The early days
Perhaps I should take a few moments and introduce myself. No need for a name; I’m much more a product of place. Places. In looking back, my childhood was devoted to changing addresses. That given, let’s go all the way back. To a time when there were no words.
It happens to us all; we forget about that period before vocabulary. No need to spell, when you have nothing to say. My earliest memories are artificial: things my mother (probably) told me. And so it begins. I was born in a very small village, created out of an Act. The railway came through, and since there was a junction, people gathered and put down roots as they used to say. My parents, both, came from even smaller places, so their decision to set up a household in what was a metropolis (in their eyes) had a determination on my life.
The railway was always there, from my point of view. And theirs. All of us born within range of a steam whistle. In my case, the train rattled the dishes (I assume). If I had been better at throwing things (bottles and toys don’t count for much), I could have have lobbed whatever through the open window of a passing locomotive. And there were plenty of opportunities; at a guess the train passed by more often than any automobiles. I’ve seen a photo from the period, and the road was barely passable. The train tracks were so much smoother.
Our house had an upstairs and a downstairs. Don’t take that lightly, because I learned to crawl up and down without any lasting injury. We didn’t have a basement; instead, the house was “banked” at the end of summer in a futile attempt to warm the floors. Outside, a small barn. We had a freshened cow (I’ve been told), and a dog that bit cow’s tails. No relation between those two things.
My father worked just across the way, in the train station. My grandparents live just down the way, across from that train station. There was a school, but I didn’t go there. A post office, although I didn’t go there either, except as an accessory. A gas pump (the old kind with a large glass cylinder that you “pumped” full before relying on gravity. And a store. Or two. Not clear on that part.
And after the birth of a sibling, we moved.
