365 Memories

My son is back in camp after the weekend away. Sometimes when I pick him up, he has a repertoire of chanting, singy -songs he goes through. Often these are unfamiliar to me, but sometimes I am stunned to hear the same words sung by him and and his classmates that I sang when I was in grade school myself, all those years ago and in a different city. The latest one is "Miss Mary Mack, Mack, Mack; all dressed in black, black, black" with those silver buttons down her back. How do kids all end up with these same songs? I have a hard time imagining parents teaching them. How do these silly, nonsense songs survive generation to generation? Who knows. But now that I'm thinking about these songs (and the clapping games that went with them), here's another I remember from when I was perhaps a couple of years older than my son is now. I haven't heard this one from him yet. Maybe you'll remember it, too. If you do (or even if you don't), hope it brings a smile. Miss ...

The hiss and boom of fireworks are tapering off. Another Independence Day in the United States. Today, I think about all the reasons why I feel lucky to belong to this messy community of free thinkers and loudmouthed discontents. News in recent weeks is enough to remind us: we do have basic freedoms of thought, speech, and action that people (especially women) in other parts of the world can only hold in their hearts as hope. I don't have the strongest record as a patriot, but there are not many other places I'd rather be at the moment, barring the need for serious health care (knock wood). Well, on vacation, yes, but that's different. So this day of anthems and outdoor grilling is coming to a close, and what do I remember in this moment? Really, because of the fact that this afternoon our family did nothing to mark the holiday (traditional plans fell through), I am remembering the picnic we would have had—the one that we've had whenever possible, in the years since I ...

Three . . . Two . . . One . . . Ready or not, here I come! My friend's voice traveled down the hallway of her family's large, Los Angeles house. We were playing Hide and Seek: my friend, her older sister, and I. The girls went to my elementary school (we were in our last years), and they lived just down the canyon road from where I did. I remember being at their house fairly often, and also some kind of occasional car pool our moms had worked out. I remember that breakfast for them was often of the powdered sugar donut variety. Did I wish for the same, instead of my hard boiled egg and toast? Maybe, but not with conviction. Overall, I accepted (and now am very thankful for) my mother's firm belief in breakfast being the most important meal of the day and therefore her insistence that it be nutritious. I am now debating how to relate the next bit of info in a way that will not sound uncharitable. My intention is just to describe a fact, not a judgment, but, well, there aren...

Besides singing or watching traffic on the 405—or the other auto entertainment in Los Angeles, spotting outrageous vanity plates (there were never so many in comparatively straitlaced Chicago)—when stuck in the car for long stretches of time, my mom and I also played something we called the Introduction Game. I'm not sure if we invented it ourselves. It was an alphabet-related memory game, a pretend scenario in which we took turns being the host of a party, responsible for introductions as each new guest arrived. I think I loved the game in part because as the fictional guests showed up, I actually imagined the party scene unfolding. I was at an age when I thought that the most grown-up thing I could do was host a dinner party, or a cocktail party (though I had much less idea what that was actually like). It seemed such a glamorous challenge, being responsible for everyone's comfort and good time. Sometimes I imagined a sophisticated gathering of interesting, witty people. Othe...

Jack of Diamonds, Queen of Spades. Those are the cards that form the combination known as a "pinochle" in the game of the same name. When I was little, I'm sure the first card game I learned was either "Go Fish" or "Old Maid" (I remember the Old Maid cards from my paternal grandparents' Florida house). Not long after, I progressed to "War," "Crazy Eights." I played those with my parents, often to pass the time on airplanes, back when the airlines still had decks of cards to distribute free of charge (along with "wings" pins; now you're lucky if they'll give you peanuts and a half can of soda with your outrageously priced economy ticket). There were various forms of solitaire, regular and clock. Eventually the repertoire included "Spit," a fast-slapping game that I'm pretty sure I learned at camp while bunking with a bunch of other pre -teens. We also played some version of poker there, assigning a...

Sure, you could play "Twenty Questions" or the "Grocery Store" game, but when your father works for an airline, there's another fun way to pass the time and test your memory skills: take the Airport Code Quiz (answers at the end of the post, but no peeking allowed)! What cities are served by the following airports, identified here only by their codes? ATH , BKK , BNA , BWI , CAI, CCS , CDG , CEQ , DFW , DTW , DUB, EWR , FCO , GIG, HND , HNL , LAX, LGW , LIM , MCO , MOW, MUC , ORD , ORK , ORY , PTY , SAN, TLS , YYZ , ZRH I don't know when this first became a game we played, or why we ever stopped playing it, because it really was a lot of fun, and sometimes quite challenging. I just remember that I loved to be tested on the arcane knowledge of IATA Location Identifier codes—those three-letter codes that describe the world's airports, large and small, and that (in theory, anyway) ensure that your luggage arrives at its proper destination. I loved the oddn...