Bank Security Questions Keep Memories Green

I'll never forget my first childhood pet, a brown and white puppy with floppy ears. But I would hardly ever bring the memory up if I hadn't set his name as the answer to a bank security question. Nowadays if I log in from a different computer, typing in his name brings back the love I felt for the little creature, part of my life until the day a car ran him down.

When I'm asked for my mother's maiden name, I type it in gladly although it is nine letters long. She had a name only shared by only one other person besides her parents until her brother, but he decided to shorten it after World War II. So although I have heard of others with that last name by now, I still revel in my mother's last name, a relic from the region my grandparents left near the Russian-Polish border.

My high school took its name from a Civil War Confederate General, connecting me with history even though I was a staunch Union supporter when I learned about the war. But I knew that the sisters who lived around the corner from me in our border state were the great grand-nieces of the general. Their brother even shared the general's first name and the general's last name was his middle name.

The city where I was born I knew as the scene of many family visits when I was an older child. All I have to see is the name of that Great Lakes city to feel transported into the world of major league baseball, a zoo, cousins, aunts, uncles and grandparents. The food was different too. My grandparents drank soda pop called Rock and Rye, my aunt sprinkled paprika on mashed potatoes and the talk around the table was about trade-in prices for cars.

A childhood address brings up memories from the other side of the family:

going to an outdoor market with my aunt, their black cocker spaniel named Cinder like the little clinkers in their driveway, the two-family wooden house with a pink-blossomed magnolia in front where we lived downstairs and the relatives lived up.

So I thank my bank not only for providing security but also for reminding me of those early days. And now when I go to my online bank account, there's something to remind me of the present too, a color photo of a papaya that comes on screen each time, the emblem of my life these days south of the border.