by John G. Fedoriska Jr.

Created on: August 01, 2009

Seemingly small incidents can stay with young children all through their adult life. I remember my Aunt Joan holding me on a bridge above a stream, and going through playful motions (according to her), tossing me gently to and fro saying she was going to throw me in. She admits doing this when she watched me so mom and dad could have a night out, but refuses to believe that a baby that age could possibly remember. Well I have news for you Aunt Joan. Had I been able to dial the Baby Trauma Hot-Line you might just be close to eligibility for parole today.

Then there was the time my Aunt Bertha pulled the plug in the tub after bathing me and the water rushed down the drain with a thunderous roar. As I stood in the tub horrified, shaking, and shivering, she said teasingly she was going to let me go down with the water. Realizing the seriousness of the situation which she so haphazardly created, she quickly wrapped me in a towel as I began to scream uncontrollably, and lifted me to safety. To this day she can't believe I remember the incident. It happened around the same time as the previous one. Had I known baby-speak, and a good infantile lawyer, I could have ordered all the pizza I wanted through my childhood "without" having to refuse to eat it because she ordered it with mushrooms. She never ordered a plain pie, and kids back then knew that even if you picked them off, it was already contaminated. What did aunts know about food safety?

Speaking of food safety, My Aunt Stella used to smoke filter-less cigarettes she rolled with Bugler tobacco. Her homemade pizza had it's own unique flavor and I discovered her secret. As she'd knead dough I would catch her nodding off with the longest burnt ash residue hanging from her lip on the shortest burning butt you ever saw. I remember it falling into the dough and waking her to see what she would do. Totally unfazed, she folded it in. "Just pretend you never saw that or that it's pepper!", she said. I didn't care, it still beat mushrooms.

I was about nine, young and naive, blessed with aunts who seemed to zoom in on that like Godzilla would to Tokyo. I used to have a Dutch Boy haircut with bangs (just like Aunt Stella). She used to tease me that one day she was going to grab my bangs and snip them right off the top of my head. She caught me when I fell asleep watching TV weeks later. It took months to grow back, under a hat, what looked like a bald spot in front of an island of hair for the longest time.

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