Sometime Sometime Land

Peter Pan lived in Never Never Land... and never grew up.
Street Librarian usually lives in the here and now, but sometimes wonders.

Engaging childhood memories, thinking about the future, asking "What If?", yearning ("If only..."), traveling to Sometime Sometime Land...

I remember in elementary school having a pen that looked like a cigar (complete with holder).

I remember when Miss Sheehan smashed her fist on the overhead projector and the 4th grade class went silent as we watched kaleidoscopic broken glass appear on the screen in front of the room.

I remember an elementary school concert, performed by a massed orchestra from several schools, with an audience of parents. Midway through the first piece, the conductor--my music teacher, Mr. B--gave an anguished look and halted our playing, ordering us to start again. Not long after this, I ceased music lessons.

I remember plucking trumpet vine blossoms and sipping the nectar from their ends.

I remember a Gemeinhardt silver flute.

I recall the scent of cloves on my father.

I remember the scent of lavender on someone else.

I remember penny candy without wrappers, oh yes I do. And cigarette machines in restuarants.

I remember never NOT climbing the stairs to the 11th floor of the First National Bank Building on my way to dentist Dr. Zuccaro's office. Elevator? I never considered it.

I remember keeping a coat hanger under the hood of my car for use in breaking into it when I'd accidentally lock the keys inside.

I remember steaming up the windows of this car.

I remember my mother saying "m.y.o.b." (I was just reminded of this by Kropotkin's essay on anarchism in the 1910 edition of The Encyclopedia Britannica in which he states that "'mind everyone your own business' is the unique moral law of anarchism" according to Benjamin Tucker.

I remember my father saying "Rise and shine!" And "Hit the hay."

I remember cribbage.

I remember the taste of peppermint candy ice cream with chocolate sauce.

I remember Silly Putty, Super Balls, and Slinkies.

I remember the weight of a big cat on my lap.

I remember a cat looking out the window at me.

I remember a cat on my shoulder, muzzling my ear.

I remember sad, painful, desperate times.

I remember making a list of all the food I wanted to eat.

I remember making a list of all the clothes and gear I'd like to have, and finding this list years later and seeing how basic and humble it was.

I remember someone who used to utter spoonerisms daily. (I remember keeping a list of them.)

I remember the first time. I remember the last time.

I remember cutting and arranging strawberries differently each time. I remember the good, playful challenge of that.

I remember when the picture was taken of me crying--on my brother Tim's shoulders in deep water. I remember where this was: Backbone State Park.

I remember White Pine Hollow State Preserve. And rain. And what came later.

I remember heaven on earth.

I remember Little Cloud Camp.

I remember the six o'clock siren in Glen Ellyn.

I remember riding in a car with my sister and brother-in-law who were lost. I remember hollering for them to let me out of the car, intending to walk back before they got lost any more deeply.

I remember 487 Anthony, wind-up toys, a croquet set in the smelly dark garage, the world's softest sofa, a basement piled with newspapers, and a bedroom with a high bed and an old radio.

I remember Cap'n Crunch cereal, Sara Lee coffee cakes, and Pepperidge Farm bread toasted.

I remember getting up the nerve to call Jodie Udelhoven. I remember she said, "Who?"

I remember unspeakable things.

I remember the sound of the Baptism River.

I remember Aunt Pauline's blackberry pie made from berries I'd picked on the hill behind her house in Oneonta at 4 Moffatt Street.

I remember being teasingly pushed from behind toward a pool in the Walker Art Center Conservatory, toward a water lily I was admiring, by someone I'd known less than a week.

I remember the phone ringing in the middle of the night-- on a wild, frigid, blizzardy night in January 1982.

I remember taking my car battery in for the night.

I remember spraying ether into the carburetor -- and flames shooting out.

I remember the top of Katahdin, and encountering a gray jay on my way down.

I remember Davis Gulch.

I remember "yes."

I remember the Tri-State Independent Blind Bookstore and its first location in the old YMCA Building, the second in an old industrial building across the street from Spahn & Rose Lumber, and thirdly out on the west side of town in what once was a supermarket.

I remember mail art.

I remember Wilbur Simpson.

I remember apatids and "author-title keys," and "Titlepurge."

I remember perforated paper and dot matrix and 5 1/4" floppies.

I remember typewriter ribbons and carbon paper.

I remember IBM Selectrics.

I remember 4022 Spruce.

Who are we when we sleep?

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