Memories of Imagination

 

IMMERSED IN A SEA OF COLORFUL RIBBONS AND BOWS AND CRUMPLED GIFT PAPER TORN APART CARELESSLY, I STARED IN AWE AT MY BRAND-NEW ROBOT COMMANDO, WHO COULD THROW ORANGE CANNON BALLS STORED IN HIS ARMS AND FIRE MISSILES FROM THE TOP OF HIS HEAD! MY ARMY OF LEAD AMERICAN SOLDIERS WERE NO MATCH FOR ROBOT COMMANDO! WHAT TOY COULD EXEMPLIFY PEACE ON EARTH AND GOODWILL TOWARDS MEN ANY BETTER THAN A MONSTER ROBOT WHO COULD DECIMATE ENTIRE ARMIES WITH A FEW CANNON BALLS AND MISSILES! I WAS IN ECSTASY WHILE MY FINGERS WERE STICKY FROM THE CANDY CANE I HAD BEEN CONSUMING.

THE ELVES MUST HAVE WORKED AROUND THE CLOCK TO PRODUCE ALL THE TOYS NECESSARY FOR THIS BONANZA, WHILE SANTA DELIVERED THEM IN THIS HIS 13TH LABOR OF HERCULES, TO THE HOMES OF LITTLE BOYS AND GIRLS ALL OVER THE WORLD, AND IN ONE NIGHT!

THIS WAS THE BEST CHRISTMAS MORNING EVER….

SOMEONE WAS CALLING MY NAME….

“MR. LAPLACE!”

“MR. LAPLACE!”

“COME DOWN FROM YOUR CLOUD, MR. LAPLACE!”

OH NO, IT WAS NOT CHRISTMAS MORNING. I WAS IN THIRD-GRADE HOMEROOM WITH SISTER M*** X*****!

“MR. LAPLACE, I AM SORRY TO INFORM YOU THAT WHILE YOU MAY FIND THE TIMES TABLES BORING, THERE WILL COME A TIME IN YOUR LIFE WHEN IT WILL BE NECESSARY TO KNOW THEM. PLEASE PAY ATTENTION AND SEE ME AFTER CLASS TO PICK UP A NOTE FOR YOUR PARENTS!”

OH NO, NOT ANOTHER NOTE HOME AND ANOTHER BLOT ON MY PERMANENT RECORD, NEVER TO BE EXPUNGED AND DRAGGED BEHIND ME FOR THE REST OF MY MORTAL LIFE, LIKE THE CHAINS AND LOCKBOXES OF JACOB MARLEY, ALWAYS THERE TO BE FEARED AND EXPLAINED AWAY ON JOB INTERVIEWS AND WHEN MEETING MY FUTURE IN-LAWS SOMEDAY!

THE NOTE I RECEIVED

Dear Mr. and Mrs. LaPlace,

Good afternoon, I am sorry to bring you more grave news, but your son James is persisting in drifting away with a lack of mental discipline on imaginary flights of fancy. Please try to control your son as we all know that nothing good can ever come from displays of imagination.

Sincerely yours,

Sister M*** X*****

MY SENTENCE ALSO INCLUDED A WEEK OF CLAPPING ERASERS.

JIM-JULY 26’

Untamed to Tame

 

I was a very unruly, wild, and untamed little girl and teenager. As a matter of fact, I was still pretty wild up until my mid-twenties. How untamed was I? So much so that when I was a teenager, I put myself and two friends in harm’s way.

It was an unbearably hot and humid day with temperatures reaching the high nineties even after the sun went down. There was a public pool called Cypress Pool on Jamaica Avenue. The pool was locked up for the night but I got the idea that all three of us should climb the fence and go swimming. We all agreed. It was so hot outside we didn’t care if we jumped in with our clothes on.

As soon as we jumped in the pool and started splashing around, we heard dogs barking and people talking loudly. All these sounds were getting closer and closer to us. Two large German Shepards reached the edge of the pool and they were growling, snarling, barking and showing their teeth. We thought we were going to be attacked by them.

Owners of the pool, this older couple, called off the dogs and told us to get out of the water immediately! We thought we would be arrested for trespassing. We got out of the pool and we were told to get on our way and never break into a public pool after it is closed for the night again.

The confrontation with the two guard dogs and the couple who owned the pool really tamed me. I kept wondering what if the couple wasn’t there to call the dogs off? No matter how hot the nights of summer got after that, I never tried to break into and go swimming in a public pool.

Ellen

Tamed

 

I once believed I was the one who cared for my cats. Over time I realized the truth. The small rituals of caring and moments of silence and companionship melted into a trust that tamed my heart. 

