Baby’s First Memory? Clambering into her slatted Junior Bed (a step up from the Crib in sophisticated styling) and sucking on a sugar cube (one of two), a customary treat courtesy of staff at The Torch of Acropolis, a Greek restaurant her parents frequented.
But when – and how? – did she assign the designation First Memory to a mental event, an association of sugar cube and Junior Bed? She was four years old, perhaps, or five (no more) when the scene reconstituted itself unbidden on her mental stage with such force that she said to herself, “That is My Earliest Memory,” then wondered, “Did I know how to talk then?” and asked herself, “Where has that Memory lived until now?” (She was a precocious and introspective child, inclined to converse with herself.)
Then she considered how it came to pass that she recalled the source of the sugar cube – The Torch of Acropolis, its waiters. Surely her memory of The Torch sprang from a later time – or might it have been an earlier?
And so she formed the habit of lying awake at night and contemplating the past.
(Cross-posted at Remembery)
Sheila Ryan
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Torch of Acropolis is a great name. Does this restaurant exist for real? Sounds like something from a Woody Allen movie…
The Torch of Acropolis went up in blazes in 1970 (I don’t recall whether rumors of “Greek lightning” circulated), but from 1948 till then it was very much a real place, established by a man named Victor Semos. It was a prominent landmark on a stretch of road on the very western edge of Dallas, where its neighbors, members of that endangered species of lodging, the motor court, bore such names as the Texas Motel and Texan Courts.
Old-timey Texans just loved their baked potatoes and cole slaw, and a mess of taters and slaw accompanied the souvlaki at The Torch of Acropolis.
Yes…I guess sometimes the fate of a place is in it’s name.
It reminds me a story of Herostratus, who burned the most beautiful of Greek temples, temple of Arthemis to become famous… they executed him later and decided his name would never be mentioned again, and that’s how we know it.
I guess his laurels didn’t let some of Texans sleep…