11

Earliest thing I can remember is around age 3, being taken to the ER to have the wheel of a cereal-box toy car extracted from my nose.

When I was 4 I hit a kid at preschool on the head with a hammer. Happened to be on the same day my mom was there watching through a one-way mirror.

First day of kindergarten I was gaming with Cory Hoover over who got to sit on the floor next to Debbie Coia. Can't remember the teacher's name any more. Debbie Coia was super cute and I was the only boy invited to her birthday party. Up yours, Hoover.

Somewhere around that time I remember building a pretty tall snow-bear with my dad and also washing our yellow Torino with him in the parking lot of our apartment at Indian Valley. Or maybe I just remember seeing pictures of that.

I won first prize in a Halloween costume contest for my dice costume made from a cardboard box. It was really clever. I won $15.

Moved to 2113 Grovewood Avenue in Parma when I was 5. Lisa Kollar stood in front of our house waiting to meet the new kids. We walked to school about 6 blocks away all by ourselves. Our phone number was 749-2645. We had a party line.

New 1st grade teacher in Parma was Mrs. Sefkovic. She was tall and very pretty. She chastised Denine Tarzanek for dotting her i's with hearts.

My mom made dinner every night. Sometimes we went out to eat at Ponderosa. Once they were short on silverware and we shared steak knives with the people at the table next to us. They had this really good salad dressing that was kind of like Catalina.

Somehow my mom got stuck being the coach of my t-ball team the Lions. We lost every game. She was very pregnant that summer.

My dad used to shoot baskets in our driveway. My sister and I would argue over who would be "the getter," fetching the ball when it took a bad rebound. Sometimes this included being lifted over the neighbor's chain link fence and carefully avoiding the land mines left by their Irish Setter, Blaze.

In 3rd grade I wrote a semi-regular newspaper called "The Ivington Press" with my neighbor and classmate, Kelly Jester. We wrote a special edition called "The Arlington Press" for the bicentennial.

We always got to watch "Happy Days" and "Laverne and Shirley" on Tuesday nights, but weren't allowed to watch "Three's Company."

My best friend was Ronnie Zeitz. We took swimming lessons together and once hid in a locker to avoid going to the lesson because the instructors were mean and shoved our faces in the water. His parents were divorced, which I didn't really understand.

My dad worked for "CNA" and was an underwriter, which I didn't really understand.

Sometimes our whole family would play Yahtzee together. My sister would talk into the cup to "Charlie" hoping he would give her a good roll. My dad would always tell us you shouldn't try for ones, you should leave the ones open, and take a 0 or a 1 there when you got an otherwise bad roll. Charlotte talks to "Charlie" now and I tell her the same thing about the ones.

My mom used to play cards with me. I liked gin rummy, she preferred crazy 8's.

My dad played catch with me in a very tiny back yard crowded with trees and a swing set. I probably missed 75% of the balls he threw to me.

In 1977 we went to Bradenton, Florida and stayed in the most stereotypical 70's condo you can imagine. We had a red dune buggy for the week. My favorite song was "Undercover Angel." My dad liked "Lido Shuffle."

One time on a Sunday morning when we had all crawled into my parents' bed, my dad suddenly got up and sang Queen's Bohemian Rhapsody refrain, "Goodbye, everybody, I've got to go..." and then proceeded to the bathroom. That was probably the funniest thing I had ever seen up to that point in my life.

We moved to Strongsville just before I turned 11. Chapman was an "open school" with no walls which was very progressive at the time. The first day I was put at a table with Jodi Jirik and Billy Fiori, who became my new best friend. There was another girl at the table I don't remember.

We had a black Ford LTD and most of the time didn't wear any seat belts.

Every day at dinner we asked my dad, "Whadja have for lunch?" Sometimes when our giggle boxes got turned on he'd threaten us with eating dinner in the basement. We never ended up eating dinner in the basement.

Both my parents were there every single day of the first 11 years of my life. My dad went to work, we went to school, my mom made dinner, we hung out and went to bed. We had a normal, sometimes boring, but always safe and stable home environment. They didn't do anything or try to do anything super extraordinary; they loved us, took care of us, and it was all just very regular. 

I can remember lots of times through middle school, high school, and beyond much more vividly, where they were present as my supportive parents and later as grandparents. I've been lucky to have both of them alive, healthy, and married now going on 45 years. When I see them now there is an implicit continuity; I know these are the people that raised me through early childhood and on into the adolescence and adulthood in which I can fondly and fully recall their presence.

Thing is up until 11 I honestly don't remember them very much.

-kpb 9/7/13