Return of Memoryfest - Day 23/31

[bironic]

23. Elementary School

The first and possibly only time I stayed overnight at my aunt and uncle's house, I slept in my cousin R.'s room in a sleeping bag on the floor. She had a poster of a Tyrannosaurus Rex animatronic model from some museum that loomed over us on the opposite wall. What I remember most vividly about that night is both of us going up to her room at bedtime, getting into bed, and R. turning off the light. When she did that I asked her, surprised and with a little pang of homesickness or loneliness or disappointment, "Don't your parents tuck you in?"

Comments

[elynittria.livejournal.com]

Well, instead of jogging memories about overnights or being tucked in, this memory got me thinking about a particular set of cousins (eight kids) who lived in rural Maryland. My family used to go visit for a few days every summer, adding our gang of four kids to the mix.

Thinking of those vacations triggered a sensory memory (a little late for the discussion on that topic, but what the hell): the smell of crabs boiling. Ugh! What a stench. It permeated the house for over a day.

Even though I had helped catch the crabs (which was a lot of fun), I couldn't bring myself to eat them after smelling them cooking (not that I'm much of a seafood fan to begin with). I've never eaten anything crab related since then.

[bironic.livejournal.com]

I don't know what boiling crabs smell like, but if they're as redolent as most raw seafood, then I can imagine how that would put you off eating them when they were done.

We used to walk past the Fulton Fish Market on our way to the South Street Seaport in Manhattan, when my sister and I were young and hadn't eaten much or any seafood because our mom never cooked it. To this day, I remember that place when I pick up a piece of not-so-spectacularly-fresh fish or shrimp from the supermarket, and it can spoil the meal if you still smell-taste that reek when it's on your plate.

Anyway. Eight kids, huh? And twelve when you lot showed up? I don't think we would hit a dozen if we combined all my first cousins in one place. *counts* Nope, nine, including my sister and me, and two of those cousins weren't born until I was in my teens. I wonder what it would have been like to gather in big groups of relatives like that.

[elynittria.livejournal.com]

I wonder what it would have been like to gather in big groups of relatives like that.

Absolute pandemonium. I enjoyed it as a kid, but now I wonder how the adults kept from going crazy. Of course, since it was summer, we kids could spend most of the time outside playing, which probably helped.