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History
by the Year
by Marvin Payne
At a certain
age, one feels the urgency to precede one’s mummification with
one’s “memoirification.” This is a righteous urge, analogous
to preceding one’s eternal sentence with one’s repentance. My
father, who passed on in the first moments of this century, constructed
a number of personal histories in his old age, following various
patterns. I would like to explore one of those patterns here,
and recommend its use. I’ll call it “Personal History by the
Year.” Here’s some of his:
“The year is
1904. On July the 26th of this year I was born alive to the family
of Charles Willard and Elizabeth Staker Payne... As far as I
can remember, they were very happy that I had arrived. Father
had moved a log stable from the back of the lot to the front
and converted it into a house, so my birthplace was a stable.
I suppose they expected a lot from me.
“My first year
was an eventful one. My parents took me to Bingham Canyon to
live. However, at my tender young age I was not expected to work
in the mines.”
(Many columnreaders
will be innocent of the significance of this geography. Bingham
Canyon at the turn of the twentieth century was a raucous Utah
community of mostly immigrant miners. My maternal grandfather
owned the saloon and silent-movie theatre there, and dwelt happily
with his wife and baby daughters, but neither my mother nor my
father, being romantically disinclined as infants, took any notice
of each other. Nor have they been back to reminisce about what
might have been, because if the town were still there today,
it would be suspended in mid-air several hundred feet above the
open-pit copper mine that is clearly visible from outer space.)
“Before the
advent of my first birthday, I was transplanted to the Old Mexico
town of Dublan in the state of Chihuahua.
“1905--I soon
gave up on Spanish and concentrated on English. You see, I had
to be able to converse with my parents first. I thought I was
the most important person in all of Mexico, at least I demanded
more attention than anyone else.
“1906--Now
it came to pass that I had not learned to write, so I did not
record just what took place. End of third year.
“1907--There
are no blank spaces in life. There are things going on all the
time.”
(He just didn’t
happen to remember any of them.)
“1908--There
are some funny little marks used in the English language. They
are ditto marks--see year 1907-1909.
“1910--Haley’s
comet came close enough to the earth that it appeared as a great
ball of fire, traveling at a great speed with what appeared to
be a trail of sparks traveling out behind it. This I remember.
And the beginning of the Mexican Revolution.
Let me give
you snapshots from the next few years:
“1911--I recall
the great thrill I used to get when my brother and I would go
down the dusty road to meet our father as he returned from a
hard day on the thresher. We liked to climb up on the wagon and
sit on the spring seat and help drive the team of horses. We
would always examine the lunchpail to see if there was some morsel
left for some ever-hungry boys.
“1912--I recall
quite vividly one time when my brother and I had done something
that my mother didn't particularly appreciate, so she started
to scold us and we ran. She ran after us. We ran around to the
haystack and climbed to the top, only to be met by my mother,
who had climbed up the other side. We started growing up.
“I recall seeing
the rebel general Pancho Villa personally at the store in Dublan.
He was a very rugged Mexican and made a very strong impression
on me. I also had the privilege of seeing the General of the
Federal troops. General Madera. Madera was a very slight individual
and quite light. A good looking petite well dressed individual.
He had a beautiful sorrel horse. When Madera wanted to mount
his horse he would touch the horse and the horse would get down
on his knee and as Madera stepped into the stirrup the horse
would rise and Madera would swing into the saddle. This left
a very deep impression on me.
“We began to
learn what the Gospel of Jesus Christ is all about. Soon I started
to gain a testimony. On July the 26th of that year, I was taken
down into the waters of baptism in the ditch on our farm. However,
I was not confirmed at this time because a very important thing
took place on the 29th.
“The rebel
armies in Mexico had disarmed all of our people and on this day
we were ordered to leave Old Mexico. A train would be in town
and everyone in the town was to leave. The train did not arrive
until 2 a.m. the next morning and was loaded down when it did.
We added freight and cattle cars to the train. Mother was fortunate
enough to get on a passenger car. A Mexican man gave his half
of a seat to my mother and four little children. When we arrived
in El Paso the government had set up a camp for us in a lumber
yard and we really and truly stood in a soup line. Some of the
men were permitted to remain in the colonies until all of the
women and children were out of the country. Father stayed back
and had some rather hairy experiences getting out. Of course
these belong to Father’s history.”
(Which he never
wrote. But there were rifles involved, a chase on horseback,
and at least one rebel killed.)
“We moved from
the lumber yard to a house up on a hill near the railroad station.
The weather was so hot the water from the pipelines was too hot
to drink. When Father reached El Paso we went by train to Utah.”
The Joy
of Remembering
Right about
here the author bags “history by the year” altogether and just
starts cranking out personal history as though the cranking out
of personal history were going out of style. Which, by gum, if
we have our way here at Backstage Graffiti, it never will. The
point is, he was off and running, remembering as though it was
playing on a screen, capturing it all to share with relish (or,
at our house, mostly with popcorn). Dates are still part of the
story after that, but no longer do they drive the story. The
story is driven by the sheer joy of remembering and telling,
as though President Kimball had never even made it a commandment.
