30 SEC-ondsssssss

A child's memory can be reinforced by an insignificant act or phrase that acts as a milemarker of something that has just happened or something that usually follows. Family traditions grow through these acts and phrases, becoming significant as they provide a hingepin for the child's life.

For me, the significant phrase is "30 Seconds!"

Summer always lazed away: a forever time, and yet never quite long enough. The heat and humidity of southern Maryland imposed its own pace upon our movements. Even now, I swear the sun was so intense at times that I could hear the sheets on the clothesline crinkle and stiffen as the water evaporated from their surfaces.

Despite this heat, we would frequently have barbecued chicken for dinner—and no, not the slathered-in-sauce barbecue, but the chicken-done-over-a-charcoal-grill barbecue. And being the '60s, I'm speaking of the heavy, black-enameled, rotund Webber with real charcoal.

The smell of charcoal heating would sift through the screened porch and enter the kitchen, where it would mix with the rich aroma of cooking vegetables and the sound of lettuce being broken and radishes being chunked. I'd set the table, which for the summers was a card table set on the screened porch, and in my journey from kitchen to table back to kitchen and back to table, I'd wander between the various smells.

Mom and Dad had to coordinate their parts of the dinner, of course. And to this day, I do not know when or how this elegantly simple routine came into existence, but when the chicken was close to done, my Dad would raise his voice from the back patio and sing out "Thir-ty SEC-ondsssssssss." It was as if that call were the hinge upon which the evening meal revolved. All that came before was a way of preparing for that call; all that came after — the bustle of getting everything from the kitchen to the table (including us) — was the result of that call. Dad would come in with the plate bearing the chicken, and we would sit down to eat as a family.

Sometimes, this thirty seconds was literally NOT thirty seconds. Maybe he decided to vary the routine, or even more than likely, he had forgotten to yell his 30-second warning, but sometimes AS he brought the plate in the screened door of the porch, he'd yell "30 seconds." Of course, it was a bit late, no? Other times, he'd sing out "three SECondssssssssss," but it would be more like two or three minutes. But hey, that's southern Maryland summer time. The seconds weren't important; nor the minutes.

It was the elegant and simple routine that a young child could count on.

The Queen of Spades

A child's memories can be an image of an instant—vivid, disconnected from what came before or even after. The question "Why?" is often unanswered in these images, though years and decades later a close inspection by that child-now-adult can reveal much.

A child's memories can also be cumulative, a tesselate of instances formed over many occurrences of the same action. For me, such is the Queen of Spades.

Card games were omnipresent in our family, beginning with the simple games of matching, such as Uno or Go Fish! They were fun, quick, and without the our awareness of it, these games begin the process of building memory skills. Once mastered, we moved on to games that entailed not only memory, but sorting and matching, such as gin rummy.

The big step in playing card games came when we graduated to adult card games. Oh, to play an adult card game with adults! That was to aspire to! A more heartless game than Hearts there is not, at least in cards. In addition to the memory and sorting and matching skills, we now began the process of learning strategy, of computing the odds that the person across from us held such-and-such a card.

Of course, we played "open hand," at first, laying down all cards, and learning the rules and seeing how each hand obeyed and gauged the odds. The first few games with our hands concealed were probably nerve-racking, but nothing disastrous happened. For some unknown reason (ahem!), I usually ended in the middle of the pack: neither outright winner nor dejected bottom of the heap.

Then came the day I shot the moon—where I took all the hearts and the queen of spades so I not only won, but made the quintessential win. In looking back, I doubt it was because I was allowed to win. I had simply been dealt the right cards, made the right assessments of who was holding which cards, played the cards in the right order, and ended in victory. Elation was the least of my emotions.

Then hard on the heels of that win came a hand where I not only lost, but watched as my father deliberately and with a look I could not fathom, placed the Queen of Spades (13 points against me) on my trick. How could he do that? How could he be so deliberate?

I was hurt. Devastated. Tears formed and stung.

I'd prefer to say I had an epiphany, maybe while eating cereal or munching on raisins after school, but gradually I realized a valuable lesson lay in that memory.

If you have what it takes to win, you must also have what it takes to lose.