Shoulder length hair streaked with fairies’ gold pixie dust sprinkled across her pert nose braces and rubber bands long legs reaching almost to her chin a ready smile and a contagious laugh A year of friendship spent playing hide-n-go-seek swimming at Grandma’s trips to the lake house at Canyon homework marathons and a “first date” at the movies—alone A year as a couple buying Ty beanies because she thinks they’re cute Valentine’s Day takes weeks and weeks of allowance long phone chats Alicia Silverstone, Spice Girls, and the Magic Time Machine friends forever He whispers as night embraces him “Mom, she’s the one.” “I’ll never love another girl.” “She’s different and special.” I feel the weight of his adoration Times change gradually her legginess turns to curves mascara darkens her lashes her Tom boyish walk turns to graceful pirouettes her need for popularity outstrips him He understands his boyish charm keeps trying his cherub face beams when she’s near his voice becomes husky when she’s on the phone she enchants him still even when she’s walking away
First love and all of the loves that follow found in IOUNIO's "Scared"
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I spent my childhood roving the neighborhood with a feral pack of my sister’s friends. Living on an Air Force base, our parents (translate that to mothers-our dads were flying) meant we left home at dawn, showed up to feed for lunch, and then disappeared again until porch lights signaled us to come home after dark.
The summer of ’64, we discovered the playgrounds for the officers' children had superior equipment. The enlisted men had to provide swing sets for their kids that weren’t even dug into the ground. If we swung too high, the entire structure would lift up into the air, spilling us onto the dirt. The officers’ area offered swigs set in concrete bases, an assortment of monkey bars, tetherball, a large fiberglass turtle to crawl on or sit under, and a wonderful climbing set of bars shaped like a train! Adding to the attraction was the fact that this area was banned from us to use.
Being the smallest and youngest didn’t deter me from keeping up with our wild horde when we ventured into the forbidden zone. I loved nesting under the turtle. Kicking my feet high into the air to propel me into the blue summer sky while on the swing made me squeal. The bars shaped like a train, though, scared me. The older kids challenged each other to jump from one end to the other. At one section, they would swing, pick up momentum, and let go to soar through the air to wrap around a pole that seemed a mile away. The force of their jump would allow them to spin and slip down the long shaft.
Most days, the older kids left me alone to amuse myself. One fateful day, a couple of boys hoisted me onto the train and sang challenges that I could jump from bar to bar just like them. I remember my sister’s wide eyes and heard the worry in her voice as she warned me not to let the boys bully me. But I climbed up, gripped the thick bar, swung my short legs madly in an attempt to propel myself through the air, and hit the ground.
My personal memory ends with impact.
My sister recounts the panic when blood seeped from my forehead. A couple of the boys ran to get help from any of the officer’s wives, knocking on doors and begging for help. They got reprimands instead. We weren’t supposed to be in that playground. The double whack of the bar in front of me and the ground behind me left me unconscious. My sensible sister knew not to even try to move me. She sent the boys to go get our parents.
Most of the time, Dad missed illnesses and emergencies as he spent months gone on TDYs. This time, he was outside mowing the yard when the terrified boys raced up yelling that I’d fallen and wouldn’t wake up.
I have no memory of Dad sweeping me from the ground and into the car. I can’t recall the emergency room nurses or doctors checking me out, cleaning my head wounds, and wrapping me with bandages. I have no recollection of saying, on the way home, “Who are you?”
The U-turn Dad took seems visceral in my mind, but I distinctly can recount that I heard Dad’s words when he carried me back into the ER, “She’s still broken.”
Fearless Lizzy spent three days in the hospital with a concussion. Nurses or doctors woke me up all night long, quizzing me about my name and age. If I napped during the day, someone would swing by, wake me up, and ask me if I knew where I was. I got all of the ice cream I wanted. Once the doctors felt I was in my right senses, they let me go home.
I never, ever, returned to that playground. If older, bolder kids challenged me to follow their escapades, I’d glance to my sister for feedback. A slight nod from her meant I could attempt the dare. I trusted her judgement for a long time before I learned to trust my own.
My sister, brother and me
Me standing by my younder cousin Cathy
Copyright 2023 Elizabeth Abrams Chapman
My fall reminds me of IOUNIO's "Big Top Blues" lyrics!
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A few days ago, we ambled into a “remember when” conversation after our son commented that he’s never met a woman from his generation who embraces a view that the partnership of marriage can start from nothing and work slowly forward over many years. The women he knows want a partner established in career with a steady income, vehicles that run, and the promise of eventually becoming “stay at home mothers” instead of remaining in the work force. So different from my own beliefs.
