Monday Memories

I was thinking about my early childhood and a disabling fear I had.
Dolls. Porcelain dolls to be specific.
It didn't help that my mother was a gifted porcelain doll maker. And my Grandmother a gifted seamstress to make clothes for those beautiful dolls. They even owned a doll shop where she sold these things. "Eliza's Babes" was the shop name. There was a basement in that shop where she worked on the dolls I believe or something; and that basement was probably the scariest place on earth. Might as well been a torture chamber for small children.
When I was a little girl our house was littered with these fragile, um, - things.
I thought they looked pretty...during the day. But at night, I was FA-REAKIN out!
I would have nightmares that they were alive at night and coming to slaughter me.
One memory in particular.
We lived in what we have always called "The White House" on Panarama Rd. in Bakersfield California. I was about 4 years old. Which happens to be the approximate age of picture displayed above.
The house was a two story with a short hallway upstairs that had an open banister to see areas down below (in which those dolls were displayed.) This hallway had my parents bedroom on one end, and my bedroom on the other. You could not go from my bedroom to their bedroom without being exposed to the view of said dolls. I had lots of nightmares growing up. Some quite gruesome. When a nightmare would come, I would run from my bedroom to my parents as if the Incredible Hulk were chasing me. He happens to be the subject of one of those nightmares. The dolls too. I remember one night being paralyzed in the middle of that hallway with terrifying fear. I could not move. I could not get myself to my parents bedroom because I had to keep my eyes on THE dolls. I wanted them to know, I could see them and I was watching their every move. They weren't moving of course; while I was watching them that is. If I took my eyes off of them, they would surely actually move and make a run for my throat. My life would end right then and there. I don't remember how long I was paralyzed there but I don't ever remember leaving my position. I think I was there until dawn broke.
Of course I never expressed this fear to my mother. Otherwise she probably would have never taken me to get my pictures taken at Olan Mills with those dolls in the actual photo! I remember her getting me ready for this photo shoot and then packing the car with the dolls.
So when I see this picture, I remember, them; meaning possessed dolls bent on killing me.