Nothing better to start a tale of memories and moments than to go back to early childhood! This is something I wrote years ago--sort of a biography of an autobiography---based upon true facts. I hope you enjoy it. (I was about 50 when I wrote this.)
A TIME TO GO EAT WORMS
All of my life I've been out of sync: "A TIME to live and a TIME to die"; "Get to work on TIME"; "Take your TIME"; "All in good TIME"; "Turn the rope one, two, three, TIMES before you jump in (all in together now) -- THAT kind of sync.
It seems the essence of life is not biological, but chronological. My mind can see a teensy clock, deep within us. It begins ticking, while we are still in the womb, to keep us in step on our march through TIME. It's taken a while, but I finally realize that my problem is not physical, mental or emotional. I was just issued a defective clock.
For a long TIME, my clock was slow.....
When I grew old enough to hit the neighborhood and join in the fun, everyone within playing distance had five years seniority. Believe me, a lot of TIME ticked by, turning that rope, before I was allowed to jump in. That's when I learned the 'worm ditty', a favorite of rope jumpers at that TIME.
"Nobody loves me, everybody hates me,
Guess I'll go eat worms--
Big juicy worms,
Little Skinny worms,
Worms that wiggle and squirm...."
It grew worse with each verse:
"Turn that jumping rope!" "Fetch that Ball!" "Play the baby!"
I'd do anything to participate, but there was never a way to catch up with their jump on TIME.
An unpaved, busy (according to my mother) street fronted our large yard; at least three cars a day streaked by at ten MPH. Well, (you guessed it), I wasn't allowed to cross that street. Any TIME things grew boring; the other kids crossed it and just stood there, waiting for me to go into my act. They were having a great TIME!
Several futile scream-outs were enough. I refused to go on being the One-Ms show of the block and retreated to my swing. Pumping it high, I shouted the worm ditty, now my mantra, up to the sky! Inside me, though, I vowed that if TIMES got just a l-i-t-t-l-e bit worse, I'd do it! I WOULD go EAT WORMS! Mom could never understand my desire for spaghetti that year.
Eat--HAH! There's another (pardon) can of worms. I was one skinny kid. Big, black eyes and curly, black hair; it all added up to a TIMELY candidate for 1944 war-orphan posters. My mother poured cod liver oil and a variety of tonics into me with abandon, and a wedge of orange to 'kill the taste'...
"But, it's the SMELL, Ma; it's the SMELL!"
"TIME you put some meat on those bones, " was her stock answer.
Until I grew cunning enough to actively rebel, Mom's build-a-bigger-better body routine included a weekly dose of Ex-Lax.
"Come on, eat the nice chocolate candy," brought a "YUCK!" from me.
Shortly after I started to school, I learned to look up at her with soulful, big eyes and say, "I gave at the office"; or something to that effect. At least I escaped being the splurge--purge queen of the forties.
It really wasn't her fault, though. My clock was defective and hers ticked right along in the era of chubby children, laxatives and tonsillectomies. (I had one of those, too.)
TIME marched on and I stumbled after.
Ah...seventh grade; complete with puberty, gym and showers. (Twenty girls at one TIME, in the same room, UNDRESSING). Just one session of that and I was never EVER going to school again; at least not until I had a training bra. No more undershirts for me--even if I had to eat a whole bucket of worms! I got the bra and had just begun to fill it, when my pals started gossiping about their first puppy loves. Ahh, me.
So, the missed beat went on....
A carefully planned (unawares of that defective clock), old fashioned wedding evolved into a military church ceremony. The PFC, intended, received orders for direct transfer to Hawaii--my TIME piece didn't care who or what answered to its tick. Did I let that little mess-up in TIMING bother me? Off I went for eighteen months of Paradise. So much Paradise, that when we boarded ship for the mainland on a December morning, eighteen months later, this little Eve was 'almost' three months pregnant.
Regulations specified that the only TIME pregnant wives could use government transportation was between their third and eighth months. Of course, all fourteen of us fibbed (whose pregnant?) to get on that sailing. We wanted to be home in TIME for Christmas. Needless to say, the four day trip took six, due to 'heavy seas'; we kept the highly suspicious sick-bay officer hopping.
(Now THAT'S a memory!)
Our daughter arrived right on TIME, however. Her first gift was a brand new TIMEX; if SHE had it together, I wasn't going to break the spell!
The best of TIMES, the worst of TIMES, we had it all in 1957. A brand new baby and a TIME of high unemployment. We finally gave up on job hunting and borrowed enough from a kind relative to get ourselves into really big debt. We chose the restaurant business--Italian cuisine, of course. Wasn't I an expert on the subject of spaghetti?
Eight years passed with no additions to the family. Therefore, it seemed the TIME to take on more in the business world. Yep; we were laying tile in the new restaurant when I broke the news that I was running a bit late, calendar-wise. So, what else was new?
Number two was twelve months old when we decided to expand once more, this TIME purchasing an extensive piece of property. For a while I tried to fight off my fatigue and growing malaise. Soon, however, I was sure that I had a terrible disease, leukemia, maybe; or pernicious anemia; or, horror of horrors, uterine cancer! Finally, exhausted-- those black eyes rimmed by blacker circles, and sure that my inner clock had failed me again (death before my TIME), I dragged myself to the doctor. Seven months later we took home unexpected bundle #3.
Try as I may, nothing ever changes. A defective TIME clock can never be adjusted to compensate for daylight savings, jet lag, hippies, yuppies or women's lib. I never get any TIME off for good behavior.
One can never quite get used to being out of sync. It's like trying to keep up with the parade while marching with one foot in the gutter. For instance, we invested in real estate and were heartily assured, "You're getting in at the right TIME!" Uh-huh. But, getting OUT at the right TIME takes a clock of superior quality.
Lately my clock seems to be running too fast. Many things keep slipping away from me. When the children were small, I missed much of the TIME I would have spent with them. Now that I've found the TIME, they're busy boogying to their new beat (thank heaven, sick-sync isn't inherited).
Getting older hasn't helped, either. It's just something else to contemplate, alone in the wee hours waiting for dawn to bring 'my' TIME to sleep. Oh, I read or write, but still....
We now live in Las Vegas, Eden for the out-of-sync. A twenty-four hour town, almost everyone here sleeps, eats and performs with minimal regard for TIME. In periods of extreme self-pity, I sometimes go to the casinos and mingle with the gamblers. Casinos have no clocks. Patrons must contend with their own defects; lots of company for the sync-sick, worm eaters ALL.
Oh, yes; remember all those tonics to fatten up the skinny kid with black hair, back in the forties? Exactly. They all took effect, at one TIME, about ten years ago....
(I really should start on that new diet tomorrow...have my hair touched up....
"Nobody loves me, everybody hates me;
Guess I'll go...
if TIMES get just a l-i-t-t-l-e bit worse......)
Copyright
Life is a ball.....
Dance or be a wallflower!
