What is your earliest memory?
 

This was an icebreaker question at a gathering I attended a couple of weeks ago. Nice, neutral, open ended, overall an effective opener. The answers ranged from brief, shy and unrevealing to vividly insightful. I reckon this group needs less icebreaking, but I'd still like to hear your experiences.

What is your earliest memory? Describe it. Here's mine:

I am older than my little sister by about 2 1/2 years. This is important because I remember riding home in the car with her and my parents when she was born. This lets me date the memory. I don't remember being a two-year-old, of course, but I do remember this trip. We were in the back seat, or at least I was, my dad was driving and my mom was in the front passenger seat. I could guess about the car, but I don't know and I don't know of a way to verify it. One thing I remember very vividly is being curious about the "baby". Baby? Sister? Huh? But I did know about cereal. And my sister had some and that I could recognize. I saw she had a little bit of raisin bran on her belly. Well, that's what it looked like to me. A couple of brownish flakes and a dark nugget I mistook for a raisin. No embellishments about the "cereal", and no further memories about going back to the hospital after I bothered her new bellybutton. But that image is very clear in my head, even today.

How about y'all?

cutting off my thumb in my grandpa's lawn mower. It was about 4 at the time, and i remember having it cut off, and the smell of the mask that they used to put me out for the re-attachment surgery.

-sm

I can see how that incident would leave a mark on your memory! What an incident!

How's your thumb today?

I have three memories from early childhood. I've been told that the first one is impossible because babies don't have that part of the brain switched on at that age, but I remember it nonetheless (35 years have passed, so exactly what I remember and what I think I remember might be clouded.

I remember being put in the car by my parents at 9 days old, right when they adopted me. I only remember it was cold and bright, and I remember the dome light of the car. I told my parents that I remembered it lightly snowing, and I knew I was being put in the back seat. They were a little freaked, because the memories were apparently accurate. Who knows, maybe I'm an old soul :rolleyes:

The next one is about as exciting. I remember the carpet of the first house I lived in. Again, less than a year old.

The last one is my first really defined memory. I got a case of croup when I was 2 and had to go to the hospital and spend the night in an oxygen tent. I remember only thinking that the toys were lame, and I wanted to go home. Don't remember the illness, particularly.

@2 1/2 yrs old sitting on the front passenger floorboard of an old pinto, talking to my grandpa while we drove the 3 hours to his house. i was told to talk to him so he would stay awake. apparently i took them literally because they laughed for years that i never took a breath during the whole drive.

3 yrs old - christmas. getting my first star wars guy along with my cousins. those little action figures started an obsession with star wars that didn't wear off until the first of the 3 new trainwrecks was released.

I remember swimming in our neighbor's pool in Yorba Linda, CA. I was coming up for air, while David Bowie's song "Fame" was on, at the part where it goes really high to really low..."Famefamefamefamefamefame FAME!!"

I was less than 5 years old, because my dad sold that house in 75 and we moved to Bellflower, where I got my feet caught in the spokes of my friends bike and shaved all the skin off the outside.

The doctor picked me up and put me on the scale. The metal of the scale on my back was freezing cold, and I didn't expect it, and it frightened me... this stuck it into my memory somehow. I then remember busting out in infant tears. Mom said they only used that scale for six months of age and under.

All I know is that I now have an irrational fear of deli meats

Both memories ~3 yrs old.

I remember having bologna sandwiches for dinner. I didn't like bologna (at the time) and remember pitching the bologna under the kitchen table. No we didn't have a dog.

It was summer and I had been tooling around on my tricycle all night, but the broken horn (the plastic kind with the bulb) was poking into my leg. When I complained to my dad, he pulled a screwdriver out of his pocket and took the horn off. -- One of the few happy memories of growing up with my dad.

2 years old--orange popsicle and new, floor-length drapes. Oops! Got a bit or orange on them! I also recall my folks having those racous, boozy "card club" parties with chocolate covered peanuts, bridge mix, mini-pizza's, dips in fancy cut glass bowls and all those shiny brown and clear bottles next to the lemons and limes. They always made me go straight to bed after my mini pizza. It was a crushing blow.

