Intro to Part 1

In the foggiest areas of the depths of my memories I cans see many ill assembled events.  The chronology of my childhood has been forgotten in me, yet this is inconsequential.  Some of the fonder memories stay so purely happy, idolized even, while the others warp about in confusion.  For now we should only consider those happier thoughts, for nostalgia's sake.1

One of the highlights of my childhood was our babysitter, Tran.  Although I do not remember her in appearance, I remember her in essence.  She was caring, nice...motherly even.  And I do remember how I loved visiting her home, her family.  It was always great fun to crawl through the jungle of bushes beside their front porch, to play jump-rope with rubber-bands strung together, left over from the older boy's newspaper route.  Oh, and that girl, that beautiful girl.  How I longed to hold her hand.  Funny how crushes were back then, free of lust, free of perversion.  And our walks to the park.  We would dig tunnels in the sand, play on the swings, be children.  I remember the cement pipe which reeked of urine, not at all pleasant, except to recall.  And I remember playing with the flags on mailboxes and stealing samples of rocks from peoples' driveways.  How odd it is that the west was so much different.  Who here has ever found a plastic bag of pebbles waiting the their driveway?  I remember watching Care Bears and the most peculiar version of the Little Mermaid, probably in Vietnamese.  There was the guitar which we would platy with, aways twisting away at the knobs, leaving it horribly out of tune. How simple it all was for me.  How nice it was.  I have no recollection of being pained by Tran or any of her family, and I love them for it.  But then those days, the few, the many, I cannot recall, were so steeply contrasted with the others, the "normal" times.  The time spent in our house on Bambi Lane.  Our house near the hills, across from the park.  Such an idyllic concept it seems.  With California sunshine caressing the salt of the cool ocean breeze which billowed over the mountains to our house on Bambi Lane, in the picturesque paradise of Santa Clara county.2

Here is where I will surely loose my footing.  I wish so strongly that I could compile an accurate time-line of the fragments of history from this house, and of this time, but it is...difficult even to remember.  The order is out of reach.  I do not know how these memories fit together, or even if the are...I will forgo that explanation for now.  But here are my truest accounts of what I think was good...3