As an online assignment with my students, I had them take a google map view of their home and create a floor plan. In my case I re-created the floor plan of the home I was born in and left when I was 10 years old. Old family photos and corrections by my siblings helped me get some things right. The Thorspecken family at 239 Larch Avenue, Dumont, Bergen, New Jersey from 1955 to 1971. I was in the home for 10 years.
It is surprising how selective my memories are. I vividly recall how the TV home entertainment center looked. My father built it from scratch. I remember watching him solder electronic circuit boards. One of my earliest memories is of of lying on the floor and watching the funereal for President John F. Kennedy. I would have only been 2 years old but it is a vivid memory. However, when I saw a picture of a Hawaiian tropical pattern on a living room couch, it didn’t register as being real. My sister said it was covered with slip covers, but I remember those being clear plastic because they stuck to bare skin in a very uncomfortable way.
I found a baby picture of myself bare butted on the kitchen table, so it was easy to reconstruct that room. My sister had one picture of the back dining room. That room was also used as a nursery since it was close to the master bedroom. Family tradition is that I almost died in the nursery since I got a horrible case of Scarlet Fever when I was a baby. I have had feverish visions ever since.
The layout of the master bedroom is the biggest mystery. I only have one memory of that room. My mother had cancer and was often away in NYC for treatment. She was on the rebound and home for a week. I remember lying in bed with her as a 10 year old and watching Dark Shadows. Today, I am binge watching Dark Shadows and I am wondering if I will recognize the episodes I watched with my mother around April or early May of 1971. It was a dark show for a 10 year old to watch but I have always had a taste for the macabre.