Grew up in a small town. Lots of kids in the neighborhood. I used to tag along with the older ones to the corner store, which was actually about four blocks (a quarter mile or so) away. Two places where you have to turn, or you will get lost. One street to cross that was too busy for a little kid to be crossing alone.

When I was three, I walked to the store alone to buy some penny candy. (atomic fire balls, swedish fish, and tootsie rolls for a penny!) I found out years later that the store owner, who knew my parents, called my mom and let her know where I was. Then I walked home.

Watergate.

No, seriously.

I had no clue what Watergate was, but I knew that a) it consisted of a bunch of old men sitting around and talking, and more importantly b) they were showing it on TV instead of the kiddie shows I used to watch at my grandma's house before I was old enough to go to school.

A little over 2. I twisted my ankle. I don't remember doing it, just my Mom wrapping my ankle and telling me to leave the wrap on.

Excellent! I have the same basic memory. I remember I told my parents that I hated Nixon. They asked why, so I told them it was because he was on TV instead of my favorite show at the time. It was just a short while later that everyone hated Nixon. So I was ahead of the curve there. I must have been 5 or so. I liked Ford. He seemed like a friendly man, and he wasn't on TV during my shows as much.

Not an early memory, but I had the same experience when John Kennedy was shot. His funeral was Saturday morning and it took over all the Saturday morning cartoons.

Oh! The best (or worst) one! I was 2 1/2 and had gotten into the St. Josephs aspirin for kiddies--the orange flavored kind. I was doing "commericals" with them--watching myself eat the orange disks and then smile like, "...and now Jenny's ALL BETTER!" When mommie found out it was a bit, er, unpleasant.

I remember being x-rayed when I was 2 (broken collar bone). The table was metal, hard and very cold. A nurse asked me if I wanted a pillow and when I said yes, she put one under my feet, causing me to think 'wtf?" for the first time.

Minor point, the funeral was on monday, but yes there was nothing normal on TV from Friday afternoon throughout the weekend. :)

I remember the huge backyard between us and the neighbors when we were living in military housing while my Dad was in Europe. I was less than 2 when we moved out.

Sitting with my dad watching the weather report .

Oh! The best (or worst) one! I was 2 1/2 and had gotten into the St. Josephs aspirin for kiddies--the orange flavored kind. I was doing "commericals" with them--watching myself eat the orange disks and then smile like, "...and now Jenny's ALL BETTER!" When mommie found out it was a bit, er, unpleasant.

I had a simalar experence with Filnstones vitamens , those grape Bam Bam's tasted SOOOOO good !!!!! When my mom got me to the emergency room to have my stomic pumped I had gotten my fingers stuck in the front winshield defroster vents , then they pumped my stomic , ( this is GROSS ) , i rember the corn getting stuck in the tube , they finaly just gave me a BIG does of Ipacack and sent us on our way . Mom had to have her Buick repainted after i painted the side ALL the way home :vomit: :vomit: :vomit: :vomit:

I remember learning how to walk, so I must have been no more than 18 months old. It was in the old Eduardian townhouse in Richmond, Virginia, where my dad's family lived, and they were passing me around between the family members sitting in chairs. Even from the beginning I had to do it my way, and I squirmed out of somebody's arms and headed for the nearby coffee table with one arm out to hold onto it but I didn't make it that far. I did one of those baby-flops with both hands on the floor, which was covered by an ancient Afgan carpet, red with patterns I've always called "popsicle designs". That same carpet is now stored in my guest room and the home that was in our family for 100 years is now sold, so I will probably never give up that carpet.

It works perfectly.

The first major label release that I played on as a keyboardist, I sent a copy to the surgeon who had done the operation, who was amazingly still practicing at Stanford Hospital in Palo Alto. It's amazing to me that it has any sensation or dexterity at all, but he did a remarkable job reattaching it.

-sm

I don't really know how old I was, but I couldn't have been more than 3, probably as young as 2. We were preparing to move from California (this would have been 1958 or 1959) to Kansas City. My father is loading a box truck with our stuff, rolling it up a ramp. I'm sitting on the driveway, turning (what I now realize was) a socket wrench, toggling it back and forth then twisting the socket, and then asking him if the temperature had changed inside the truck (he and whoever was helping him were complaining about being hot; apparently I had some notion that the wrench was a thermostat or something).

