Winking Twinkling Charlie

I recently read a story on YGS about an experience while very young. In my opinion, many if not all speak and baby talk about seeing someone or something. Unfortunately the young children are easily dismissed as their words are hard to understand or the adults are too busy to listen. Then for most children the event is lost in their minds as there is so much happening so fast. So much to learn quickly.

I was fortunate to have my Mother to myself as my sisters were much older. I can even explain why my memories of my very young years is very vivid. I wish it was different, but I lost my Mom when still very young. I believe I kept memories because those very young years were so special. I can describe an outfit I had worn or a room I visited once. Even words said by an older cousin, is remembered in detail. Trama does that.

I was 2-4 years of age, it was summer and at least once or twice a week we would stop by for groceries at Charlie's. Old Man Charlie had started his store in the early 1900s, when aged in the 1940s, he had been teaching Young Charlie, his Son, all about the business. Old Man Charley died suddenly on a normal day, at his store.

Young Charlie did his best, and the store thrived. I was smiling and winking one eye and then the other, just as the old man was doing, when Young Charlie said roughly "why are you doing that". This made my Mother jump and she pulled me to her. "My Dad would wink just like that, when I was little." Young Charlie was different with me after that. He seemed to always be watching me. I did continue to see Old Man Charlie, but had learned to be hush about things I saw. My Mother would not hear anything I had to say, when I spoke of something I saw or heard.

The face was funny, sticking out his tongue from under the loose hay on the floor of our barn. The warmth from the cows helped in the winter, the smells I had long ago learned to love, it was part of what my Father was. I had seen the funny face many times, big blue eyes, his hair was the same color as the hay, hard to tell what was what. My Mother was often at meetings, popular and involved in much. My Dad and the barn were my babysitters. As I played with the barn cat, my Dad asked me what I saw in the hay that made me laugh? I looked down, not wanting him to know. "Was it a funny face", he asked. Surprised I looked up, "I saw him too, when I was young." This became what my Dad and I could share, perhaps it is where I got this not so rare ability.

Take a quiet moment... A quiet moment of when you were tiny, most of us have some memory of an odd event, something you seen or heard, something that should not have been there.