PENSACOLA, Fla.-In one sleepy motion, I hit a snooze button on the hotel's clock that chums up the sound of breaking waves. Ah, a soundtrack from the past. Comfort noise.
My first memories are from this pastel place, where Coke-bottle-colored waves and blinding sand figured prominently into the idyllic scheme of things. I cherish the Panhandle part of childhood. I am here on business, at least the kind of business I do, talking to journalism students at a local junior college. They listen, ask questions, scribble notes. They renew my faith in youth, and maybe I encourage them a little.
What I can't convey is how fast time will go, from first memories to retirement, from untapped potential to regrets. I don't want to share that. If you knew the truth, who would even try?
Memories build a pyramid same as the one for food. Or maybe it's an inverted pyramid, like the one they taught us to use in journalism classes.
The best and most vivid memories are on top. My father skiing in the ocean as we watch from the beach. Then I'm sitting next to him as he pilots a small red wooden boat, my family's first. Eating cheeseburgers at The Shrimp Box drive-in with its grinning carhops and onion-y smells. I can't ride by our old house at Number One, Pineview Drive. It isn't there anymore. It once stood near Pensacola Bay, a humble cinderblock painted pink. Because it was pink, I assumed we were rich. Pink, after all, is the color of princesses and exotic flamingos. Plus, it had a Florida Room with jalousie windows.
We were not rich, I'd realize soon enough. Daddy was a butcher at the local Kwik-Chek. His best friend worked there, too, a man named Sam who often brought my sisters and me presents, once a trio of rubber dolls dressed in tiaras and blue net evening gowns.
Sam's wife, Margaret, owned the first wind chimes I ever saw, the kind with painted glass shards dangling from threads. Staying busy in the bay breeze, those chimes sounded better than any of the more expensive ones I'd encounter later.
The family across the street had a daughter named Pattycake, I swear on my "Elements of Style." She wore pinafores and ruffles while we stripped down to our underwear to play in the Florida heat.
Right next door was a bully named Michael who sprayed us with water when we ventured too near the chain-link fence. What a pest.
Most of life was a bowl of citrus, with our red boat, proximity to the ocean and trips to Santa Rosa Island whenever relatives visited. If the white sand blistered our feet, my father would pick us up and carry us to the blanket or the car.
We toured Fort Pickens, where Geronimo was held prisoner-in a cavelike cell or in posh officers' quarters, depending on which history you believe. Our guides back then said he lapped up rainwater off the floor, and I attribute my social conscience to that bleak version.
I rode to the first grade in a bus to discover my teacher was young and pretty, which seemed to matter a lot. She bought our boat when my father was transferred to Alabama and we had to move, which, of course, broke my heart. How could a charmed family such as ours exist so far from the sea?