McCoy 1

Ashley McCoy
Jamee Larson
ENGL 229
24 April 2019
A Little Red Wagon

When I was eight years old, my sister and I certified ourselves with licenses to operate small red

wagons. We spent weeks learning how to drive our wagon down a steep hill in the forest of our

yard and after many practice runs we declared ourselves professionals. For weeks, we would

grab our plastic wagon that my mother bought at a garage sale for ten dollars and trudge up the

gravel hill in our yard to hone our driving abilities. Our speed mobile had a dull red finish, cream

racing stripes, and a black handle that bent back at a perfect angle for a steering wheel. It was

covered in dents and scrapes that proved that it had been used and loved, and to anyone else it

would have looked like a worn-down wagon, but to us, it was the perfect racing car. It is true that

when I think of unhinged happiness I picture a plastic Little Tikes wagon.

Now it is also true, if you believe truth to be a relative thing, that each of us is susceptible to

inconsistencies in our memory that can cause us to remember a mistaken history. Scientist call it

false memory, though I am not completely sold on such a firm definition. The most curious part

of this phenomenon, at least for me, is that a person may never discover that a memory they can

picture vividly is actually a lie they have told themselves and perceived it to be true. A make-

believe moment that tricks us into thinking it’s real.

Research has shown that no one person is more susceptible than another to creating a fake

recollection. However, I may argue that my mother, who is a complicated mixture of intelligence

and gullibility, is the exception to this rule. Her persistent deceptive recall has confused me so
 McCoy 2

much that I swear she sits in the corner observing almost every memory I’ve ever had. It’s an

unnerving feeling not being able to trust a memory. Yet, despite all that I know about make

believe histories, I know with certainty that my red wagon memory is absolutely real.

I like to keep my memories categorized for safe keeping. I store them away based on which state

I was living in at the time. Each preserved moment like a geographic pin on a map. In Kitsap

County of Washington state, I learned to ride a bike without training wheels. On the front porch

of a white house in Anderson, California I discovered the heartbreaking devastation that cancer

leaves on a family. In the forested evergreens of Oregon, I spent a summer learning to swim all

the while grasping with self-love and a bikini. I almost crashed through a post-office as my dad

bravely taught me how to drive in the small town of Remsen, Iowa. I kissed a boy for the first

time while sitting in the passenger seat of an Impala five miles from the Canadian border in

North Dakota. Five states each filled with carefully collected memories. All this to say, when I

want to find a memory that has been stored away, I first have to remember which state it has

been placed in.

Our little red wagon can be found in Belfair, Washington. At the time we lived in a small white

house with a dirt driveway that circled completely around a single standing tree. Just left to the

start of the driveway was a busy road that connected our make-believe world to the rest of the

town and to the right was a hill that led to our land-lords home. Surrounded by dirt and trees, my

sister and I thought of ourselves as great adventurers. We built impenetrable forts with couch

cushions and sheets in the trees and defended our land with sword sticks. We buried trinkets for
 McCoy 3

treasure and created indistinguishable maps. In our spare time we were firefighters and zoo

keepers and teachers. But most importantly, we were nascar drivers.

At times when we were tired from being the Christopher Columbus’s of the backwoods of our

house, my sister and I would take our wagon out for a ride. We would grab the wagon from its

decorative place in our yard and trudge up the hill at the end of our driveway. Powered with

sheer determination and naivety, we would park our convertible at the crest of the decline and

climb in according to whose turn it was to be the driver. With the kind of luck that only children

possess, we would find our seats and prepare to travel down the road. My favorite part came

next. The absolute liberation that accompanied flying down that hill with our hair blowing in the

wind and a dust trail showing where we had been. We giggled loudly as we rumbled to the finish

line. Once we stopped we would climb out of our wagon on wobbly legs and again start the slow

trek to the top of our course. Our driving always left me with a tingling in my toes.

On one of those perfectly indescribable days when contentment seems to leak out of your bones

making your whole soul breathe deep, we met my parents and youngest sister at the bottom of

that hill after an impeccably driven route. Smiles on their faces they greeted us like adoring fans.

No harsh whispers of our lacking the necessary safety equipment, I think it’s hard to reprimand

someone when their laugh echoes the uncontrollable bliss of childhood. Instead they joined us

for our next run.