"My Family"

"My Family"

"Oct. 2, '84"

"My family is LaDonna, Mike, LaDale, Jenafer, myself, David, Samuel and Tealma.  We have a work day.  It is Saturday.  We don't have pets.  My mom can make a dress.  She made the dress I have got on today (10-1-84).  My sisters and I take panio lessons.  My dad has a office.  He is a C.P.A.  My dad's office used to be a home of someone.  It has a swimming pool.  The End. By:  Keryn Tobler"

I found this story in the box of memorabilia my mother brought up to me last November.  Just seeing it brought back so many memories (which, I suppose, is the point of memorabilia).  With the new scanner I received for my birthday (thanks, darling!), I am trying to digitize most of the stuff, so we don't have to heft it around forever.

This particular story is very special to me.  I remember that my daddy really liked it, and even hung it up on the wall in our hallway for a while.  I am amused at what I thought was important.  The fact that we cleaned the house on Saturday.  The fact that my sisters and I were taking piano lessons.  And, most significant of all, the fact that my dad's office--which used to be a residence--had a swimming pool.  Of course, that was pretty cool.  

Looking at the picture now, I am a little amazed at the level of detail I got into that little crayon drawing.  The carpet in our living room was green.  The walls were that awful white fake wood paneling.  My parents' wedding picture hung on the wall in a golden oval frames.  There was a brick stage-like thing in the corner of the room, with a cast-iron stove and a wrought-iron gate surrounding it.  The old stereo (records, cassettes, radio, and even 8-track!) hooked up to the speakers with long black wires.

My mother is sewing something red, my father is massaging? her shoulders.  The sister wearing glasses is Jenafer (she's reading a book, naturally), then the baby is Telima (sorry about the spelling!), who was only six months old at the time.  The sister with the dark hair is LaDale, and I haven't a clue what she is doing with her hands.  Then the last girl is me, with the really orange skin.  (No, I didn't fake-bake.  I just didn't realize that I had to use the orange crayon really, really lightly if I wanted that peachy skin tone.)

David and Samuel are playing below the girls.  David is carrying Samuel on his back.  From the yellowish bat sticking out of Samuel's shirt, I can deduce that they are playing He-Man (Samuel) and Battle Cat (David).  The bat, of course, is He-Man's sword.  (And this makes me laugh, because my little Hebs was putting a kitchen spatula in the back of his shirt just this evening.  And for the same reason.)

When I was young, I fancied myself quite the artist.  As I became an adult, I began to realize that my little talent wasn't anything special.  But now, in my mid-thirties, I can appreciate what I was able to do, even as a seven-year-old.  Any picture that brings back so many memories, 28 years later, isn't too shabby.