Lost Memorabilia





I was a seven month old fetus at the time of the Cuban Missile Crisis in October of 1962. For those of you who may not know, this time was the closest that humankind had ever come to ultimately destroying itself. This was the first time in history that we as a civilization actually stood on the brink of possible nuclear annihilation.

This scenario has been on my mind lately because I just recently saw a documentary on the life and presidency of John F. Kennedy and also that I’m interested in the theory of the affects of pre-natal stress on embryos.

When my brother and I were young, we were taught a craft that remains in my memory. It was a sort of decoupage technique where one could instill the image of a photograph from newsmagazine paper onto wood. I forget the image that I chose, but I do remember well the one that my brother Steve chose. It was the now famous image of the astronaut Neil Armstrong standing for the first time on the moon along side the implanted flag of the United States. It became a sort of plaque to our room. It was about six by eight inches in size and, as far as I can remember, it was always in our room. Unfortunately, I don’t know what ever happened to it and it lives amongst my largest regrets of lost memorabilia.

About the same time that Apollo 11 landed on the moon, my mother suffered a nervous breakdown and spent many months in St. Vincent DePaul’s Hospital in Uptown New Orleans. I was too small a child to know why my mother was in the hospital or when she would be coming home, but it was there that we learned this particular arts and craft.

It makes me wonder how much there is to this theory of pre-natal stress and if it may be the cause of what and how it is that I am. Take into consideration the fact that you as an expectant mother may never see the future that you brought a child into.

I miss my mother, I miss J.F.K., and I miss that plaque.


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