I have a few extremely fuzzy images in my brain of the drive back in the family car, which my mother and I made separate from my father, who drove the truck. I remember my mom worrying about my father's whereabouts when we stopped at one point in the desert.

Very little else, if anything, until I was more like 4 1/2-5 years.

I remember riding in the "way back" of the family station wagon as we travelled from Pennsylvania to Illinois to live. I had a blanket, coloring books, and a big bag a Cheetos Cheese Puffs. I was two, maybe two-and-a-half.

To this day Cheetos are my primary comfort food.

I had a white baby bath and I was making something in it (possibly a mini town out of plasticine) and for some reason it was filled with water (maybe I was making a lake). The next day I discovered a huge dead spider floating in it, which gave me horrible feelings of repulsion and guilt. I remember either leaving it there or doing something to make me think I was a horrible person. I had to get mum to clean it out because I couldn't bear it (poor woman). I was between the ages of 2 and 6 at the time (because of the house I was living in).

I also remember having whooping cough at the age of 3 or 4, not the actual coughing but watching Sesame Street on mums shitty black & white TV in her bedroom.

I also remember being in town with my mum and a stranger asking me where I lived, so I dutifully recited my exact address including postcode. Mum later informed me that this was not something I should tell strangers, which was probably the first instance of enormous confusion over what people say and what they actually mean (read The Curious Incident of the Dog in the Nighttime). Again, I was between the ages of 2 and 6.

Oh yeah and I remember during the same period there was a cat that lived next door, or a few doors down, who was always neglected, so we decided to adopt it. I remember one day putting it (or perhaps it was another cat) in the dustbin and sitting on the lid. It then occured to me that this was incredibly cruel (although I was curious, and I think I got some sick pleasure from it at the time, feelings of control....???) and promptly removed the cat from the dustbin, stroked it and apologised, while feeling very guilty indeed.

Christ this is quite revealing; no I don't have a history of animal abuse or anything, quite the opposite, but perhaps it explains my feelings of doubt that I'm a good person and my insistence on truth and reality.

I remember getting burned by the steak platter. I knew I cried and remembered that the restaurant's interior design was very blue. And that a male waitress brought a first-aid kit for me. My mom said that was when I was about two.

My brother had an even earlier memory than me (he was about 1 1/2 years old). We went on a cruise boat and these people offered my brother beer.

I remember finding an opened, half-full root beer can sitting by a tree at a local park festival, and picking it up and walking off with it. Then I wandered back to my mother and she (for some reason which still eludes me) let me keep drinking it. My mother's not visibly pregnant with my brother in pictures from that festival, so I had to be less than 2 1/2.

I remember yelling at the woman who took care of me everyday while my mother worked. I was furious because she had disciplined her older son for annoying his sister and myself, who were the same age. She had declared to him that I was his sister's friend, not his, and he needed to leave us alone. I clenched my fists and screamed, "I'm BOTH their friends!!" Again, my brother wasn't born yet, so I know I was less than three.

I remember my mother being very pregnant with my brother, and my father telling me that she had accidentally swallowed a watermelon seed and it had grown in her stomach.

Wow, not even 3 and dumping on a female for coming between you and a male. ;)

Earliest memory, huh?....hummm...I think it was roast beef. Yeah, I had a roast beef sandwich for lunch yesterday.

Damn CRS disease. :banghead:

A very, very loud noise. I had turned a bunch of silver knobs to the right until they wouldn't turn anymore, then pressed a bunch of buttons. One of the buttons resulted in a unbearable noise and my father dashing into the room from the back of the house. I remember Dad quickly hitting a button to make the room quiet, again, and then promptly moving me away from the stereo cabinet to another part of the room.

He kept the old Marantz unplugged much of the time after that. Around one year later, I'd be responsible for destroying the television by dropping coins into an open slot in the cabinet on the front, shorting out some components on a board. My knack for electronics remains to this day.

Not an early memory, but I had the same experience when John Kennedy was shot.

