Sometimes, friends talk about their earliest memories, perhaps the first memory. Over the years, I have always responded with the same answer. How could I know this happened, they’d ask. “Really? Oh, come on now!” they’d remark. “No, honest, I can still see it.” I stand my ground.

     My parents brought me home from the hospital to a two-bedroom house on Garretson Avenue in the enclave known as Morningside within the city limits of Sioux City, Iowa. When I return for class reunions, I often take a tour of the three homes of my upbringing. On such an outing, I stopped the car in front of the humble home in Morningside. It still had the concrete steps at the end of the sidewalk that led up to a porch protected by a roof overhang. Without regard for well-being, I parked the car, wandered up the broken concrete driveway, and recalled my story’s details.

    I recall it was a celebration—lots of people in the backyard of my parent’s first house. My perspective is from a playpen. Its sides allow me to look out on the festivities. Grandpa and Grandma Gerkin, with their wavy red hair, move across the yard. Other people are a blur, but the sounds are ones of happiness. I am happy. I distinctly remember an outside entrance to the basement. It has painted wooden doors that slope to the house at an angle. Next to these basement doors, steps descend from the back of the house.

     There are other memories from the house where we lived my first four years – playing tanks, dressing up as a cowboy, digging potatoes from a neighbor’s garden. According to my mother, a kid down the street could not pronounce Steve, so he called me toovy-honey. She showed apparent delight, reminding me I was not so delighted over the years.

     But the playpen episode remains vivid.

     Recently, I peeked into two boxes my dad left me—boxes of Jim Gerkin memorabilia. One held his WWII Navy uniforms and bayonet, and the other a photo album. Looking through the pictures of the collection, there it was. Toovy-honey (that’s me, unfortunately) is standing in the playpen, happy as a clam, leaning against the top rail, my hair combed just so by Mom, grinning from ear to ear in the sunlight.

     Now, finding that photo is a good thing and a bad thing. It is heart-warming to see me like a happy kid. It’s possible this memory is not without fault. I can’t deny the possibility that I once upon a time saw the picture. The black and white photo, which has no date on the back nor a description from Mom but only the number 331, shows the playpen in the backyard, not with netting to corral me, but vertical wooden slats. There are a few toys on the ground next to the pen. A white picket fence in the background towers over a garden. It appears I am still in diapers. The picture does not show the back of the house. Yet, I can confirm that the basement doors, with modern materials, are still there, and the steps lead from a small screened-in porch to the yard.

     I love this early memory. It sticks with me and grounds me to my time in the first house.

All Rights Reserved. © Steve Gerkin | No reprints without permission.