Introduction to This Post

I have been working on writing a book about my childhood for going on fifteen years. Scrap sheets of paper saved in file folders, spiral notebooks, or on my computer. Why is it taking so long?  I found excuses to avoid focusing on it – work, family obligations, too many other “hobbies” competing for my time.

Truth is, the real reason I was hesitating was because the subject matter would also focus on sensitive topics, and some of what I had to say might not sit well with others. At this point in my life, though, I’m learning that it’s time to accept the fact that not everyone will agree with everything I have to say.

And after all, it is MY story to tell – it’s the way I recollect things.

Maya Angelou said that “There is no greater agony than bearing an untold story inside of you.”

My favorite author, Nelle Harper Lee, said, “Any writer worth his salt writes to please himself… It’s a self-exploratory operation that is endless.”

(I’m going to print these quotes and tape them on my bathroom mirror because they’re good advice for this hesitant writer.)

So, while I use the Full-Tilt Ramble, largely for sharing random things that pop into my head, occasionally, I may throw in a little snippet of some ideas from the book, along with photos I’ve been unearthing.

The following is one of those little snippets. Well, it’s not very little… but you know how I am when it comes to telling a story.

I found it tonight while rummaging through my file cabinet. It was written back in the summer of 2021, when Dad was still alive. He passed away in January 2024.

I hope you enjoy it.

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The Day the Yuccas Spoke (2021)

A few weeks ago, I made a trip back to the old neighborhood. Dad still lives there, and although I am less than a half-hour drive away, sometimes it’s difficult to go back to the place that holds so many vivid memories of times that are distant now. In the past 47 years, I’ve watched my street turn from a neatly manicured “Camelot” to what appears to me to be a rather depressing, isolated, overgrown, forgotten corner of the world. Yet, something told me to go back and visit that specific day.

There was a message waiting for me.

I pulled up to the house, and I could tell Dad had done quite a bit of yard work. All the yuccas that Momma had planted shortly after we first moved in were in the process of being yanked from the ground. Apparently, yuccas are rather stubborn plants, and it was obvious that it was taking him quite a bit of work to win the battle. I know he hated those plants from the first day they were put in the ground, but they remained there because Momma loved them – and maybe because they were one of the last tangible reminders for Dad of her short life here with us.

As I walked around the yard, listening to him rattle on about all the work he was doing on the porch and other areas, for a moment, I was transported back to summer 1974 – taking in the beauty of my very own backyard for the first time.

July 4, 1974, was the day my parents “finished” building our house on Kalloramo Drive. We moved in, despite not having the electricity completely hooked up properly. Dad had recently told me that our next-door neighbors let us connect to their power supply for a few days until all was settled – kind of like camping in an RV with no wheels.

I remember visiting the house many times as it was under construction – curious about where my room would be, what the circular holes in the floor were for, and happily collecting up all the scrap wood pieces to build something for my Barbies. But on July 4, when I walked in my bedroom, it felt like Christmas day… times a thousand. We had lived in an apartment for the previous four years, and I now had a bedroom with RED. SHAG. CARPET. I plopped my face down into it, letting the fibers tickle my nose, smiling from ear to ear and spitting out fuzz. I never wanted to leave that spot again. EVER.

Life was as good as it could get… until the day I got my first bicycle – it was from Western Auto, and it had a “denim” banana seat with the brown Wrangler jeans patch. I rode that bicycle up and down my street EVERY day until my skinny little legs grew so long, they started to hit the handlebars. Then, it was time for an upgrade to my first ten-speed (but that’s a painful story for another time).

Back in the 1970s, my neighborhood was a place where the kids could run free, assured by the fact that if something “unfortunate” happened (like a bicycle, kickball, or skateboard accident), the doorstep of a comforting adult could be reached within a couple of seconds. We were also blessed with a neighbor who was a plastic surgeon – “Doc” Helen – who would sit on the back porch and stitch up our knees or chins when the accidents were a little more than a simple Band-Aid could fix. The injured kid would be quickly and gently sewn back to original state, while the rest of the gang would stand around, watching with mouths wide open. Then, we’d all run off to continue whatever stupid and dangerous thing we had been doing, while Helen called the injured kid’s parent. She was an angel who wielded a needle and suture thread.

I loved my neighbors, and they considered all of us kids part of one big family. The adults enjoyed spending time in each other’s back yards, grilling, playing bocce ball, cards, and consuming a few beers and smokes along the way. What was coolest about the place was that it didn’t take an official holiday for them to find a reason to gather and celebrate. Sometimes, it would start in the front yard, talking about house projects, and then those green and white lawn chairs and Styrofoam coolers started appearing out of nowhere. Soon, the smell of charcoal and lighter fluid filled the air, and the great outdoors would become our living and dining rooms until late in the evening.

Don’t get me wrong – there were some sad times, too, as we watched friends move away, broke up with the “loves of our lives”, and felt a sense of inconsolable grief when our neighbors and family members passed on to the other side. But things change. Neighbors change. Neighborhoods change. Friends and family come into and out of our lives.

Life.. and death… happen.

I was awakened from my childhood daydream by the sound of Dad, grunting and cussing at another yucca he had discovered and was trying to unearth. I had to laugh when he let go, backed up a few paces, frowned, and gave it “the finger”.

I’d like to think those plants were Momma’s little “parting gifts” – a joking little “jab” at Dad… and a message for me I’d been needing to hear for some time.

It was at that moment, soaking in the scene before me, I realized I needed to write a book – a memoir. Quietly chewing on the idea while Dad resumed his battle, I thought to myself, “But who really gives a crap about what I did as a kid?”

Maybe this book wouldn’t be so much about me as it would be about sharing something to which so many of us who are in our fifth decades (and beyond) can relate.

An appreciation of simpler, authentic, caring, celebratory, heartbreaking – and obviously more “overgrown-with-yucca-plant” – times.