Column Chronicles: Memories unbound - Frank Cotolo on 148.ca

Memories unbound

Frank Cotolo
August 11, 2016

As I grow older, my memories become more distinct. I can remember explicit details, though I cannot recall entire situations.

For instance, I remember being in Hong Kong and using a hand-crafted pair of chopsticks. There was a tiny elephant protruding from one of them, a relief-style carving that seemed impossible for any hand to carve. Yet, I cannot remember why I was in Hong Kong or, in fact, where to find Hong Kong on a map.

I think Hong Kong is in Wisconsin. But what I truly remember about Wisconsin is a narrow street in a city where two men played songs on a saxaphone. Yet I don't remember how two men can play the same saxaphone at once.

Everyone remembers where they were located when President Kennedy was shot and so do I. Except I don't recall the man when he was alive and I was already at least 10-years-old when someone shot him.

Speaking of shooting, when I was five my father took me on a hunting trip and I remember him saying, "Son, you are probably the youngest kid to ever go on a hunting trip," and I recall a large antelope trying to run with only his two hind legs and I can smell the gunsmoke and see specific creases in the smile of my father but for the life of me I don't know why there were antelope in our neighborhood (I grew up in Brooklyn, New York).

I have a vague recollection of being on a water slide, though I don't know where, but I do remember the water was cloudy and it caught fire, burning my toes. Also, there was some large kid sliding next to me and he smelled like Oreo cookies. That makes me think about the cookie shelf in the grocery store, where all the cookie boxes stood next to one another and spiders crawled out of them. But I don't remember which grocery store.

Though I never served my country in the military I must have served some country in the military because I can clearly see my uniform, brown and wrinkled and spotted with blood. It could have been connected to the Hong Kong experience and the chopsticks, right?

I remember an aunt with a moustache, a red wagon someone was pulling with their teeth, a lizard with a tuxedo, a cowboy with smoke coming out of his ears, a woman wearing an accordion, an accordion hitting a woman, a man warpaint on his toes, the Brooklyn Bridge being delivered to my grandfather's house, a museum where the Monet paintings dripped olive oil, a Catholic priest kneeling in a vat of oatmeal, six Oriental refugees singing a song in perfect harmony, which could have been connected to the Hong Kong experience and the chopsticks, right?

Now I am wondering if I will remember writing this blog. Wait, didn't it have something to do with Hong Kong and chopsticks?

Frank Cotolo can be found hosting the talk and interview programme Cotolo Chronicles. You can send him an e-mail at this address: frank@148.ca.