Early Morning Memories

When I think back to when I was a child, mornings were a wonderful thing to me. Even though I had a lot of family challenges growing up, I have some very positive memories as well. On school mornings, I would be awaken by the smell of my mom frying bacon. I always loved eating breakfast after being awakened by that wonderful smell.

Some of my fondest morning memories are with my dad, who was a very upbeat, eccentric person. On some Saturdays, he would take me to work with him. He was a drywall contractor (look it up if you don’t know).

Dad and I would leave before daylight, and head to his work in his work van. We would make a stop at Dunkin’ Donuts and I would get 2 chocolate covered donuts and chocolate milk to drink. Talk about heaven for a kid!  There were 4 children in our family ( I am the oldest), and we rarely got to enjoy something so extravagant.

Sometimes it was cold at the house he was working on, and still dark when we arrived. These houses were dried in, but there were no doors on them. Dad would fire up a big kerosene heater if it was cold, and let me sleep curled up on the floor with a blanket for a little while. To this day, I love the smell of a kerosene heater.

Later in the morning, if there were nails to spot, I would have the job of spotting them and making a little money. I probably made about 25 cents an hour, but that was real money for a kid in the 1970s.

Other times, I explored the area, sometimes meeting a random kid who became my friend for the day. So often, I would find metal blanks on the ground, cut-outs from some building product that I know not what, but they were round and looked like coins. I would go around

collecting them, pretending they were real coins. I think I even tried putting them in a coin-operated machine at least once.

One other delight of working with Dad was getting to eat off of the “roach coach” as we called the truck that came around each day offering sandwiches and other foods to the construction crews. I don’t really remember what they offered except for sandwiches, but it was a joy and a delight to me to get to order and eat the food they had.

Other weekends, if Dad wasn’t working, he would come into our rooms early Saturday mornings playing his banjo. He would step up onto our beds and walk around on the bed playing the banjo in order to coax us into getting out of bed. I doubt too many people could say they shared that same experience with their dad.

Most days, I naturally wake up before daylight. There is something holy and special about early mornings. The day is innocent as a newborn. I feel happy, I can smell the freshly-made coffee and experience the stillness of the moment. I encourage you to experience early mornings if you aren’t already.

Start dreaming again!