Some other memories from those early times. . . . Driving up some sort of semi-hill/mountain--, curling roads with lots of tall trees, forest. Very hillish, California-esque, what with the artsy stands along the way . . . me in the back seat of an early 60s cool car. I heard them (my mom Bonnie, and father, Tom Sr.) discussing how great the fruit was, the vegetables, worth the drive . . . and finally. we arrived at the top of the hill, amidst tall pine trees, and bought some veggies and fruit at some sort of hippie stand. This would have been around 1964-65, age 2-3.
Quickly on the heals of that, or amidst, I became aware that my dad was a cop. I recall being taken to the police station with my dad, driving in his police car, pulling into the parking lot with all the other police cars parked there, and then walking through the precinct. I could feel that it was "official".. . . I felt special, the officers noted and acknowledged me, walking by the lockers, seeing some guns about--and that immediate smell and sense of an "institution" . . . something "official", "authorized" . . . but it was cool. Nothing weird happened. I was a little toddler, with my cop dad, going to his job one day.
Somewhere in this same time-frame . . . I remember a day where my dad took me on a walk around the block where we lived. This was Palo Alto, California. I remember him lifting my on his shoulders . . . walking down big tree-lined streets . . . and noticing how magnificent those trees and houses were, on that day, walking along. Among those days, I remember him taking me around art houses and pointing out paintings, describing them, their importance. That line of the family, were artists, some a bit famous. (So was the other side, my mom's, but not ever really noted.)
I also remember one time . . . well, I was obsessed with cars. I loved cars. And I apparently must have had some Matchbox Cars already, because, I recall being so excited that we were going to a local small town store . . . that had a rack of Matchbox Cars I'd seen before (little miniature replicas of the current and classic car models that came each in a little "match box" type and size packaging.) I was thrilled, looking up at the counter and the display of a slew of Matchbox cars, to pick out one of my favorites . . . which I think was a Mustang . . . OR . . . could have been a Corvette. I might have pleaded for, and got, both! (Later, just a couple years later, I became quite locally famous in the neighborhood for being able to recognize and call out the make and model of the cars that drove down our street! The local older kids got a kick out of it--that would be after my parents divorced when I was 3 or 4 and living with my grandparents back in Salt Lake City, up on the "high aves". (I was one of the leading-edge urchins of the Baby Boomer broken family, "latch-key" brigade.)
One other interesting story from this time, which came much later was this, as related. . . . In my mother's last years, approximately around 2008?-ish, out of the blue, my mom told me a strange thing, the likes of which I had never heard her talk about before. I was visiting her, checking on her, and she brought up an odd memory. She said that back in those early days, (back there in Palo Alto in that same house where I remembered the marching soldiers in my ears, in the crib, during the storm previously described) . . . . Anyway, in that same house, she said that one night she was going to bed, looked down the hallway, and . . . well . . . she said she saw an "alien--looking" creature carrying me in its arms, going into another room.
Honestly, I didn't know what to make of that story at the time. I was well down the path of so-called "conspiracy theories" and Whitley Strieber's and others' take on that subject, by that late date (2008) . . . . But I was still rather shocked and surprised she offered this tidbit of memory. She was not into conspiracy theories and didn't really know much about the stories of so-called "alien abduction". She was pretty superficial in her day-to-day life in 2008. Just getting by, with all sorts of real and (I believe) imagined medical crises.
Anyway, regarding "alien abduction", I will have more to say. But for now, I am just recalling things as I can. I remember that strange information she offered that one time, which, although I pressed her one or two more times again about, there was not much more she could remember. She did reiterate that she looked down the hallway, and saw some kind of creature, which later she determined looked like what popular culture now calls "the greys", carrying me in its arms, into one of the bedrooms of that early, first home I remember.
Honestly, I don't know what to make of this story of hers. It is certainly not the gist of this tale. I am just relating it as part of . . . this memoir . . . .
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