The Color Red
It was a hot summer weekend day and the family loaded up in the car and drove to the commissary to buy groceries. I’m guessing that I was around four years of age at the time, but I already knew that a trip to the commissary would involve a lot of waiting. My parents went into the store while my brothers and I sat in the car.
On occasion my brothers and I would get out of the car to help women push their carts and unload groceries into their car, and sometimes we were given some loose change for our effort. But mainly we just sat in the car and waited. The commissary was always packed with people, and sometimes the wait would be well over an hour before my parents emerged from the store.
After all the groceries were put in the car and we were on our way home, Mom would always give us a something to nibble on. On this one particular day, I was given a red Tootsie Pop. I liked Tootsie Pops, but the combination of the heat and humidity and the driving and the candy made me feel woozy and sick to my stomach.
At four years of age, I didn’t know about such things as car sickness or understand how the heat could make one feel woozy. Instead, I held the red Tootsie Pop responsible. What followed from there was my own personal Pavlovian conditioning for the color red. Strange that I had no problem with Tootsie Pops, but I always avoided the red ones. From that point on I never cared for color red. For the longest time the color red would evoke the familiar feeling that I experienced that hot summer day.
It wasn’t until years later when I began to appreciate the color red. The deep red of a sports car looked cool. Dramatic shades of red lipstick and nail polish had a way of catching the eye the way other colors couldn’t compare. A woman wearing a red dress always had its own particular sway. Yes, red was good. Still, on occasion the shade of red can take me back to that hot summer day, but the woozy feelings for the color are no longer present.
August 20th, 2005 at 7:32 am
You color such a great story, Kane! There are plenty of colors and objects that remind me of bad things; but there seems to be a lot of good things like white fluffy clouds against the blue sky take me back to they days of sitting under a tree, finding shapes and characters in the clouds with my Grandma.
Have a great day! *HUGS*
August 20th, 2005 at 2:58 pm
thank you, as always, for your lovely piece.
August 21st, 2005 at 2:51 am
It’s good that the wooziness is gone, and in it’s place, a proper appreciation for the beauties of red!
August 21st, 2005 at 9:53 am
i’m a blue kind of girl myself.
August 21st, 2005 at 9:56 pm
Thank you for this post. I enjoyed it very much.
August 22nd, 2005 at 2:55 pm
i feel i could feel the woozy feelings you experienced from reading this entry.
i love the way you tell stories.
you are so good with words, and of course, photograhs.