Got this idea from a blog I was reading and decided to start it here. Enduring Childhood Memories - I remember the blue metallic sheen and black plastic cab of my father's old Ford Escort. I also remember hiding in the boot during Hide and Go Seek and getting locked in there. Claustrophobia anyone? - I remember days at school when there was a snowfall the night before. Those days were always the most fun because kids sliding on the snow quickly compound in into a VERY slippy surface. I remember grabbing onto kid's jacket tails and being pulled along by the 'huskie' in front. I loved the feeling of the cold air swirling freshly around in my lungs. - I remember very early on my first experience of lightning. Kinda scary by I was upstairs with Mother looking out the window at the rain and the feeling of security was indescribable. I have never been afraid of lightning and quite like it. - I remember the death of our first dog Rusty and the thing that struck me most was how cold and stiff a once living thing can become. - I 'remember' falling out the window of my father's said Ford Escort (it was stationary) and banging the back of my head of the railing around our lawn. I have a lazy eye to this day because of that little incident. - I remember throwing a MASSIVE temper tantrum when I wanted to go along with my Mother to visit her grandmother's. I thought kids where supposed to avoid visits to grandmas. I remember looking out the sitting room window when she was getting into the car and walloping the window with my palms. Needless to say I was punished for that. - I remember a girl in my class pouring a whole carton of milk down by back at lunch break. I remember the sudden cold feeling running down my shirt and the instant laughter. Me = not amused. In fact I have not forgiven her for that and the rare times I see her I always bring it up. She always looks at me thinking "I can't believe he is still hung up on this". I get a kick out of that. - I remember falling into the ditch in our bog while my parents were turning turf. The ditch water felt so warm I could have actually stayed there. I had to travel home naked in the car - I remember being scared of the Mona Lisa, the bubbles in fizzy drinks and digestive biscuits. I think it was a fear of hundreds of eyes looking at me (the fizzy drink bubbles and pinholes in digestive bisuits looked like eyes to me). ---------------- I could write for hours lol Please let's hear some memories from you guys
i remember riding my big wheel down the hill and spinning out and thinking that was fun.. meanwhile i could have been killed. kids are idiots. i remember going with my dad to work sometimes (he owned a fresh fish company and would go to restarunts to talk to owners about deliveries and stuff)one place in particular.. "Jerrys" dad used to leave me with the bartender there for a few mins and he used to feed me all the marachino cherries from the bar untill i got sick.. again another not smart thing i did.but i LOVED them.. now i cant even look at them.
I remember my being sick one cold winter and Daddy coming in from shift work and rocking me in front of the gas heater. I was wrapped in a heavy maroon silk housecoat he had sent back from China when he was stationed there. I know I was very young bc Mom used to say "How can you remember that", now she doesn't even remember. I remember in the summer we always had cold watermelon on the front porch, then the porch became our base for a boisterous round of hide and seek. I remember playing devil in the ditch on "the line", and swinging from trees on vines like Tarzan, and climbing the china berry tree and getting stuck in it. Our brothers wouldn't help us down, Mom is crippled and she couldn't get us down, right before Dad got home they came got us. Boy did they get tanned when he found out. I remember Sunday picnics at the Long Pond, Daddy cooking jambalaya over an open fire, and fishing. If we got bored we would climb to the top of the levee, making sure the path down was clear of cow pies and stickers, and roll down to the bottom. I remember the Christmas decorations being brought down, Daddy and the boys leaving to go cut a tree. Mom and us girls would start untangling lights, the big fat kind, not the little tiny things they have now, and getting everything ready. They would come home with a cedar tree too big for the house and Daddy would cut it down to fit. It was always perfect. We also had each ONE present under the tree on Christmas morning, not 20, like our kids. I remember Mom going to the hospital to get our new baby, and he didn't come home for 2 years. She stayed with him most of the time. He was born with one kidney, and it was malfunctioning. The doctors told her there was no hope for him. Then our angel appeared in the form of Dr. Rowena Spencer, fresh back from working in Africa, I think. She would not give up on him. 2 years, 11 major surgeries, 11 minor surgeries later, he came home to us, not without complication, but alive. He has led a basically normal life and is now 50. Oh gosh, I could go on and on and get totally lost in this thread, but I think that's enough.
If I ever started I wouldn't stop and I do get very very lonesome and sad thinking of the good ole days and missing all my loved ones so this is all I will say for now.
