Memory Mondays - Memory Journal (Entry 2)

Two weeks ago, @ericvancewalton posted about creating a Blockchain Memory Project to document stories of our childhood in the blockchain. It is a way for us to connect with our grandchildren and great-grandchildren, creating a written, audio or visual record of our memories. Because I know many people at Steemit like to combine projects with a day of the week, I thought I would suggest Memory Monday for anyone who would like to participate. But you can post on whatever day you like. The objective is to document your memories.

My second entry into my Memory Journal comes from the early 70s. Probably 1971 or 1972. I was five or six years old. My house was located across the street from a set of railroad tracks. Active tracks. Amtrak had a daily route on the tracks and freight trains were not uncommon. It was a fairly busy set of tracks running through our neighborhood. (If you think that may have been noisy, I might mention we were also one block from the airport).

As kids, we were not permitted to play on the tracks. It was one of those non-negotiable rules that was impossible for a kid to follow. In fact, we had to walk twice as far to get to school in order to cross at the railroad crossing a quarter mile or so up the road. (That seemed a whole lot further to a six-year-old). My grandmother used to say "your sins will find you out." For some reason, I thought Mr. Sin must work for the newspaper, because I can't count the number of times I ended up in the newspaper in a documented act of defiance. We didn't live in a small town, so there must have been a reporter who lived near us because he caught me more than once.

In this instance, I was walking by myself on the railroad tracks. That probably sounds strange in today's age, but it wasn't so common during a time when "free range kids" wasn't really a "thing." It was a reality. We lived by the tracks, we played by the tracks. As I was walking along, I spotted a burlap bag that appeared to be moving. It was laying in the middle of the tracks between the rails. I was probably fairly close to the crossing at that time, because a reporter was crossing the tracks and stopped to watch. I opened the bag to find a striped kitten inside. Some evil human being intended for this kitten to get hit by a passing train.

The reporter saw a story and jumped out with his camera. The photo below became the front page of the human interest section of the paper the following day. Yeah, I was busted. I had no idea that the photo existed. That is not a newspaper clipping, but more on that in a minute.

I didn't think anything of some dude taking my photograph. I had a kitten. And I already had it named. Tiger. I brought Tiger home and was faced with the first question any parent would have "where did that fleabag come from?" I lied. I found the kitten on the path. I doubled down and would soon face the consequences. At that point, I was still elated. My parents said that we could keep the kitten. She was known to us kids as Tiger, and forever named fleabags by my mother.

The following day was not a good one. While most parents would be elated to see their child in the newspaper, I made the paper while breaking one rule and then later lying about it. My dad had a belt with the double holes in it. He would double it over and hold the ends, snapping it to get your attention. Normally, that was a preventative measure meant to warn you what was coming next. Not this time, I was asked about the kitten a second time, I lied a second time, and I received the second worst beating of my life. It probably wasn't as bad as I remember it, but it wasn't intended to be a gentle admonishment. It was one that I wouldn't forget. We kept Tiger, which kind of made it all worth it to me, in spite of the fact that I learned a hard lesson about lying to my parents.

I am in my early fifties now. I went to visit my dad a couple of years ago. He went down into his basement and came up with this photo. He shared with me how disappointed he was when he found I had lied to him. He was proud and disappointed at the same time. He told me he went down to the newspaper and paid for the original photograph. He has had it ever since. Decades have past since this episode. I don't know why he waited so long to tell me. But he gave me the photo. It hangs in my hallway. A reminder of how I did a good deed and then undid it by lying. If I had told the truth, I probably would have been verbally corrected. And I think there is an element of love hidden in this story as well.

I hope you have enjoyed reading this memory.