Published: November 11, 2009 11:06 pm      

Mike Reliford: 11/12/09

Somebody asked me if we kept busy making memories for our 3-year-old grandson.

I replied that we did.

But, after much thought through these insomniac nights of mine, I don’t really believe that’s true. While Walree is living it up and, I might add, having a pretty big blast at doing it, he is mostly developing, not memorizing. I realize this because my 17-year-old grandson doesn’t remember some of the things I thought he would cherish forever.

It’s us, the elder geese, that make the memories, that cherish the moments. The little kids live for the moment and learn. What we do is help plan their moments and cling to the memories for dear life, in the head and with pictures.

Such thinking led me searching for my earliest memories. And, believe it or not, I do have a few preschool moments stored up there in the gray matter. They’re not always full memories, sometimes just events, but they’re there.

For example, measles and mumps. I remember having them and what a big deal they were. My younger brother and I had them at the same time. I remember the measles for the “sores” that popped out all over us, and I remember the mumps for the seeming panic with my parents about the mumps “dropping.” I didn’t fully understand such stuff, but I could tell they were bothered about it enough that it made me worry.

I also remember people in trucks stopping in the middle of our block in South Ashland and ringing a bell, like the ice cream man did. Only these folks were selling produce out of the back of their trucks. Although we always had a garden, my mom would be right out there with her change purse, snaring the fresh veggies.

My appreciation for the beauty of horses come from early days of me being parked on the front steps, the limit I was allowed away from the house. A lot of today’s South Ashland homes didn’t exist. It was farmland, and people were constantly riding by our house on horses. This one group of five or six riders would always come down the street abreast of each other. It was quite a sight for a kid who had never seen a movie or a TV, only imagined such creatures from radio shows.

I’m not sure when the horses quit coming but, one day, they were just gone, along with the pinging sound of their horseshoes on the pavement. I’m sure now that it had to have been when a farm was sold and houses were constructed. Back then, I’m not quite sure what I must have thought.

I have nothing but great memories of those preschool days. My parents, grandmother and uncles and aunts did nothing less than dote on me.

But one highlight has always stood out. The mailman. A young guy who stood tall in his uniform, puffing away on a pipe, always with a kind word and laugh for a little boy, this guy became my first non-family hero.

I used to bug my mother every day about following Mailman Bill down the street a little ways, but I got nothing but a firm no each time. Then, out of the blue, he asked me if I wanted to tag along to the end of the block and come back with him on the other side of the street. When I turned to look toward the house, mom was standing there. She and Bill McGuire had worked it out in advance.

Of all the things I remember about those earliest of times, that day stands out the most. I can remember almost every step we took and how much like a mailman I must have looked when he dropped that oversized, officer’s cap onto my head.

It was one sure way to make a happy kid even happier.

MIKE RELIFORD can be reached at mreliford@dailyindependent.com or (606) 326-2647.