Captain Me Planet

I have one earliest, foggy memory.  I believe I was younger than 2, as we left California when I was about 2 and a half. 

The memory is from living in San Jose, CA, next door to a family who became our own family.  People who would step in when Dad was overseas for 6 months, and Mom would rock a fevered me for 24 hours without rest.  They would offer to rock.  They would bring a meal.

My parents were stationed at Moffett AFB.  Dad was in Vietnam, a navy pilot, and mom was being a mom for the first time, 2000 miles away from their home town of Spartanburg, SC.   

But next door, was Norman and Marian Judson, and their son Brian, who was about 18 at the time I was born.  They became honorary grandparents, and uncle, for the first couple of years of my life.

I don’t remember this much, of course.  Not really any of it.  But these one or two blurbs.  Ormi (Norman) handing me my favorite cookie that they kept at their home for me, Vienna Finger cookies, and looking waaaaaay up at him, Mimi (Marian) and Brian.

Of course, I was only 2, but these people are all 6 ft. tall, or taller.  So compared to my 5′10" Dad, and 5′5" Mom, these people were giants.  Giants with my favorite Vienna Finger cookies.

We left sometime in 1973, I think, and went back in ‘79 for Brian’s wedding.  They served Cornish hen for the rehearsal dinner, which I remember, because I had just gotten braces the day before, and couldn’t eat a thing.  I also remember a lot of macrame.  It was California in 1979.

When our first son was born, the only reason we didn’t name him Judson (their last name) was the fact that in the south, where we are, we were pretty sure he’d end up J-u-u-u-d.  I don’t like J-u-u-u-d.   

And then there was last night.  Brian and his wife (not the first one), and little girl are traveling the country, from Santa Cruz to Savannah, to move into their new home.  And they stopped here for dinner.

Brian is not quite as tall as I remember, but still, over 6′ is pretty darned tall.  And we’ve lost Ormi and Mimi in the last several years.  His wife is lovely, and not too much older than I, and Camille, their 3.5 year old daughter, warmed up well after the first few minutes.  It was so strange, and wonderful, to serve them in my home, with my family.  All these years later.

It was sort of like having a memory, living, right in front of my eyes.  Mingled with stories my parents have told, I can’t be sure what is fabricated in my brain, or what is a real memory.  Except, I’m pretty sure about the cookies, and Ormi, in the doorway of their house.  And it is odd to think about similar things for my children one day.  Blips of memory, mixed with our tales, from the many people we’ve loved over our lives.  Miss Lydia and her magnolia tree.  Miss Kelly letting Private 1 use the drill driver to fix her back gate.  The South African man in the back brace, that lived next door when 1 and 2 were born.  The Sterlings and their children, over for an Easter Egg hunt.  All neighbors that have left imprints on our life, and in our children’s brains.

Maybe one day, they’ll meet some of these people again, with their own children.  Everyone we ever come into contact with makes a mark of some kind on our life, and us, on theirs.  Some are just more lasting than other.  Ormi, and Mimi and Brian, from Milpitas, CA, are the life long kind of imprint.  Surrogate family when my parents had none.  

I just wish I had remembered to have some Vienna Fingers here for Camille last night.  But then, you can’t relive some things.  She may have hated them.  Still, just to have them might have been nice. 

Safe travels, Judsons.