I remember the strangest things about my childhood. I remember the basket of plastic animals. I was given the basket to use because the rim was torn off by an errant hound. I was always careful where I put it or how I carried it and it served well throughout my entire childhood. It was, perhaps, the only thing I was careful with at that time of my life. I can still remember each of the hundreds of plastic horses and wild animals that inhabited that basket. Whenever the world became tough, I would get out the basket and construct elaborate dioramas. Cluttered dresser tops became picturesque mesas where herds of mustangs ran free as cougars and wolves menaced from the cliff tops. It was, I presume, the equivalent of taking a short vacation and, once the scene was played out, I had usually had time enough to think the problem through. It was, I think, my earliest expression of an artistic bent which I have never been able to spare the time to indulge, a budding passion for collecting which I have never had the money to gratify, and a love of nature which I at least have been able to foster through my choice of career.
For some reason, my plastic animals made the adults nervous. Perhaps it was gender stereotyping; an extension of the old "boys don't play with dolls" sort of thinking. I was very young when my father died and from that point on I sensed a bit of barely suppressed hysteria in the adults around me. It was as if everyone was on continual alert in case the single-gender family would lack something. Of course, it does but kids are resilient and overcome this. I absorbed role models like a sponge, taking some from this one and some from that one, and turned out a rather eclectic person.
At one point,they perceived a problem (I was "having trouble interacting with men") and sent me off to a particularly odious experience at a camp. I was 10 at the time and had no particular problem with men - I disliked men and women in equal measure, feeling the pinch of being forced into particular behaviors, as does any pre-pubscent male. I interacted well with the central male in my life, my beloved Grandfather, and he taught me volumes about being whipped when he simply shrugged and said if "the cats" had decided I was going to camp, then I was going and there was nothing he or anyone else could do about it.
I am quite amazed that I am so fond of my siblings. Every time my mother became pregnant, I lost something. When she remarried and began to produce the second wave of children, the only thing I remember about the first pregnancy is I had to get rid of my dog. My stepfather, a tremendous role-model in his own right, although he never seemed to believe it, had to tell me the dog was to be given away because my mother was worried it would get run over. I failed to see the logic. If she wanted the dog gone, and it got run over, it would be gone. In a strange twist of fate, I had named the dog, "Happy," because that was how he made me feel. He was an anchor in the turbulent times after the marriage. We shared many adventures and, while he was there, my basket of animals was forgotten.
Losing Happy was a great learning experience. I knew adults sometimes sought solace in strong drink so on the afternoon when they took him away in the car, I stole a bottle of wine and experienced my first falling down, throwing up, drunk. I learned this did no good and never again drank to forget as it seems to have the opposite effect.
The dog adjusted better than I. As soon as he was let out in the morning, he made the five mile trip to accompany me as I walked to school, just like always. This headed him back in the direction of his new home and, as soon as I went inside, he took off at a run and was back before he was missed. The same scenario took place when school was out, only now Happy knew he had other obligations and would no longer go adventuring with me. As soon as I was home, he left at a run for his new place. Each day was like losing him anew until finally, shortly after my new brother was born, Happy was run over by a truck on his way to the school.
I felt it was my fault somehow and so did the new owner. She had tied him that afternoon and he slipped the collar in his frenzy to get to school. He was late and running flat out so he never saw the truck coming. She refused to tell me where the dog was buried so I never got to tell Happy I was sorry for getting him killed. I did find one of the plastic dogs in the basket that resembled him, named it Happy, and made sure it was running somewhere in each of the many dioramas I constructed over the next few months.
Even this was to end. My mother was soon pregnant again and worrying about me "playing" with my basket of animals. By now I was into my early teens, and already possessed of the powerful studdishness that has plagued me all my days. I had friends, had a job, lusted vigorously over every female human with a heartbeat, and still found time to set up my plastic animals on the dresser top about once a week. One day, however, I came home to find the venerable basket gone. I began to accuse my siblings but Mom, her belly protruding, intervened. It was time, she said, for me to stop playing with toys and go on to some other more adult activities.
The basket of animals had been taken down to the farm, to be stored with all sorts of other stuff in an unused corn house. When I had children, she said, I could retrieve the basket and they would enjoy the animals as much as I had. I was, I think, in a state of shock and could not respond. I left the house and wandered the streets for a while until one of my mother's friends beckoned to me. I preferred to avoid this woman because she never missed an opportunity for a sexual innuendo and was prone to handling me if no one was looking. This drove my lust to unimagined heights but in the end made me increasingly miserable because I knew somehow it would be a really bad idea and always found a means of escape. This day, however, it seemed like a good way to strike out.
She seemed delighted with the fairly violent encounter and, although it was never repeated, she plagued me for years. I, on the other hand, learned another lesson. Sex for any reason other than emotion is hollow, unsatisfying, and demeaning for both parties.
I often wonder if my children would have enjoyed the plastic animals as much as I did. I would have told them about Happy and the lessons the basket of animals taught me. This was, however, not to be. A menopausal aunt, possessed of a cleaning frenzy, turned her attention to the old corn house and threw away everything that was not hers, including my basket of animals. I was a young man then and had learned well that there is no true solace for a male so I did nothing and was still. But I do remember.
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Last Updated: July 13, 1996