Ohhh Thanks Frank for starting this forum it's great and I look sooo forward to reading about everyones childhood memories!! I have sooo many good memories of my childhood. I grew up in the 70s and 80s. A country and western singer named Marks Wills decribed my life perfectly growing up in those times in his song 19-something. Very funny stuff!!LOL!! Here is the lyrics, and I know some of you here related with this just as much as I do and will have to have a few giggles as you read these lyrics: I saw Star Wars at least 8 times Had the pac-man pattern memorized And I've seen the stuff they put inside Stretch Armstrong I was Roger Stauback back in my back yard Had a shoebox full of baseball cards And a couple of Evil Kinevil scars On my right arm Well, I was a kid when Elvis died And my mama cried Chorus: It was 1970- something In the world that I grew up in Farrah Faucett hair-do days Bell bottoms and 8-track tapes Lookin' back now I can see me And oh, man did I look cheesy But I wouldn't trade those days for nothin' It was 1970-something It was the dawning of a new decade When we got our first microwave And Dad broke down and finally shaved Those sideburns off I took the stickers off of my Rubix cube Watched MTV all afternoon My first love was Daisy Duke In them cut off jeans A Space Shuttle fell out of the sky And the whole world cried Chorus: It was 1980-something In the world that I grew up in Skating rinks and Black Trans Ams Big hair and parachute pants Lookin' back now I can see me And oh, man did I look cheesy But I wouldn't trade those days for nothin' It was 1980-something Now I got a mortgage and an SUV But all this responsibility Makes me wish sometimes Sometimes.... chorus: It was 1980-something In the world that I grew up in Skating rinks and Black Trans Ams Big hair and parachute pants Lookin' back now I can see me And oh, man did I look cheesy But I wouldn't trade those days for nothin' It was 1980-something 1970-something Aw, it was 19-Something
This is about a Christmas gift from my father.It was a wonderful gift but he never knew he gave it to me. My father was a man who enjoyed an occasional ribald joke, who swore sparingly but with great effect, who loved to sit on the porch during a thunderstorm, the better to enjoy it, and who enjoyed above all else, a hearty sandwich of limburger cheese and raw onion between two slabs of rye bread. He taught me about the mountains of New York, where we lived,taught me the art of fishing the Hudson River and the countryside lakes and streams and instructed me on shooting a rifle, not out of anger or violence, but just for the fun of shooting small groups of holes in a paper target. He taught me something of stalking and hunting for often the fish and game were our sustenance. Christmas was my fathers favorite time. As an Irish tenor,He sang in the church choir. Our son Dan has inherited that voice, The Christmas I remember best occured when I was 14 or 15.That is a difficult time, when you begin to recognize the frailty of the human condition. Your parents no longer seem the perfect human beings of your younger years. That Christmas Eve, my father was testing the strings of lights. Those old large bulb sets needeed all perfect bulbs to stay lit. My father replaced bulbs one at a time untill the culprit was found. Suddenly as he replaced the right bulb, the many colored lights came on. "Got it", he said as the rainbow of lights bathed his face. Red, yellow, blue and green softened his looks,added shadows and erased lines of care. He looked younger and his eyes got that delighted sparkle that came with a smile or laughter. For just an instant moment of time. I saw him not as my father, but perhaps as the young Marine my mother had fallen in love with all those years ago.For just that moment I had seen him in his youth, and to this day it is part of my memory of him. I am still able to see this in people I meet. I sense who they might have been as well as who they now appear to be. As a writer. I look at things and try to see more than just the surface.The Christmas gift was the gift of insight, given to me by my father and the Christmas lights. desert rat
DR that was lovely memory. It is definitely a blessing to be able to observe things like that. I think everyone has a child in them wanting to show itself but cannot because they must be adults, nobody ever truly 'grows up'. Your father's face expressed the child showing himself for an instant.
I remember sitting in a big easy chair with my mother as she read to me. I remember playing under the quilt as my grandmother was quilting it. I remember sitting in my dad's lap in his rocking chair - the chair is now mine. I remember my grandfather coming to visit with Hershey chocolate bars and pink peppermint candies in his jacet pockets. I remember a trip to northern Michigan with my grandparents and cousins. I remember my grandmother's love of her flowers that she passed on to me.
What a wonderful topic... like others, I found myself thinking I could go on for hours and hours. A few that come to mind... I remember my brother and I wanting to hide sleeping bags behind the sofa so we could be there to see Santa Claus when he arrived. Our theory was he came in a large moving truck, like you see furniture delivered in. No way he could fit all those toys on a sleigh. Our mother made us go to bed. I remember hiding behind the end of the sofa to eat cat food. My mom didn't want me to, but I liked it. I was quite small... I also recall my brother sampling dirt-clods. Ah, kids! I remember my sorrow when I had to give up all of my stuffed animals but one, as my family sold everything we owned and moved into a van. We lived there for some time, in a hippie commune on Maui. What a batch of memories there...! I remember my delight upon discovering one of my beloved stuffies in the possession of a younger cousin when we returned to the states 3 years later. Like rediscovering an old friend. I remember trying to rescue uncounted earthworms from puddles in rainstorms in Oregon, and jumping into huge piles of leaves in the fall. I remember the elk in our front yard in Colorado, and how the ice crystals would blow across the surface of the snow with a sound like fairy chimes. I remember walking into my grandmother's kitchen and seeing every surface covered with fresh maple-bars for the church bakesale, and only being allowed to have one... So many things - !