Georgia

Dinosaurs

 

In my childhood home we had a small backyard, and it had a huge rock that seemed older than everything around it.  My friend Billy and I would climb onto the rock and invent stories of giant dinosaurs that walked over it millions of years ago. We would lie beneath the stars and imagine what it would be like to live with dinosaurs and in our minds this ordinary rock transformed our imagination and wonder led to endless possibilities. 

Georgia

A Perfect Gift

 

Appreciation, admiration, adulation, adoration, attachment, amatory, all words of love. What is a greater perfect gift than love? All a perfect gift from my feral Tabby cat. He is a stray, street cat who has fallen in love with me and the feeling is totally mutual. Sure, you say, Why shouldn’t he love you? You feed him. ” Wrong!!! My husband feeds him. But I’m the one who pets hm, fondles him and cuddles him. The romance I have with Tabby Boy (I named him) is recent and amazing. I have already written 3 negative complaining, critical essays about this “nasty, ferocious, terrible Tabby.” This, my fourth is a whole turnaround about my delicious, adorable, lovable pussycat.

 

In the past, I had always felt mournful to have this pet that I couldn’t pet. Instead, with his extended sharp claws he would swat anyone who came too close causing torn hems and bleeding ankles. He appeared in my backyard one spring day last year as a fully formed adult feral tabby cat. He looked healthy, with his white bib and white shoes and stockings, well groomed. Where had he come from? Did someone feed this outdoor cat? Did he ever belong to someone? Where does he go when it rains, when it snows, when it is freezing cold? His clipped ear tells me that he was neutered. How did anyone get near this rascal?

 

What changed this feral feline into his gentle, delightful lovable perfect gift? It all was a slow development, with all the action initiated by Tabby Boy. With the advent of summer weather, I spent much of the day in my backyard. Tabby always chose to be present and slowly he began rubbing up against my ankles. He set the pace and his curiosity led him to explore the effect of his rubbing against a human. Shortly, he allowed me to rub his head, his neck, his back. When I moved down to a step close to the ground, he then rubbed my arm, my hand. The rest is history. Now he felt trust and totally allowed cuddling. This appreciation, admiration, adulation, adoration and attachment are a mutual perfect gift; a mutual taming.

 

Ethyl Haber

The Key in the Lock

 

As a senior in college, I wanted to make sure that going into the social services, in the field of mental healthcare, was something that I could be effective at. When I became aware that there was an opportunity to do a 1000- hour yearlong externship of volunteer work at QUEENS CHILDREN’S PSYCHIATRIC CENTER on the grounds of CREEDMORE PSYCHIATRIC CENTER, working with autistic children, some who also had multiple brain damage, I jumped at the opportunity to do something constructive and gain real- world experience before investing additional time and money into this field. The program consisted of working four hours per day, five days per week, for a 50-week year and being incorporated into the curriculum for these children. It included writing up progress reports and attending case- worker meetings as a member of the team for each assigned child.

B.F. Skinner was a professor at Harvard University who used behavioral modification to teach and alter behavior in patients, but he was criticized for his use of negative reinforcement for poor behavior. In the application of his techniques that we were to use, only positive reinforcement would be implemented to teach basic concepts such as identifying colors, basic mathematics, vocabulary and other elementary concepts. Praise, art& crafts, or treats such as favorite cookies or candy were employed to elicit a correct response depending on the preferences of the child. Progress was extremely slow, and most of the time it was statistically insignificant. It was difficult to come to work each day fully intending to accomplish something positive to improve the lives of these institutionalized children that I cared for when the desired outcome was rarely achieved. After a while the skeleton key that I used to enter the ward would alert my children of my arrival and they would come running down the hallway to greet me in their own way.

Over time and in different circumstances, I observed that many of the professionals who worked with these children seemed burned-out, physically present and completing their work, but without an emotional attachment. I’m sure that they had gone into this line of work with the best of intentions, but the daily grind had ground them down like an emotional gristmill. This must have been a sad realization after dedicating their lives to this work. I completed the program and received my certification at a dinner in our honor, although I had already decided that this line of work was not for me.

Ten years later, as a young father, I came home from work one day and put the key in the lock of our door and I heard my children running and yelling Daddy is home, Daddy is home! and as I opened the door and was assaulted by my army of little tykes I

realized in a moment of epiphany how my children from all those years ago had viewed my arrival on the ward each day. Those children entered the age of majority many years ago and most likely entered the adult population. The building is gone now, but I still wonder sometimes at how those unfortunate children fared in their challenging lives.

Jim -June 26’

Writing Assignment: The Devil's Dictionary"

 

Street Sweeper; an odd shaped vehicle that pushes leaves and trash from one side of the street to the other but never picks it up

 

Blender an electrical appliance that flips its lid without a moment's warning

 

Drone mechanical busy body having no regard or respect for the privacy of humans

 

Ellen G.