Everyone ready to feel old? My psychology class last year touched on the subject of early memories. "Of course", the professor said, "we all have our important memories that were imprinted through shock. For my generation, it was Kennedy being shot -- we all remember where we were when we heard the news. For your generation, it was The Challenger exploding. How many of you remember where you were when you saw that on the news or were standing outside and saw the launch?" My hand went up and I turned to look at the class of 100 students. Five other hands. The professor was confused, until a student in the back said, "I was one year old, so my parents had to tell me about it later." Another replied, "I wasn't born yet."

Oh, god. Sigh.

That's horrifying. As was the fact that I was looking up alumni from my high school, and realized that everyone I ever knew is over thirty. OVER THIRTY. Do you remember when that number seemed an eternity away?

No.

I remember when 14 seemed ancient. Now 30 is but 7 years away, it seems realistic but somehow... impossible. My mind can't cope with the possibility of anything that doesn't look or think like me being me.

I realized last night, as I was talking to some parents, that I now consider everyone under the age of 25 a "kid".

I had to be less than 4 years old... My Mom came into our bedroom in the middle of the night and drug my sister and I out the front door. My Dad was standing in the front yard in just his boxers spraying water on the roof with a hose. A tree had fallen on some power lines and started a fire. I remember standing there in my footsy pajamas on the wet grass and my grandma coming to pick us up in her yellow VW.

Around the same time period, my sister and I were in the back seat of the same VW ready to go to church. My grandma had to run back into the house for something and didn't set the parking break. We were in the middle of the street when she came back out. She freaked out. We just laughed.

you'll still think you're the same. Your mirror may or may not disagree with you -- certain women, while attractive in youth, become quite beautiful as they age. What throws you off is that you still feel like you can relate to people in their teens and early twenties, because you still feel the same inside...only problem is, they see you as a dinosaur.

i recall ( mainly, i think because i saw pictures of this later, and my mom told me about it) being in the back yard in the kiddie pool at 2 yrs old, and taking off my trunks. I also remember falling down the basement steps while my grandmother was babysitting. that was later...maybe 3 yrs old or so.

this lends to my opinion that your soul is not really all the way there right from the start. it grows stronger like a muscle.

Mine was falling down some concrete steps when I was about three and getting some stitches under my chin. I still have the scar. And I remember the little girl next door.

I don't have my own memory of the Day Kennedy was Shot ... although the family legend version is that my Mother and Aunt learned of it when I came to them to ask why Sally Star wasn't on the TV anymore.

I loved Sally Star. I do have memories of watching her while wearing my cowboy hat and sixguns from atop my trusty rocking horse (the molded platic/rubber type with the springs suspended from the metal framework) who was named "Uncle Roy" in honor of my pediatrician. I do not recall why I chose to honor Dr. Ellison in that manner. Neither does my mother.

It may have been the lollypops.

I haven't had any problems with a particular age, but the year 2000 was quite a shock.

my earliest memory is from when I was about 3 or 4 years old (small enough to hold while standing up) and my mother was having another one of her house parties where all her project friends and a bunch of drunk sailors would get drunk and high and play "ring my bell" on the record player. Anyway, I remember this blonde guy holding me on his hip at the top of the stairs, and my aunt brenda screaming "put her down!!! you're gonna drop her! put her dooown!"

I don't think I'll be beautiful, I think I'll be haggard and droopy and look like a man. And I'm a dinosaur now? Fuck that's scary. :worried:

So that thing they say about the Navy is true?

And were the cowboy and indian and police man and construction worker at the bottom of the stairs ready to catch you?

10 funny points awarded to Queen of the Ryche for making me chuckle before her 5th post.

thanks :)

what do they say about the navy?

Imagine a ship full of hard working sweaty men, at sea for months at a time, with no female companionship...........compare this to men who would listen to "Ring My Bell", and draw your own conclusions...........(You're probably too young to recognize the song I made reference to.)

Navy men put salt in their coffee, I hear.

I know about things that happened to me a at very young age through stories and pics, but I cant really remember them. The earliest undocumented things I truely remember are from 3-4 yrs- senses like climbing up on the bricks in the fireplace, the tree in the back yard, the layout of the old house, and my cold metal highchair. And being in the back of the stationwagon, too! lying down to sleep, hearing the road crunch under the tires, its just starting to get dark, and the trees look like broccoli.

