked in the head or what!

Ah, sweet memories.