Random Memory Recovered

This memory resurfaced after nearly 60 years. The impetus for its recall was a soup can at lunch where I work where the label slid off leaving the bare steel of the can in my hand. Suddenly the long dormant synapses all fired off in succession and accessed that day so many decades ago. At age about 2 or 3, one doesn't exercise much in the way of critical thinking.

In my parents' house we had series of pantry shelves adjacent to the cellar steps. On that day for no apparent reason I felt it necessary to sit on those steps and peel the labels off all of the canned goods.

Two collateral memories followed in that succession. One was seeing all the cans with labels tied back on with string and rubber bands lined up on the shelves. My mother had matched the labels as best as a homemaker could do before the food manufacturers started printing dot-matrix codes and descriptions right on the metal bottoms. Campbell's Soup cans were all the same size. Fruit Cocktail, canned peaches, green beans, limas, and peas each had a similar uniform size.

The other memory was that for next few weeks our meals were a surprise. Whatever was in the can that was opened, THAT is what was for dinner. My grandfather, the old Swede, had a word for me for which I have never learned the origins. I was a clofinger. Today my sister would just say I was being a silly bugger.