I have fond memories of my childhood in the early 80s in Wilmington, NC, where I lived from my birth until I was five years old.
We stayed in a small apartment on Christa Drive.
One day in the front yard, I discovered some fire ant mounds. I remember that the ants were carrying tiny white balls, and I asked Mom what those were. "Those are eggs," she said. And she also told me to be careful, that fire ants can sting.
I had fun for a while, playing in the dirt of the mounds, being careful to not touch the ants. I would bury them in a little bit of dirt and watch how long it took for them to dig their way out.
Suddenly, I felt a burning sensation on my index finger. Somehow, an ant had managed to sting me.
I didn't cry, but I remember hopping up and down on one leg, saying, "Ow! Ow! Ow!"
"I told you," Mom said.
She took me inside to put some sort of medicine on my finger. One ant sting did not really hurt that badly. It had just surprised me.
Looking back, now, I enjoy this memory because of the time and place. It was early 1980s Wilmington. My mom was young and not working at that time. I really had no cares in the world, and I remember the fun of being outside and playing in the dirt and soft, almost pure white sand in our front yard. The dirt with the fire ant hills was directly in front of out apartment. The white sand was in a vacant lot to the left as you walked out our front door. The white sand would be cool to the touch at sunset.
About four or five years ago, around 2008, that time period began to seem like a different era for me. No longer was it the recent past.
I began this blog, as I've said before, because it bothers me that my earliest memories are beginning to fade. I thought that I would always have them, but that is not true. Once they are gone from my mind, they are gone completely except for what I record here. I find that others in my family don't have the same recollection that I do. It will be very much like the events never happened, which is disturbing to me...
We moved from Wilmington to Augusta, Georgia in 1982, when Dad decided to become a pastor.
At the church where Dad preached, I remember playing on the lawn. After I had finished playing, I got into the back seat of our car.
I suppose my Mom's sister's family was visiting us, as I remember her husband, my Uncle Duke, sitting beside me in the back seat.
As we were about to drive away, I noticed that my pants were covered with fire ants.
"Ants!" I said.
Uncle Duke ignored me.
"Ants!" I said again.
"Be cool," he replied.
Finally, he looked down at me and saw the problem.
The next thing I knew, he and Dad had both snatched off my pants and were shaking them fiercely and knocking the ants off outside the car on the grassy lawn of the church.
Luckily, I did not get stung once.
Over the years, my memories of Uncle Duke have also faded. He and Aunt Martha divorced not long after this story took place, and I have probably only seen him once in the past 20 or 25 years, that being at Grandma Carter's funeral in 1995.
I remember that I was hesitant to play with him when I was a child. He was pretty rough, and I might have actually gotten bruises from the way he tossed us kids around.
Otherwise, though, I have heard people say he was a good man...
The first trip to the beach that I can recall was in Wilmington with my Mom. My brother, Adam, may have been there, too, but I don't recall him. My memory is of just Mom and me.
Wilmington is a port city (as an aside, it played a large role in the Civil War), so it was easy for Mom to take me to the beach, if the car was available.
The ocean, stretching as far as my eyes could see, was fascinatingly scary.
Mom gave me a cup to play with in the sand. It was a blue plastic drinking cup almost exactly like what students use to play beer pong now.
I remember trying to scoop up the ocean in it as waves came in. I could not have been more than three or four years old.
One wave knocked the cup out of my hands, and to my shock, it disappeared in the water. I could not find it again.
I asked Mom where it went, and she told me that it had gone out into the ocean.
I looked to the horizon of the sea and thought that she meant that the cup was now way out there.
She said that the ocean would eventually wash the cup up on the shore again in a different place. We walked down the beach for a while, looking for the cup, but we never did find it.
I suppose that was my first experience with the power of the ocean. I've never been a big fan of the water or of going out on boats, though I enjoy the beach. Perhaps if I was a stronger swimmer things would be different, but the swimming lessons I took a few years later in Lumberton never stuck.
This again, though, is a good memory because it is one of the few remaining that I have of Mom and Wilmington from the early 1980s.
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