Memes and memories seem to be meant for each other. According to Google, “The word meme was coined by Richard Dawkins in his 1976 book The Selfish Gene as an attempt to explain how ideas replicate, mutate, and evolve (memetics). The concept of the Internet meme was first proposed by Mike Godwin in the June 1993 issue of Wired.” The idea that a meme strikes a responsive chord among a group of people is inherent in its existence.
Recently, I saw a meme that brought back vivid memories from my childhood, “You don’t know what fear is until you have been chased by a rooster.” I wish I had a better picture of the house in the background at this time when I was four years old, and I wish I had a picture of the back of the house where my story takes place. We lived here in a duplex and an old lady lived in the other part. (Take “old” with a grain of salt since I was four, and she was likely not as old as I am now.) She was nice as I remember but her rooster, who looked exactly like the one in my puzzle, had taken lessons from Satan himself.
I learned quickly to check the surroundings before I went out the back door. However, on this one day, the rooster outsmarted me. I eased out the door and checked right and left. He was nowhere to be seen. Feeling confident, I headed out to play in the yard. Just as I put enough distance away from the back porch to prevent a retreat, he flew out from behind a bush with his beak targeting my bare legs. My screams brought rescuers in Mama and the old lady, but not nearly soon enough in my opinion. I believed then and nothing has convinced me otherwise that the rooster connived pure evil with me as his target. I existed in terror of the back yard for the entire time we lived in that house.
I have since made peace with roosters who are beautiful animals. I love this favorite puzzle and the nice small rooster that lives next door and is more afraid of me than I am of him. He comes over from time to time bringing up not a meme, but the old riddle, “Why is the rooster crossing the road?”