Previous Challenge Entry (Level 2 – Intermediate)
Topic: CHILDHOOD (03/09/17)
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TITLE: I don't Remember | Previous Challenge Entry
By Judy Ewald
03/15/17 -
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Most of what I remember is from photos and stories that I heard. Dad traveled as a salesman and changed jobs frequently. We moved a lot. We moved 18 times in my first 19 years. I attended a different school each year, for the first six years and two different ones in the fourth grade. I have tried to understand why I don’t remember details of my younger years.
That had to be part of the problem, also I was easily distracted and had problems staying focused, but I was a happy, friendly, and positive kid. My sister, Martha, had a photographic memory and made straight A’s. I would forget my homework, book report and even my sweater. This would drive Mom crazy. My grades were B’s, C’s and sometimes a D. A counselor said I had the ability but needed to try harder.
I was born in 1942 at the beginning of WWII. My parents were smokers. They told me of a time they gave me a whole carton of cigarette packs to play with in my playpen. I suppose I was about a year or so old. They had friends over and were in another room. Things were a bit too quiet so they came in to check on me. And to their horror, I had managed to open each pack and carefully tore each one in half! It was not easy to smoke a half a Camel.
When I was in the 3rd grade we lived in an apartment. My sister and I played with a couple of girls our age, they had fiery red hair. They also ate catchup on everything, even toast, and eggs. I thought that was very strange. I asked Mom, “Do you think they have red hair because they eat catchup on everything?” She said, “No, it probably has to do with their Mom having red hair.”
My Mom was very creative and would make our clothes and Halloween costumes each year. I have pictures of being a ballerina, an Indian, and a clown. She also made us special birthday decorations. One year she created a circus theme, I do remember she made a colorful large clown, holding balloons on sticks, stuck in a potato. That was so clever. I don’t know if the early clown experiences planted the seeds that eventually grew to my becoming a professional clown many years later, God only knows. I inherited Mom’s creative side and Dad’s gregarious side.
I may have been in the 7th grade when I read the auto-biography of William Allen White.
I was told I asked, “Did he write it before he died?” I am sure I meant to ask what the difference was between an auto-biography and a biography. I have never lived that down.
I do remember Mom trying her best to be a good parent. Her wanting to be perfect did effect me in negative ways. But I learned a lot, like cooking, cleaning, and sewing, I am grateful for that. Even though Dad traveled, when he was home we had fun, he told jokes and read the funnies to us.
In my late teens, I took painting lessons from a Russian artist. After a few lessons, George said, “Judy, you have a good eye for color, but you can’t draw worth a hoot.” Strange how we remember things like that after almost sixty years. Fast forward 25 years, I was encouraged to take art lessons, and I am now an oil painter of portraits, landscapes, murals, and paint copies of Master Paintings. Also as Hugs the Clown I have entertained many kids with my magic, balloons and face and hand painting for over 30 years., I wrote an article several years ago titled, “It is never too late to have a Happy Childhood,” to encourage others that were told they couldn’t sing, draw, or speak.
None of us had perfect parents or had perfect childhoods, but we need to know the perfect Father that knows all about us and loves us anyway.
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