Your earliest memory

[Brewdude]

So, with my 64th b'day weighing upon me today I'm reminded of my earliest memories. And while its just bit and pieces here's a few of mine-

Probably age 3 or 4. Living across from Calumet Country Club in the SW Chicago burbs.

Had a kiddy car that I pedalled between our driveway and the next door neighbour. They had a dog that was named "Deke" and he was a big mixed breed who was very mellow and loved children.

Folks had a detached garage, and grew mint behind the garage. They made mint juleps, and had a wall mounted unit that accepted ice cubes with a hand crank to make shaved ice.

In autumn when the folks would rake up the leaves in piles, Mom made patterns that would represent the rooms of our house. And then I'd lie in them. Great fun.

Our bathroom had a toilet and bath stall that was bedecked in green. Guess that explains my favourite colour! In retrospect it was very brash and strident for the day and age!

This is all before kindergarten, which took place a few miles down the road in a newish development. That's a story for another day.

And you?



Cheers,

RR

 

[user 2027]

Well I had chronic nightmares up through college. Earliest memory is was a nightmare. Lived in Connecticut in a typical New England home with 5 windows up top and 4 on the bottom with front door in the middle. House had a gravel driveway that curved from one road to the other road with a bit that backed to the garage on the left side. House was surrounded by woods and on the corner of two intersecting roads.

The nightmare was probably when I was three years old, since we moved when I was 4 to Michigan. I walked out of the front door. Everything was grey scale, no color. No leaves on the trees but no snow either so it was likely fall. I walked to the left side of the house and as I came around the corner I see my mother standing there and snakes are coiled all the way up her body. End of nightmare.

Years later, mom told me a story when we were walking over the bridge on the back property we looked down and there was a mass of black rat snakes that apparently just hatched. I'm guessing this was the source of the nightmare at such a young age. Other then that, I don't remember much of those first 3 years.

 

[huffelpuff]

Earliest thing that comes to mind for me was probably between 3-4 years old and taking a swan dive off a 6 foot retaining wall face first into the sidewalk below.  Second would be just a bit older but being sat upon by one of the 3 little pigs at Disneyland. Lets just say I've had my revenge for that one over the last 40 odd years.  More bacon anyone?

Jim

 

[Brewdude]

I hasten to add that living across from a Country Club back then was anything but luxurious, such as it is now. We had a modest and small rental, what might considered a "starter house" today. IIRC all the houses were in that 'hood.


Cheers,

RR

 

[RDPipes]

It seems like most here as I, can only go back to about the age of 3 or 4, makes sense though.
What is there to remember lying in a crib most the day and sucking on a bottle.
Anyway, I can remember like it was yesterday and wish it was, sitting on the floor in front of the TV watching Sky King, Felix the Cat and Superman eating Bell brand potato chips right out of the bag.
Also remember taking apart my mom's alarm clock somehow, I mean really taking it apart to nuts and screws and she could never figure out how I'd do it. She always had to hide it away from me. Back then there were no plastic clocks, metal and glass they were screwed together.
I remember the only toy I had at the time was Fort Apache and I really loved it, sadly I don't remember what ever happened to it, maybe just got lost somewhere along the way.
Anybody remember "Engineer Bill" and "Crusader Rabbit"? They were some of my favorites.
That short childhood I had went quickly, hardly seems fair now. After the age of 5 there was little fun left.
Gees! the good ole days are saddening. :fpalm:

 

[Puffy]

When I was about 7 years old I had to help my grandmother chase 4 pigs that got loose.If you live in the city you may not know a lot about catching pigs.Take my word for it it isn't easy.Especially for a seven year old and a grandmother.It took us a good while.

 

[arkansaspiper]

I would not say its my earliest but it was about the time I was 3 I used to go to my grandpas house I lived next door to him with my mother before she died any ways my grandpa taught me how to use a screw driver so I some how got one and climbed on the counter and took all the kitchen cabinet doors off and had them all over the floor

 

[KevinM]

I was probably three, maybe four, and we lived in Pittsburgh, known for its steep hills. The family Chevy was parked behind our house in an "alley" that ended in a steep drop off. I enjoyed sitting in the Chevy pretending to drive. All of a sudden, the car seemed to be moving very slowly. I got out of the car and remember the C h e v r o l e t on the hub cap. Yep, it was slowly turning. I thought I'd better go in the house and tell Dad. He and his brother ran after the car just as it reached the end of the alley. Haha. Dad and his brother running after our car while shouting bad words. I thought this was very funny. Dad didn't, as I remember.


The next year I was riding shotgun with Dad through Pittsburgh in the same car. He enjoyed whipping through the zig zag corners in the Pittsburgh streets. So did I, encouraging him to go faster. For some reason, I liked him to try holding the speedometer at 30 while going around turns on city streets.  A quick left taken without slowing down threw me against the passenger door. The door opened. Fortunately, the window was down and I Latched onto the sill. The door sprung the hinges and ended up flat against the front fender. The streets were cobblestone and the car's fenders rattled so much that, with the racket and his concentration on the speedo, Dad didn't notice that his oldest son was riding outside the car. 

