KENNER AVENUE

Until I was two years old, I lived on Kenner Avenue, a nice street one half block from Woodmont school where we girls attended 1-8 grades. I don’t have but one memory of that house and that’s not surprising since we moved right at my second birthday.

My father had a friend visiting and I remember climbing up the front steps, going in the door, and when Daddy held his arms out for me, I toddled across the room to him. I recall that I had on a little sun suit (trust me to remember what I was wearing!), so it must have been summer. When I told by family later that I recalled the house, they said that I couldn’t possibly retain information from that far back. But when I began describing the furniture in the room and the location of the dining room and side porch, they all agreed that it was that house.

Next door to us was a family who was just a little odd, certainly different from us, but very likeable. After we moved to Meadow Drive, we went back frequently to visit them and vice versa.

The father was a physics professor at Vanderbilt and was very inventive. He made a little motor from scratch and put it on his bicycle that he rode to work everyday. He also made an ingenious toy by putting roller skate wheels on a little wooden box just large enough for one child. Then he rigged up a track for it, starting at the top of the second story stairs and running it down through the living room into the dining room. I don’t ever remember riding it, I just watched Emory, his little boy, fly down it.

One day, this man began taking strange trips, telling his wife that he was on a secret assignment and couldn’t tell where he was going. These covert journeys continued for several years, and all the while his wife was kept in the dark. On the day that the atomic bomb was dropped on Hiroshima, he told her that all of his times away from home had been spent on that mission; he could finally talk about it. We all thought that was so neat then, but I later wondered if he had a hard time with the fact that he had been a part of something that was so destructive.

Well, I’ll not get into that argument, but one reason I thought of these people was that Emory, who was a year younger than I, was visiting with us one night when the NTs were in action. I have speculated about what he thought about us and what he told his parents.

One other memory I have of this family. When my own children were babies, I of course fed them baby food. One time I tasted some vanilla pudding I was feeding Ashley, and I was immediately transported back to that family’s kitchen, sitting in a high chair, eating this same pudding.

I never cease to be amazed at the power of our minds and all the memories they can retain.