I think my earliest memory was that of trying to crawl around a rocking chair...one of those ones with wood and the fun 70's wicker design. I also remember my dad stuffing my head in the blue flower patterned couch to pull a popcorn kernel out of my nose. This had to be before I was 2, since they lived in a college dorm when the popcorn kernel happened. I also remember nightmares from when I was little. one was oversized Sesame Street characters pulling me into the tiny TV and me finding myself a tiny insect in comparison to the puppets. Another dream I had included a purse with a bunch of tiny legs chasing me in circles while my mother and grandmother stood in the middle of the circle talking to each other while I screamed for their help. One other was me standing on the molars of a gigantic mouth and trying to cross the tongue to the other side where my friends were, but there was a train coming from the back of the throat so I was scared. I think all of these happened before I was 3 or so.

My second earliest memory is that of a wooly-bear caterpillar. Mom showed them to me in a book, and I was immediately terrified. These creatures have an identical head and tail! My brain latched onto that... and that night I dreamed there was one on my blanket.

My most prized posession, invaded by my most feared demon. I bawled. I remember the page in the book, I remember the dream, I remember the fear, I remember crying, and I remember my mom and dad looking over the crib to see what the hell was suddenly wrong with this kid.

It's my only memory of my dad, who died when I was 3.

Hell I hate to get in this. No one is old enough to know what I'm talking about.But I still remember parts of a nightmare when I was small.
Katz and Jammer kids were riding a little train around in the house, my Dad was holding me & green leaves were going into his pocket.

I have no recall of this, but after I was discharged from Army I went back to old hometown and Dad introduced me to old barbershop owner. He asked, Is that the little shit that through a pack of firecrackers in my shop?

Katz and Jammer kids were riding a little train around in the house, my Dad was holding me & green leaves were going into his pocket.

The best are the fever-induced nightmares that you get when you're real young. Oh, man, I don't think I'm even going to try to describe those. Words couldn't do it.

i do remember at a very young age (couldn't place it exactly), waking up from a nightmare where i was in a little sailboat that had arms that wouldn't let go of me. i still remember the feeling of waking up absolutely scared shitless.

i remember that the exact scene i dreamt was in some kid's movie i had seen that night before i went to bed. i think there was something about a piccolo and a dragon or something. i don't really know about that, i just remember that dream. to this day if i have a nasty dream, i wake up thinking about that one.

Ew.

Reminds me of a youthful prank I once pulled. It was at the babysitter's house, Mrs. Wright. I mischeviously opened her sugar bowl and her salt shaker and poured the two together, one to the other, like a fancy bartender trick. Recapped both containers and sat, all "innocent like". Til the next day. Man did I get in trouble for that.

I guess Mr. Wright wasn't in the Navy

Wolf (my rocking-horse soul sister!),

When I saw this post, I knew EXACTLY the type of rocking horse you were speaking about. A present for my 3rd B-day, this was one of my favorite toys in my early years ( to this day, I love any type of rocking or swinging motion)

I was also a big Sally Starr fan. For some reason I can't recall, my favorite part of the show was the mail (remember the off-screen "pony express" would gallop up and throw the saddlebags of mail into the shot then gallop away)

Some of my other favs from my youth include Chief Halftown, Captain Kangaroo and Kimba

J--your pony is in my basement right now. Picture upon request.

You have a pic of my pony? This I have to see...

Hey, I have one too. It's been through 2 generations of cowboys so far, and no signs of wearing out yet. I just got goosebumps - seeing that picture immediately brought the sound of those springs to my mind.

You reminded me of some fever-induced dreams I had in my yoot. I don't even like to think about some of them...they were very dark for a kid that age. But the most common one was this one: Every door in my house was closed, and if I opened it, someone would be standing on the other side, silently smiling at me. A big, toothy smile. No words, just the smile. I'd close the door and go to another one, there's my sister. Same big silent smile. I wanted to run screaming out of the house, but at age 4 your only security is your family...who do you run to when they're all catatonic and possibly demon possessed? lol eww.

When I was a wittle bitty thing I was convinced that my sweet Momma was really a horrid witch in disguise. I remember her kneeling down by my bed at night so we could "say our prayers" and just waiting for her to rip her Sweet Momma mask off to reveal her true, wicked-witch self. It made bed-time very emotional for me.