What is your earliest memory?

[BigV]

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?

[smoothmoniker]

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

[BigV]

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

How's your thumb today?

[mrnoodle]

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

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.

[lookout123]

@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.

[OnyxCougar]

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.

[Undertoad]

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

[dar512]

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.

[Trilby]

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.

[glatt]

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.

[SteveDallas]

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.

[Silent]

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.

[glatt]

Originally Posted by SteveDallas

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.

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.

[dar512]

Originally Posted by SteveDallas

I had no clue what Watergate was, but I knew that ... 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.

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.

[Trilby]

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.