Hesitant, Hopeful

While talking to my mom on Skype last night we got to chatting about my great grandparents, Joseph Lloyd and Eliza Josephine Troutman. I told her I didn't remember them, but then they died when I quite small. She said that my Grandma Wilma and her mother, my Great Grandma Troutman, had come to California shortly after my great grandfather died, but I didn't remember that, either. That's when she reminded me of something funny that had happened when we were in Texas for my great grandparent's 50th anniversary. It's funny, and a memory I do clearly have, though I didn't know, until last night, that it had happened when we were there for their anniversary.

I'm the brat on the right--this is me and Staci, when we were about five and seven (or so) years old. Hesperia, CA.

I was quite small, maybe five years old, and we were at my Aunt Wanda and Uncle Rex's house in Plainview. They had a basement playroom filled with toys, a glassed-in patio filled with those little John Deere tractor models--that weren't for kids, they were my uncles, who was a commercial harvester his whole life--and a huge trampoline in their back yard. I remember their house being fun. While we were outside jumping on the trampoline, all the adults were in the house, sitting around the kitchen table, enjoying desert. That is until I came running into the house crying.

I ran up to my folks, my feet bare, and when my mom tried to comfort me and asked what was wrong, I blurted out, "THEY CALLED US 'Y'ALL'!!!" Apparently, in the infinite wisdom of a five year old, I thought our cousins, who were only a little bit younger than us and who had grown up in Texas, were calling us names. Everyone burst out laughing, which was confusing for me, while my mom explained that "y'all" just means "you all" and that my cousin was just addressing both of us, not insulting us. Ugh, embarrassing. . . thankfully, little kids don't hang on to embarrassment the way adults do.

Looking back on it now I laugh, particularly since I've been living in Texas for 14 years in June and though I swore when I moved here that I'd never lapse into y'all's, I have. I use it so much that I hardly notice it anymore. Still, it's one of my better memories now. We went to Texas every year when I was a kid to visit my grandparents, but this particular memories stands out the most in my mind. Maybe humor is some kind of fastening agent for memories. Wouldn't that be ironic? A pessimist with the ability to most vividly remember the funny things!