If some of
what my dad wrote seems a little on the “cute” side, let it be
hastily pointed out that my dad actually was, in the estimation
of many, kind of a cute man. It’s altogether correct, good, righteous
and of good report and praiseworthy that one’s history should
reflect one’s personality. If, for example, one is not considered
cute, it would be appropriate rather to write thusly:
“1904--I was
born. Parents didn’t much like me. Moved to Bingham Canyon. Put
to work in the mines to earn money for the trip to Mexico.
“1905--Didn’t
have much to say--didn’t bother with either English or Spanish.
“1906--Write?
Are you kidding? I was two years old!
“1912--Shot
some rebels. Made fun of Madera.”
Etc., etc.,
down to “water too hot to drink--drank it anyway.”
If Ernest Hemingway
had tried to write like my dad, he’d have bombed. (Saw Hemingway’s
house in Key West a couple of weeks ago on a Meridian Tours cruise--boy,
did you miss out! Snorkeling off Grand Cayman, stingrays brushing
like kittens against our legs. The noisy whirl of color in Jamaica,
where shopping is tinged with the zing of combat. J. Golden Kimball
preaching the gospel on the ship in “Dante’s Disco,” which was
festooned with glass figures of demons and the carpets undulated
with orange and yellow flames. Primary songs in the game room,
with passing casino refugees wondering what the heck was going
on. Wearing a tux and eating six courses nightly with fanTAStic
new friends. Sharing the Gospel with Filipino cabin stewards
and Muslim waiters from India--who shared a fair amount of gospel
with us, come to think of it. Silver, lapis, turquoise and toothless
smiles in Cozumel. Climbing waterfalls, soaking sun, getting
lost in the luscious pink of Queen Conch shells fresh off the
reef. Meet you at the dock!) Enough of Hemingway.
History
Gets Personal
This “Personal
History by the Year” can be a great springboard for you, even
if you don’t fear that mummification and eternal sentencing are
imminent.
I awoke to
a keen awareness of my mortality at age four, when the notion
of my own death inexplicably hit me with such force that I suffered
nearly unbearable anxiety for most of that afternoon. My mother
tried to comfort me with the observation that our friend, Tom
Brown, had gone all through World War II without being killed.
This was not effective--I believe it was Brother Brown’s war
stories that got me thinking in the first place. At any rate,
Tom Brown shortly died quite resoundingly, without the assistance
of any Japanese whatever, although I think a few came to his
funeral, being members of the ward. Still, I didn’t pick up this “Personal
History by the Year” tool until I was about thirty.
I’d already
begun keeping a journal and was feeling pretty self-righteous
about it, when I realized I didn’t have a “personal history.” So
I set aside a portion of my big mostly blank journal book for
memories as they might occur to me. Hence:
“1948-1953--My
pre-school childhood: I was born, August 20, in Covina, California,
a short way east of Los Angeles. Our home was in El Monte, on
an acre of ground with a house my parents built in 1936. I spent
all my childhood and youth in that house.”
(Wow, if I
weren’t writing a Backstage Graffiti column instead, I’d be writing
on the rest of that page, which is still blank, how my parents
built that house for fifteen hundred dollars, about how I could
walk out late in summer and eat a plum, then another kind of
plum, then another kind of plum, then a fig, then a guava, then
a pomegranate, then an avocado and a persimmon ((except I didn’t
like avocados or persimmons)), then pick a lemon the size of
an orange, then reach over the fence into the Lebrecht’s yard
and swipe some boysenberries, then throw the ball “accidentally” over
the Snibby’s fence and swipe some kumquats, then go into the
kitchen and have a big glass of milk from my brother’s cow. ((Before
I moved away to go to college, all that wonder was replaced by
five more houses and sixteen apartments. All the more urgent
to write it down.))
I would write
about watching the coronation of Queen Elizabeth II on television
and feeling like it was probably a pretty big deal.
I would write
about desert tortoises straining their necks in the yard, and
the laps of joy run by our dog, Buff, whenever he welcomed us
home from a trip.
I would write
about the stiffness of new jeans with cowboys stapled on the
pockets, and the smell of new Keds.
I would write
about popcorn and Monday night hash.
I would write
down the scary dream I always had about my dad and older brothers
firing rifles out into the night from our kitchen bay window
at Mexican revolutionaries.
I would write
about crouching by the tap that rose in the middle of the back
yard and watching the water drip into a little pool at its base,
where flakes of fool’s gold mingled with grains of sand that
the water made into treasure. I’d watch the bees drawn in through
the fringe of long grass around the pool, and I’d think about
God and Jesus and how strange and far away they were, and I’d
know for sure they were watching me, even though I was only four.
But I’m writing
a Backstage Graffiti column.)
You get the
idea.
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Visit
marvinpayne.com!
"...come
unto Christ, and lay hold upon every good gift..." (from
the last page of the Book of Mormon)
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