Our first apartment, in Bryan, Texas, had orange shag carpet. For the first four months of marriage, we sat on the floor, eating off of a large paper box. A friend had given us the foam mattress from a hide-a-bed to use as a bed. Our clothing, folded into neat piles, rested directly on the floor. We didn’t even have a laundry basket at first, and the few wire hangers we had held heavier items like our coats and jackets. The television set, black and white, didn’t have working horizontal hold. It rotated the single channel we tuned through rabbit ears. A wicker chair with matching stool and a white pole lamp, pieces I purchased while in high school, finished the furniture we owned. David entered marriage with one small old suitcase, one paper bag of clothing, his guitar (a gift from a friend), his bass, and cabinet with amplifier. My uncle had given us a partial set of American Airlines silverware. Our pots and pans, mix-matched, barely filled our cooking needs. That was okay. We barely had food for groceries. Those months, before our first paychecks arrived, were our pinto bean days.
Around September, one of David’s aunts loaned us an old mattress and table. We picked up a couple of folding chair, which graduated us to fine dining! We pooled our wedding gift cash to buy unpainted wood chests. Finally, our clothing had a home. The foam pad shifted to the living room for a “couch”.
Those sparse first months gave us the ability to do sacrifice for later goals. My college loans got payed off at a double rate. Once we moved from College Station to San Antonio, we kept our budget strict. Together, we roamed through department and furniture stores to select the furniture that fit a style we both loved.
For us, part of the success of our long marriage started in those first months of struggle. It gave us a foundation for working together for long-term goals.
IOUNIO's "Echoes in the Mist"
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We moved from College Station, Texas to San Antonio in December of 1979, without jobs and on an extremely tight budget. Our finances allowed few luxuries during those first years as an old Honda Civic needed constant repairs, and I still had school loans to repay. We purchased bikes that provided many hours of entertainment. We found a few parks and preserves that offered escapes, all free, from our small apartment. Our favorite splurge, though, became a day at the San Antonio Zoo.
1985
Eventually, parenthood meant even more frequent trips that included train rides and sky rides.The zoo provided rides on elephants and camels during the 1980s as well as a petting zoo that our son grew to love dearly. Our traditions over the years included photographs with the lion sculpture. If family or friends came along, they struck poses, too.
1988
Life took us along different paths that led us away from trips to the zoo as we spent weekends at the family cabin and discovered our love of Renaissance Fairs. Music lessons, art classes along with more demanding careers and aging parents shifted the zoo into an extremely fond memory.
Then in December 2023, my son started wanting to visit this treasured place once again. For our 45th anniversary gift, we decided to purchase new zoo memberships as we found ourselves falling in love once more with all of the changes entwined with our special traditions.
1990
1990
2023
IOUNIO's "Time Traveler" taps into my longing to rekindle parts of my past within my persent.
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At age two, my son asked for drums. We purchased a cute plastic set that he played like a pro. Paul also latched onto a harmonica at the same age, dancing around his room playing a singsong tune. He asked for a drum kit around age six. Tight on space, we purchased a Yamaha keyboard, found music lessons that combined singing with playing to temporarily satisfy his musical urge. His instructor, during her summer camps, encouraged her students to add another instrument to their playing skills. Paul asked my brother for the forgotten snare drum sitting in his closet. Every year, the subject of a drum kit surfaced. Because of space limitation, Paul ended up with both a bass and electric guitar. Although he enjoyed both, he still longed for a kit. By his fourteenth birthday, we decided to get rid of our guest room and fill it with drums. From the first second Paul held sticks in his hands, he played wonderfully. Before we knew it, he picked up a second kit, filling the smallest room with double bass beats and practicing with Neil Peart on loop. The summer he turned fourteen, Slipknot hit San Antonio with the Tattoo the Earth tour. My son, now thirty-six and an audio engineer, still prefers the music from that one crucial year when he’s looking for “comfort music” during a rough day.
Always curious, Paul dipped into recent brain studies searching for neurological reasons for music and genre preferences, discovering that most men’s “go to” music stems from what they listened to at age fourteen. For women, it’s age thirteen. Over the years, my husband’s purchased everything ever produced by The Beatles and Rush, the two groups he listened to endlessly as he entered his teen years. He picked up both bass and guitar during those years and serenaded his way through high school with “Blackbird” or “Fly by Night.” What did I listen to at age thirteen? The first 8-track I ever purchased was Elton John’s Tumbleweed Connection. My comfort music, though, doesn’t center on a single performer or group. My mornings during my early teen years found me listening to KTSA as I dressed for school. Evenings our family played my parent’s records on the stereo, so Pete Foutain, Buddy Rich, or Chet Atkins entertained us. By nightfall, my radio played classical music. When I’m feeling down now, I’m just as likely to listen to Lizzofor a pick-me-up as I am Elton John. However, over the years I’ve rarely purchased my own CDs, and my iTunes is almost empty—except for Elton John, Stevie Wonder, and James Taylor—all favorites from the year 1970.
I leave with the question—What is your “comfort music”?
IOUNIO's "Toy Kingdom" is one of my favorite songs. Want to help new musicians and Audio Engineers? It's easy:
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