Different ways to measure happiness (04/16/07)

"Didn't you ever smile?" my daughter asked me last summer as we were going through my childhood picture album.

"Of course, I did," I replied.

Then I realized that she had a point. Out of an album full of pictures of me in various stages of my youth there wasn't a single picture of me with a smile on my face. Not one.

There is the weepy one where I was feeling neglected because all the other women in the family were getting their photo taken and I was left out. I was only three or four at the time. Apparently the tears worked as I am in the black and white print.

There is me sitting on the back of the couch looking like a squirrel with a mouthful of nuts because I got tired of waiting for my mother to get on with it and take the picture. I bit the head off a yellow Peep just as the shutter clicked.

There is me with various calves. I am holding onto a slack rope halter and looking very serious.

There is me doing this or that but no matter what I am doing I am not smiling. I searched through the album more carefully. No grins. Not even a half smile.

This is in direct contrast to what I remember of myself growing up. I remember the exhilaration of soaring through the trees on a springy sycamore branch. I remember playing in the creek as silvery minnows swirled around my ankles and crawdads danced across my toes. I remember kicking through crisp fall leaves and finding "treasure" in the dump and the taste of icy water from the neighbor's artesian well.

I remember hot summer afternoons spent curled up in the dim, cool duck house reading while fuzzy ducklings peeped and their mothers begged to be petted. I remember incredibly soft curls on a newborn calf's forehead. I remember bottle feeding lambs and hand-milking cows.

I remember snowball fights in the summer when we were allowed to use the big white flower heads of the snowball bush for ammunition.

I remember jumping out of the haymow into a pile of fresh hay - and being chastised for mashing it down. If truth be told, that little escapade was my cousin's idea. It was still fun.

I remember romps with Lassie, fishing in the creek and playing Monopoly for hours at a time. I don't remember being such a sourpuss. But the evidence is right there in the photo album.

Sure, by today's standards I had a lousy childhood. Poverty, violence, what-have-you, but that was just a part of life. Everyone in my school was in the same economic class; we were all poor. My best friend's parents were alcoholics and her dad was very abusive to their mom and the kids. Her parents were later killed in a drunk driving accident (his fault) and her brother was brain damaged from that same accident.

Another friend had a wooden leg because her dad ran over her with a tractor when she was three. He was so distraught at hurting his baby girl that he spent years in and out of mental hospitals. She, on the other hand, was fine. Another friend tried to commit suicide with a jump rope when she was only seven years old. She failed.

These were the people I grew up with. My life wasn't any better or worse than anyone else's and I never felt deprived in any way. I remember being happy, but smiling? I guess that was never caught on film.

The mists of time have softened the bitter memories and only the recollections of good times float to the top of my consciousness. Years of suppressing the shouting and fighting, the cruelty and injustice, have trained those bits of long ago to stay buried in the past where they belong. Plus, I don't believe that dwelling on negative things serves any purpose except as a means of avoiding previous mistakes.

I choose what not to remember even though I can never forget. The images on the pages tell a different tale than the one in my mind. They show a child who didn't smile, not the happy little girl I remember being.

Which is more accurate?

I do not know.[[In-content Ad]]