Faded memories

I’ve been thinking a lot about memory lately. I’ve been wondering how far back people can clearly remember things, and trying to figure out where my own memory goes from spotty episodes to clear and continuous. How much of it exists by virtue of finding corroborating photographic evidence or through others’ accounts, or research through Wikipedia?

I don’t remember much from my first year or so. I think I remember small things from the time my family lived in Barrie (after I was a year old), but I’m not entirely sure. I remember the old Dominion supermarket logo, and the hospital floor (my sister was born and my mother had gallbladder surgery around this time). The church where my dad preached out in the country somewhere. I vaguely remember visiting my parents’ friends in different parts of southwestern Ontario; a big house in the middle of nowhere, another house in the woods somewhere else. Some places are more vivid than others, especially the homes of aunts and uncles, grandparents, and a few farms outside of Kitchener-Waterloo. I remember there was an elevator that took us to my maternal grandparents’ place before they moved to Southampton, and driving over one of the Burlington Bay Skyway Bridges to get to my aunt and uncle’s place in Grimsby while the other was closed.

Even after we moved away from Ontario, we went back there a few more times in my childhood, but if we didn’t revisit a place after my memories get clearer after age five or six, the details are murky. Unless I have some other tangible proof of a visit, I’m not sure if it was just a dream.

We moved to Regina, when I was 3, but the actual move doesn’t figure in the memory; I think I flew there. More’s familiar from then, reinforced by our family visiting the city again a few times during the early 90s. I recall the outdoor swimming pool near the church where Dad preached and a few of my parents’ friends’ houses; one in the south suburbs, another one closer to downtown. I think I remember another of their friends had a recliner that fascinated me.

I don’t recall being aware of the current year until we were in PEI and it was 1986, then 1987. There was a cross-country move that went through the States, but I remember very little of it. Maybe a hotel swimming pool or two, that’s it. The church my dad preached in downtown was huge; it had a balcony. I remember the library and the double-decker tour buses downtown, the Towers discount store and the Shoppers’ Drug Mart in the mall near our house. Other signs and banners as I started to learn how to read: SEASONS GREETINGS. NO GIMMICKS. A bunch of Bible verses. The burgeoning record-collector in me noticing the patterns of the Raffi and Fred Penner tapes we had. My abortive attempt at driving the car, which thankfully did not end in tragedy.

Although the family went to or through New Brunswick a few times during this time, all I remember are highways, trees, the tapes that we would play in the car (usually Christian stuff that would make me cringe now). I’m guessing we drove up near where my family lives now and cut across the woods using the Plaster Rock Highway whenever we wanted to escape the Maritimes; that route is literally nothing but trees, but there used to be a service station in the middle years and years ago. I also remember an aborted camping trip somewhere in the south, and for some reason I remember staying in a dorm room somewhere, but I can’t remember the occasion or where it actually was.

I remember our family going on the ferry to Nova Scotia sometime near Halloween; we trick-or-treated with another minister’s kids in Stellarton. Right before Christmas, we moved into the giant manse across the street from the church in Pictou my father was now preaching at. I started Primary (Nova Scotia’s version of kindergarten) at an old elementary school that still had the separate entrances marked for boys and girls, and that still used mimeographed copies of handouts, and showed old “The Most Important Person” films from the early 70s.

I can map out more of my childhood from this point, both metaphorically and geographically. I currently live in Halifax, the city that we visited occasionally when we lived there, though I can’t completely match the memories with the present reality of the place. Cities change at a faster pace than small towns.

After we moved to Selkirk, MB when I was 8, my memory’s fairly clear, for better or worse. Being fully aware of your surroundings does take some magic out of life, but the following years weren’t exactly the happiest either. Either way, those days aren’t the point of this story.