A CHILDHOOD MEMORY RESURFACES...
It's weird sometimes how the human brain works...
Some memories seem to forever reside right there on the forefront of your neural circuits, always ready to jump into the spotlight no matter how hard you might try to keep them securely under wraps. Others burrow themselves deep into the rabbit hole of your subconscious and remain hidden for years, patiently biding their time until something suddenly makes them decide to jump out and say, "Hi! Remember me?"
Case in point:
Over the weekend I decided to watch a few Sean Connery movies on DVD, simply because it had been awhile and it seemed like fun. And as I was watching one of the Connery films in particular, I suddenly remembered a funny conversation between my mother and father from years ago - a conversation that stemmed from the film in question. I have absolutely no idea what made me suddenly remember it after so many years. But there it was, as clear in my mind as if it had just happened.
It went something like this…
THE PLACE: The Small Family living room, Bradley, Illinois.
THE TIME: September 17, 1972. (Yeah, I had to look that part up. My memory isn't half bad sometimes, but it is hardly THAT good…)
THE SCENE: John Robert Small, his wife Romania Sue and their oldest son, 9-year-old John Allen (that would be me) are sitting in front of the television, eating ice cream and drinking bottles of RC Cola (Dad's cola of choice) while watching the network television premiere of Goldfinger on the ABC Sunday Night Movie. Sons number 2 and 3 are not present; after all, it's past their bedtime - a fact I no doubt enjoyed rubbing in their faces a little more than I should have. Hey, sometimes being the oldest has its perks.
Anyway…
Mom and Dad are watching the movie, while my attention is divided somewhat between what is happening on the TV screen and creating my own James Bond adventure while playing with the Corgi die-cast 007 Astin-Martin (complete with ejector seat) Dad bought for me a week or so earlier at the toy department of our local Sears store. So needless to say, certain things are happening on-screen that I am not fully catching - and some of them probably would no doubt have gone clear over my 9-year-old head even if I had been paying better attention.
And so at one point during the movie, Mom (who knows the movie is based on a book but has not read it) turns to Dad (who has a matching set of the entire Ian Fleming series in hardback there on the living room bookcase) with a look of utter befuddlement and asks him, "What kind of a writer names one of his female characters Pussy Galore?"
To which dear old Dad responds by immediately flashing his most mischievous grin while arching his eyebrows Groucho Marx-style and saying, "MY kind of writer, that's who!" And Mom giggles, but at the same time jerks her head in my direction and scolds, "Don't say things like that in front of the boy!"
Dad just keeps grinning as he turns his attention back to the movie; Mom shakes her head in her most motherly "boys will be boys" fashion and does the same. Me, I just keep playing with my toy car. I'm just an innocent kid only two and a half months past my ninth birthday, after all; it will be at least another six months before I become sufficiently educated enough to understand what they're even talking about. And by then the fact that the conversation even took place will have receded into the deep, dark caverns of my memory… and stay there until this past weekend, whereupon I laughed until I cried.
Which raises the question: What does it say about me that this slightly risque and long-forgotten exchange between my parents is suddenly one of my favorite memories of childhood…?
In : Reminiscence
Tags: 007
John A. Small is an award-winning newspaper journalist, columnist and broadcaster whose work has been honored by the Oklahoma Press Association, the Society of Professional Journalists, the Associated Press, the National Newspaper Association, and the Oklahoma Education Association. He and his wife Melissa were married in 1986; they have two sons, Joshua Orrin (born 1991) and William Ian (born 1996).
Mr. Small is the News Editor and columnist for the Johnston County Capital-Democrat, a weekly newspaper headquartered in Tishomingo, OK. He obtained his nickname, "Bard of the Lesser Boulevards," from a journalism colleague - the late Phil Byrum - in recognition of the success of his popular newspaper column, "Small Talk." (In addition to the many awards the column itself has received over the years, a radio version of "Small Talk" earned an award for "Best Small Market Commentary" from the Society of Professional Journalists in 1998.)
John was born in Oklahoma City in 1963; lived in the Bradley-Bourbonnais-Kankakee area of Illinois for most of the next 28 years (with brief sojourns in Texas and Athens, Greece, thrown in to break up the monotony); then returned to his native state in 1991, where he currently resides in the Tishomingo/Ravia area. He graduated from Bradley-Bourbonnais Community High School in 1981, and received his bachelor's degree in journalism from Olivet Nazarene University in Bourbonnais in 1991. The years between high school and college were a period frought with numerous exploits and misadventures, some of which have become the stuff of legend; nobody was hurt along the way, however, which should count for something.
In addition to his professional career as a journalist he has published two short story collections: "Days Gone By: Legends And Tales Of Sipokni West" (2007), a collection of western stories; and "Something In The Air" (2011), a more eclectic collection. He was also a contributor to the 2005 Locus Award-nominated science fiction anthology "Myths For The Modern Age: Philip Jose Farmer's Wold Newton Universe," edited by Win Scott Eckert. In additon he has written a stage play and a self-published cookbook; served as project editor for a book about the JFK assassination entitled "The Men On The Sixth Floor"; and has either published or posted on the Internet a number of essays, stories and poems.
He has also won writing awards from the Veterans of Foreign Wars and the National Library of Poetry. He is a past president of the Johnston County Chamber of Commerce in Tishomingo; was a charter member and past president of the Johnston County Reading Council, the local literacy advocacy and "friends of the library" organization; served as Johnston County's first-ever Americans with Disabilities Act coordinator in 1994-95; served two terms as chairman of the Johnston County (OK) Democratic Party; and has taught journalism classes for local Boy Scout Merit Badge Fairs. He is a member of the New Wold Newton Meteorics Society.
