1950 - Lancaster – Croquet

Our family had a croquet set for many years. It was kept with the outdoor items, the yard tools, the bikes, the badminton set, and it was moved from house to house, basements to garages, and used only occasionally; usually when other kids were visiting and we needed something more organized to be doing. It was most likely bought when we lived in Lancaster, which would have made it about my age. It consisted of a wooden and wire rack on wheels, with painted wooden balls, chipped from use, and striped wooden mallets suspended with their heads on top. The mallets had been turned on a lathe to create grooves and the stripes were painted the same color as the balls. Whenever we happened on the croquet set, whether by looking for it or by accident, Daniel would pull out the red mallet, point to its head, and smile at me. The head had dark brown spots on it and Daniel didn’t forget that it was his blood. Neither did I, for that matter.

When I was four or five years old, we were playing croquet in our backyard in Lancaster when Daniel’s ball collided with mine. According to the rules, he set his ball touching mine, put his foot on it to hold it in place, and whacked it hard enough to knock mine across the yard. I retaliated by taking my mallet and whacking him on his head, breaking open his scalp and spattering it with blood for the rest of its life. It also marked me as someone with a temper and, for some reason I never understood, this amused Daniel.

I don’t actually remember the event, though I’ve heard the story so many times that I feel like I do. I don’t know if Daniel needed stitches or only a Band-Aid, he survived and I don’t think he had a scar. I do have a visual memory of playing croquet in Lancaster, but I think it came from our home movies. Many of my memories from Lancaster are suspect and could be stories that I illustrated with other memories. My mother used to tell me how I would throw my baby bottles from the crib when they were empty and, when she did, I would picture the crib and the bottles and the bottle sterilizing equipment – these images certainly came from when Phillip or Tommy were infants and not me. My mother would tell me how I fell out of a second story window when I was three and they only discovered it when I came walking in from outside, when they knew I was upstairs. Apparently I was saved by stack of loosely piled lumber that I landed on. I used to think I could remember seeing the lumber and seeing my family sitting around the table as I went in, but that really isn’t very likely. Mother described how she would carefully sneak up on me when I was sitting in an open upstairs window. I do have a memory of sitting in a window and watching Michael and Daniel playing in the yard below me, but I’m sure that’s another case of memory editing.

I left Lancaster shortly after I turned six in 1952, so any memories I have of Lancaster would be from when I was five or younger, and I imagine that most were from when I was five. Some memories I don’t doubt. I remember chasing after Michael and Daniel as we came running down the stairs and out the front door, I held out my hand to stop the storm door from closing on me and my hand went straight through the glass, shattering it. I suffered no cuts or scratches, and after recovering from the scare and being checked out by Mother, it was declared a minor miracle and I thought it was cool. Someone, probably Daniel since he was the source of most information for me, told me about arteries and how close I may have been to dying. With that, and the story of falling out the window, I felt for a while like I was protected, and I was taught about guardian angels. I don’t know how many years that feeling lasted; I don’t feel that way now and don’t know when it stopped.

One memory that is certain is from a summer day when Daniel and I were walking through a field a little way up from our house. Our parents were one of the first to build a house on Roseville Road, so many empty fields and lots surrounded it. That day we were probably only wearing shorts and I stepped into a nest of bumblebees. They swarmed around me and began climbing my bare legs and body, stinging as they went. Honeybees die when they sting, but bumblebees can sting innumerable times, and they kept stinging. I screamed and looked at Daniel who was yelling at me, probably telling me to get off the nest, and, after however many seconds it took, I started running and kept running. Daniel ran beside me all the way, he too was screaming, though I couldn’t understand what he was saying. I did understand that he was trying to tell me what to do, and he looked as frightened as I felt. The bees were still stinging when I started running, but they probably fell off sometime as I ran all the way down the road, across our yard, and into the dark house where my mother was. My memory ends there; somehow mother knew what to do. Sometimes I still get a clear image of Daniel’s face running beside me, yelling and frowning and scared, and that remains probably my fondest image of him, I knew he was doing everything he could to help me and steer me home to safety, but, mostly, I knew he was just as horrified as I was.