Childhood Memories (Re-post)

I was 18 months old and we were living in the old, ramshackle house on Johnson Creek Blvd. on the east side of Portland. The house had a creek that ran under it and I can still remember the frogs that would croak under the house in the summertime. It was our first real house since my mother had married my dad but it was barely big enough for this instant family of five. I remember that we didn't have doors on the inside of the house, so my dad had nailed blankets over the doorways to provide some privacy.

The house was set far back from the main road, but you could still hear the clang, clang of the trolley's bell as it went past, and you could see the sparks from the overhead wire.

I remember the tiny bathroom and the shelves lined with many, pretty bottles. I loved the blue bottle that my mother would open sometimes. She would put a few drops of liquid on her hands and rub it on herself. She smelled so good! It was something that smelled so good that you just couldn't leave it there, on the shelf.

One day, I was exploring (as I did a lot) and found that pretty blue bottle within my reach. I can remember that I got the lid open and the smell was incredible! I wanted to experience this fantastic odor more.

Now, a child's logic says "if it smells fantastic, then it must taste fantastic"...Right? Logical? I remember thinking, as I drank it, that it really, really didn't taste as good as it smelled. But, I kept drinking and managed to get the entire bottle of Evening in Paris into my stomach. Things got fuzzy after that, so I must relate via eyewitness testimony: I was tanked! It seems that Evening in Paris is predominately ethanol (somewhere upwards of 100 proof). The emergency room doctor assured my mother that I would be none the worse for wear after I had slept awhile.

Of course, for about a week after that, my diapers didn't smell badly anymore, but instead had a distinct odor of cologne. For some reason, my mother never wore that fragrance ever again, after that incident.

And, I never drank her cologne either.