Sweet Things…..

It’s funny the things we remember from our childhood. I love words and I always have. I want to know where they came from and who decided that certain sounds and syllables, put together, would mean one thing or another.

My daddy thought I was precocious. When I was only four, I could spell very long words. Well, not really spell them, but repeat patterns of sounds that meant something to the grown-ups. It didn’t take me very long to learn the sequence: Em Eye Ess, Ess Eye Ess, Ess Eye Pee Pee Eye. My parents thought I was clever because I could spell Mississippi. I thought I was clever because I got away with saying “pee pee” at the supper table.

Sequences of sounds, that’s all it was. As he was finishing his supper, Daddy would look at Mommy and spell I – C – E C – R – E – A – M, asking if there was any for dessert. And I would get excited and shout, “We’re having ice cream for dessert!” Sequences of sounds that made a little girl seem very precocious.

I remember other words from my early childhood. My Daddy would tell me that I “belong-along” to him and I would repeat it everywhere. A little girl at preschool took my dolly and I told the teacher that “it belong-alongs to me!” And she thought that was pretty funny. I did get my dolly back, though.

We lived in a town that is even smaller than Podunk, if you can believe that. There was a park in town, and the public swimming pool was in the middle of the park. During the summer, there was a trailer set up near the pool, and it was called “Tops ‘Em All”. The proprietor sold snow cones, ice cream cones, and soda pop.

I couldn’t say “Tops ‘Em All” so I called it “Top A Small.” I heard about that for years. I mean, years. My kids even heard about it. The only reason I let Daddy get away with telling the story was because he was obviously enjoying the memory. My kids liked it, too, the first time or two that they heard it.

My kids had their own words, too. I was cleaning house one day and heard a commotion in the kitchen. My then-toddler daughter was trying to figure out a way to put her tricycle on top of the refrigerator. When her dolls or some other toy broke, we always put it on top of the refrigerator for her daddy to fix.

Well, it made sense to her to put her tricycle up there when the pedal fell off. She couldn’t say “fix it” and it came out “fick its”. So, we put the tricycle in the living room where her daddy would see it and he could “fick its.”

My youngest child cornered the market on mispronouncing words. I have never figured out if he was seriously mispronouncing them or just playing with us. Doesn’t matter, it was still cute. He had lots of his own words: on his feet, he wore “ooshes and ocks”….and he liked to eat “rickly ish” and read “mazagines.”

One, day, he came in from playing outside and I had just cleaned and rearranged the living room. So, my cute little man looks up at me and smiles and tells me: “I like how you desecrate, Mommy!” He also liked to go on vacation and go to “Disleyland.”

We all grow up and things change. I can spell lots of words besides Mississippi and ice cream. I know who I belong-along to and I have never forgotten Top A Small. And somewhere in Italy, at this very moment, is a

handsome man, father of three boys, who probably still remembers putting on his own ooshes and ocks when he was a little boy.

Life is full of sweet things……