Dad! Stop!, I hollered. Unfortunately, he slammed on the brakes, I fell off skidded apiece on my belly and got a coating of cuts and abrasions with street cinders embedded in them. While painting me with Mecurochrome (sp?) Dad formed his alibi -- I had fallen out of the car, because there was something wrong with the hinge. We were sitting there and the door just opened. Fortunately the car wasn't moving or it could have been worse, thank goodness. I recall Mom's continuing efforts to pierce this alibi, but Dad and I never wavered.

 

[Puff Daddy]

My absolute earliest memories are vague snapshots of being about 3 years old in the mid 1960's living in a little house in Chino, Ca with a little park next door that was the whole of all things adventurous, and eating in front of a black and white television before being sent to bed so mom and dad could have their "Adult meal" together. I remember standing at the top of the stairs eating a bag of Fritos corn chips and playing with a screwdriver. I tumbled down the stairs and mom freaked out as she watched me laying there at the bottom screaming. She thought for sure I must have become impaled on the screwdriver but I was crying only because I spilled all my Fritos.

My first memories where I can actually remember events, people and conversations, and vividly recall places and how they felt, was in our house in West Covina, Ca where we lived for a few years. At around age 5 I remember sitting up in my bed quite confused as to why my bed was bouncing around all over the room, then mom running in and snatching me up and fleeing outside to the back yard. Some strange event she called an earthquake. I had a big sandbox built below a large old tree and there was a tire swing on a rope suspended from the tree. I remember my fisrt baseball and bat and playing in that yard with my grandpa who hit the new ball over the fence. I thought it was gone forever. My grandpa came over often. He always had a pipe going and we'd sit on his lap and rifle through his shirt pocket for the candy he always had there. I had my first bike and would ride my bike to school in the first grade, maybe 7 or 8 blocks away, something I'd never allow my young kids to do in this day and age. My mom got a Chevy Corsair and one day it caught fire while it was sitting parked in the street and the fire department had to come put it out. One day we came home from the grocery store and I wanted to help mom so I offered to take the big box of laundry soap out to the detached garage. I couldn't reach to put the soap on the washer so I did the only logical thing an enterprising 6 year old could do, I pushed a tricycle up against the washer and climbed up on it. With both hands busy holding the big box of soap there was little I could do when the trike whooshed out from under my feet, and I landed with a thud on the concrete floor, on my head. My mom rushed me off to the hospital in a panick where I got my head sewed back together. (Yes, to many of you who are familiar with me here, this explains a lot). Seems this was a pattern with my mother and I, her sreaming and panicking, me bleeding from one thing or another. Still, I loved that house and wish we'd never left.

 

[puros_bran]

My earliest memory?  
We lived in Morehead,Ky. Both my parents were in university there.
Mom was watching me and trying to study. It was an excessively hot fall day, so hot that all the doors and windows were open in the shotgun shack that served as married housing.  A little dog slipped past my mother and made a beeline for me. Loving on me by jumping and licking. Needless to say it terrified me. Give me a little break I was 2.  Mom got the dog out, got the door shut so he couldn't come back in, and tried to calm me down.  I lived in fear of 'the dream doggy', every time I went to sleep that dog attacked me.  I don't know how long that went on but Mom says it was absolute hell trying to get me to go to bed. Eventually Uncle Dallas came and killed that monster.  Uncle Dallas became a State Trooper after being discharged, but at the time he was stationed at Ft Knox. Ironically, 40 some odd years later, I live just down the road from where he lived in the early 70's.  Did he kill the dog?  Up until a few years ago I always believed he did...funny.. A few years ago the family was recollecting and I brought up the time Uncle Dallas came to Morehead and killed the dream doggy.  My momma burst into laughter. Mom told me she was lying about Uncle Dallas hunting the dog, dad threw some firecrackers, and that was that.  End of the dream dog and my Uncle unknowingly saved the day from 4 hours away. Lol.

He was a hell of a man.
post a picture

Like Cart said, it seems like yesterday and I wish it were.

 

[George Kaplan]

My earliest memory? Let me think...


Nope, no use. I've forgotten it.

 

[AJ]

My earliest memory? Let me think...


Nope, no use. I've forgotten it.

If all if my early memories were of acts of debauchery I wouldn't admit it either. :lol!:

AJ

 

[Stick]

My earliest memory? Let me think...


Nope, no use. I've forgotten it.

Good to see you George. It's been a while.

[I'll reply to this post when I have broadband in the house and I can use my laptop instead of this phone].

 

[Richard Burley]

Friends and neighbors of my mother sitting around a kitchen table in Saint Louis, where I was born, playing Monopoly. No other context, just the image retained, as I was only about two. Difficult to believe what that neighborhood looks like now.

 

[mark]

My first haircut. I remember being taken to a friend of our families house and put in a highchair. The sound of the electric clippers heading toward my head scared the hell out of me. Being held down while this guy ran that torture device over my scalp left a lasting impression. A few years ago I ran across a box of pictures while cleaning out my parents house with a picture of that event. On the back was noted "First haircut, age three."

 

[bosun1]

According to my dad, I must have been early 2. House, pigsty with pigs and barn off to the right. Plastic owl on the pig sty fence. Another building across the driveway from the house. Had a nice pile of soft sand just inside it, would sit in the sun and play in the sand. Cobleskill, New York..