What is your very first memory? How old were you?
Some say we have no memories until we reach about six-years-old. I know I can remember some things way back before that age. I remember living in an old duplex house down passed where the new Veteran’s home is now, a house with a high porch and I can remember my daddy coming home from work and me meeting him on the porch and jumping into his arms. I remember making mud pies underneath the house where I had a playhouse build out of boxes and laying them on the steps, in my oven, to bake.
One of my favorite memories of that old house is the mysterious and baffling older lady walking the road right by my house every day, just a few steps from me standing in the yard watching her. She was always dressed in black with a big, large brimmed black hat and carried an enormous black purse. She always had on lots of makeup and red, smeared lipstick. She was a striking woman and to tell the truth, I was a little afraid of her.
He name was Miss Eula Utz and she lived in a small, paint-peeled, rather shackled house down the road and way back off the beaten path. I always wanted her to stop, and I didn’t want her to stop as she passed by. She never even said “hi” to me and she was always in a big hurry to get home it seemed.
Another good memory I have of an early age was the time we just lived up the road from this old house up on a high hill included in the “Rock Hill District.” I began school from this house and as I have written before, this is the house from which I would always get on the school bus and get off at the next person’s house and go back home. We lived here for quite a few years and I always had plenty of friends to play with as the neighborhood was just full of young families. And I certainly remember being switched with every step as my mother walked me to school that faithful day.
I can remember lots of things at the age of six, when I started school in the little school that sat where one of the administration buildings now sits across from the public library. One of the sweetest ones is the day I carried my little blue purse my mother had made me from a salt box with strings and as we left school on of my classmates asked, “Would you like some money for your purse?” She gave me a dime, and I was so excited. I would go on to finish high school with her in later years.
I remember the smell of the shots the nurses would bring into the school on shot day and how they would always give us a small can of Donald Duck orange juice after the shots. That was, if I was still there because as soon as I smelled the injection “juice” I was calling my mama to tell her I was sick. Seems like I was sick a lot during my sixth year of life!
Easy Chicken Pot Pie
2 cups frozen mixed vegetables, thawed
1 can of cream of chicken soup
1 cup of cooked chicken cut into small pieces
1 cup Bisquick
½ cup of milk
1 egg
Mix vegetables, chicken and soup in ungreased pie plate. Stir in remaining ingredients in bowl and blend well, pour into pie plate. Bake 400 degrees for 30 minutes.
