The Short-Lived Speech Therapy Session

I couldn’t pronounce my r’s when I was little. I called myself “Gin-juh” and my baby sister “Glowia.” I must have been about four and my brother Tommy five when he decided I needed a little coaching. I’m told the conversation went something like this:

“Ginger, say car.”
“Kaa.”
“No, say car.”
“Kaa.”
“Ginger, say ca-rrrr.”
“Ka-uhhh.”
“No, honey, say ka-urh.”
At this point I started jumping up and down shouting, “He called me honey! He called me honey!”

A Hidden Treasure

When I was digging through the boxes of childhood treasures in our garage a few years back, I came across a small canister. Thinking it strange that someone had saved an old can of shoe polish, I pulled it out and discovered a small yellowed note taped to the top which read, “Us at home, Nov 23, 1954.” It was a wire recording! We found a man in Seattle who transferred the recording to CD and then sat down for a listen.

“Art Linkletter’s House Party Radio Program”

On the recording, Dad played the part of Art Linkletter and told us we were on his House Party radio program. He asked us questions about ourselves, just like Linkletter did in his “Kids Say the Darndest Things” segment:
Names? Tommy and Gin-juh.
Ages? Five and fo-uh.
What did our parents do? Daddy was a nol’um layer [linoleum layer] and Mama didn’t work but she liked to read.
Who was the boss at our house? Of course the answer was our Daddy!
Smartest man and woman? Tommy said George Washington was the smartest man in the world, and his wife was the smartest woman.
Prettiest woman? I said the prettiest woman in the world was Mrs O’Brien. (When we listened to the CD with my family, nobody at the table had any idea who Mrs O’Brien was, but she must have been gorgeous.)
Did we have any love interests? Already I had two boyfriends — Chuck and Leroy.
What animal would we like to be? Tommy thought it would be fun to be a zraff (giraffe) so that he could watch the fireballs, and for no reason I could come up with, I wanted to be an ow-uu (owl).

In an attempt to get five-month-old Gloria to talk, we made her cry instead.

Every Radio Show in the 50s Had Live Music

We each sang a song, exuberant me with words I can’t quite make out, and my brother singing sweetly and clearly, “Whisper a prayer in the morning, whisper a prayer at noon, whisper a prayer in the evening, to keep your heart in tune.”

Tommy and I did a lively rendition of I Love to Go to Sunday School, then Dad and I sang Whisper a Prayer with Tommy, this time Tommy singing the harmony to Dad’s and my melody. Tommy was undisturbed by my attempt to find the right note or even by the melody that Dad was singing as he harmonized high above us. I’d forgotten how naturally music came to him.

Our family didn’t own a recorder or camera during our early days, so this find is especially precious to us.

Now where did we put that cassette our boys made when they were preschoolers?

Do you have home movies or videos from the past that are special to you? Or maybe you have scrapbooks or photo albums. My friend Joan, whose now-grown kids’ words and actions come up in her writing with clarity, says that she wrote down the things they said or did at the time.

Why don’t you comment here, or on the Salt and Pepper Blog Facebook page, and share a fun memory from the past. Or tell us how you or a family member recorded those delightful encounters of your loved ones that you enjoy reviewing.

I’m looking forward to hearing from you!

Ginger