Monday, April 25, 2016

A to Z April Challenge: U is for Unnerving Memory

Genealogists and family historians get a lot of satisfaction from chasing their ancestors’ stories. Finding a diary, a message on a postcard, or a photo with a name attached is like the sun coming out after a storm. One day we will be somebody’s ancestor. We need to leave our descendants a little bit of sunshine too. So here is my story told alphabetically, not chronologically: Growing Up in Cradock.

is for unnerving memory.

How old was I? 7? 8? 9 maybe? Like so many other times, I was playing at my grandparents’ home next door. Most of the time, my friends and I played in the yard or in the garage. Sometimes we actually played in the house. My grandparents had an old desk with lots of cubbies and little drawers that made good hiding places for small objects; one of us would hide something and the other would try to guess where.

On this particular day, a neighborhood friend and I were playing inside. We were in the bedroom where we shouldn’t have been. We were snooping where we had no business snooping. I opened a dresser drawer and found this:
 
Pearl-handled snub-nose 38 pistol
Not THE gun that I found but similar
according to my mind's eye
It was so cute. White handle. Child-size.

It must be a toy. After all, only cowboys and bad guys had real guns. And my granddaddy was not a bad guy. He certainly wasn’t a cowboy.

I pointed it at my friend. I pulled the trigger. We both laughed.

“Look what I found!” I said joyfully as I handed the pretty little toy to my grandmother. My, but she looked grim. I don’t know what became of it; I never saw it again.

With unabashed admiration for my utterly unequal colleagues, I issue this ultimatum for you to unite with umpteen users at the A to Z April Challenge to uncover some uncanny and unconventional blogs that will be unveiled to you.

© 2016, Wendy Mathias. All rights reserved

18 comments:

  1. Thankful it wasn't loaded! I bet your grandmother was horrified with what you had found and I'm sure it was put well away so you wouldn't find it again :)

    betty

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    1. I can just imagine the conversation between my grandmother and grandfather after that!

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  2. Thank goodness it wasn't loaded! Such innocent escapes could have turned nasty so easily. I'm glad you never saw it again. Lesson to grandparents: Store you gun out of reach. Thanks for sharing.

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    1. I'm glad too. I'd probably be in loony bin had I shot my friend.

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  3. Wow, that sent shivers down my spine thinking about what a close call that was. YIKES!

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    1. Whenever the news reports about one child shooting another, I KNOW how it happens. Horrible, just horrible.

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  4. Yikes! This made my stomach hurt to imagine what could have happened!

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  5. Unnerving to say the least, and one I am surprised you didn't intentionally forget. Better to use it as a learning experience and move on. My Dad was a cowboy, and used his guns to shoot varmits and snakes...the animal kind. The snake shootings still scare me.
    Sue at CollectInTexas Gal

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    1. I've tried to forget it. Before A-Z started, I looked at the questions for "The Book of Me" meme and a few others concerning telling one's own story, and "Unnerving Memory" was suggested and that was it -- the memory came back.

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  6. How scary to think what could have happened to you and your friend.

    It did happen to my friend when I was a little girl. Patti and another child were playing cops/robbers, or cowboys/Indians, one of those types of games. The gun was pointed at Patti. The trigger pulled. The gun was not empty. She was in a coma for the longest time. I still remember the morning that the phone rang and my mama came to tell me that Patti had died. It still brings tears to my eyes when I think of it.

    I am so glad that no one got hurt during your play time.

    Have a blessed evening.

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    1. How incredibly sad and tragic. So common. So preventable. Still shocking every time.

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  7. Unnerving is right! Yikes! Guns scare me.

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  8. I understand your inquisitiveness. I remember many years ago sneaking a peak at my dad's pistol in the drawer at his work. We knew we weren't allowed to touch (as it was loaded)and were being naughty just opening the drawer to take a peek!

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    1. I appreciate the company in the naughty girls club.

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  9. Oh Wendy - that is an unnerving memory indeed. I remember how cross I was when I found out our neighbour had a gun. I understood that she invested in it for her own family's protection (a less than amicable divorce) but I was always worried with children around lest it fall into the wrong hands.

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  10. Wow! That was a lucky escape and you probably nearly gave your grandmother a heart attack! I too lived next to my grandparents..a very special experience.

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