Memories like Sea Creatures

Sometimes memories are like those huge sea creatures that for mysterious reasons, rise from the bottom of the ocean and wash up on beaches. Because they have come from unimaginable depths, some are so rare it takes five experts to figure out just what the hell they are. Others are instantly recognizable but still marvelous because of their size, shape, and mostly because they haven’t been seen in years. Once in a while you suddenly remember something from your early childhood, say, that’s just as huge and momentous. You wonder how did I forget that?

When I was very young, my family went into New York one day to attend a play (or something). When it was over we walked down Times Square and 42nd Street. Somehow I got separated from the others. I could not have been more than four or five and I was lost in what at the time was a bad part of Manhattan. I was so young that one of the only things I knew about survival was men in uniform could be trusted. So in the midst of my fear and weeping I went looking for a man in uniform, any kind of uniform, to help.
In those days on the long traffic island in the center of Times Square was a military recruiting center. 4 men from the four branches of the military sat at four desks, backs straight, wearing beautiful different colored uniforms, waiting for potential recruits. The small building was almost all glass. I looked in, saw the uniforms and that was all I needed. I crossed the street with the crowd and opened the door. The only thing I remember clearly now, half a century later, is one of the men looked at me standing there and said, “You’ll have to come back in a few years, Sport.” All the men laughed and laughed at his joke. But then I told them what had happened to me. Like the superheroes I knew they would be, they somehow magically found and contacted my frantic parents. In what seemed like a very short time, my mother came flying through the door and snatched me up in her arms.
How could I have forgotten this?
Like my mother and father, it is very likely all of those men are dead now. And I am now older than any of them were that day.