What's your earliest memory?

[Guest]

Damn @Funguy for opening this Pandora’s box. Two more: getting separated from my mother at the grocery store. Stood in the aisle balling endlessly. Still terrified of losing people in the grocery store; it’s a corn maze. And, first day of nursery school; hid under the dining room table. Held on to a table leg while my mother attempted to cajole me out. She gave up and let me stay home. Pretty sure that set precedent for some truancy in high school. It’s all beginning to make sense….

[+ leo2510]

Two that have become stuck in mind - one of riding in the front seat of the Chevy wagon, towing Dad's Porsche 356 over the Snoqualmie Pass to the Seattle Raceway. Dad's long passed, but Mom said this has to be from 1965 because that was the only time that we all went along with Dad on racing trips - so that had to be when I was 2 1/2 years old. The other memory is of being in the front seat of the same 59 Chevy, rolling down the hill in the back yard toward the line of trees separating the yard from the house behind. i somehow managed to release the parking brake while playing in the car while ir was parked in the carport - Mom confirms this was also the fall of '65, as the car was never the same after that, and got traded in on a Buick wagon with the glass roof panels which is featured in a lot of family photos from that period.

[denguy150]

Grew up on a farm and I have a faint - but also powerful - memory of following my dad and our dog down a farm lane as he checked on the electric fences. (To clarify, it was my dad and not the dog who was checking!) I was 3 or 4 as we didn't have any cattle any later than that.
Interestingly, it is quite literally the only real "dad-son" interaction or memory I have as my dad was a very troubled, likely deeply depressed alcoholic who had absolutely no means of acting as a real father, though he  was a overall decent man. 

[+ Funguy]

On 2/4/2024 at 7:46 PM, leo2510 said:

one of riding in the front seat of the Chevy wagon,

We also had a '59 Chevy wagon - white with blue interior.  My mom was a stay at home mom and used to chauffeur my bro and I everywhere in that car as well as packing it up to the gills with marketing, taking us and our cub scout friends to meetings, little league, etc.  That car brought back many memories!

[Luv2play]

On 2/4/2024 at 10:46 PM, leo2510 said:

Two that have become stuck in mind - one of riding in the front seat of the Chevy wagon, towing Dad's Porsche 356 over the Snoqualmie Pass to the Seattle Raceway. Dad's long passed, but Mom said this has to be from 1965 because that was the only time that we all went along with Dad on racing trips - so that had to be when I was 2 1/2 years old. The other memory is of being in the front seat of the same 59 Chevy, rolling down the hill in the back yard toward the line of trees separating the yard from the house behind. i somehow managed to release the parking brake while playing in the car while ir was parked in the carport - Mom confirms this was also the fall of '65, as the car was never the same after that, and got traded in on a Buick wagon with the glass roof panels which is featured in a lot of family photos from that period.

I remember the ‘59 Chevy wagon as our neighbour at the cottage had one. His mother, a grandmother, took sick at her cottage next to his and he put her in the back on a mattress to take her to the hospital in Montreal. That was the summer of ‘59 and we never saw her again except in her coffin at the funeral a few days later. They got rid of the car because of the bad association it had of that terrible 3 hour drive. 

[+ Tygerscent]

Lots of memories from when I was super tiny…
 my very first memory is really a lot of sensations. I think I was in a baby basket on the ground… what I remember is voices, (male and female that in retrospect remind me of my mother, grandmother and grandfather on my moms side), temperature sensations of warmth and cold and diffuse colors that went from brown blue and green to more yellow and orange, and then the feeling of something cold and wet on my face… the visual references are blurry/literally fuzzed, but the temperature and the color sensations are describable. I heard voices around me, and in retrospect, I recognize some of the sensations as being: my mother‘s voice, my grandmother‘s voice, light shining through the ash trees in our backyard of my parents, house, the wet nose of our basset hound named Molly Bee~   I think what happened was, I was in this baby basket on the ground and it was maybe in the afternoon or probably late afternoon because that’s when the sun actually comes through these ash trees at the west end of the yard.  I think there was a light blanket covering me and Molly push the covering aside, and her wet nose touched my face. Then I heard the voices and the covering was replaced back over me. It’s a very distinct memory.
 I can vividly describe what was in my bedroom when I was in my crib. There was a clothing rack in the shape of a giraffe, and I know where the furniture was placed and what it looked like. I’ve discussed this with my mother in the past when she was alive and she confirmed these details to be true. The things in that bedroom are very specific timewise because I had surgery when I was five years old: ( urethotomy due to genetic stricture of the meatus in my penis. (I recall being in the hospital, not getting Popsicles, even though the girl next-door was getting them for her tonsils… I remember the doctor removing the Urethra all stretching bar from my penis and the doctor telling me not to be afraid because it was just gonna tickle… It actually did tickle, and I was not afraid)~ anyways, while I was in the hospital  for over a week, my mother painted Winnie the Pooh with Tigger, and piglets on the entire length of my bedroom wall. It was a giant mural she painted while I was gone.
 I also remember being two or three years old and eating my grandpa Jakey’s cigar… My grandmother busted me and my mom took me into the kitchen and put me on the sink and they were laughing and cleaning me up…  I also remember throwing up.
 I’m the kaboose in the family… My brother and sister were both older than me. My brother four years older and my sister 1.5 years older.  We had something in the house called snippy scissors. I think it’s something from the 50s or 60s. It was an electric scissors made for children. I’m sure that eventually topped the list on the Ralph Nader Death toys along with the easy bake Oven and the covair automobile with the motor in the back but, there was one of these electric snippy scissors in our home.
 I was probably just a few years old. I could barely speak and limited vocab but, my sister was playing with these snippy scissors, and she could not pull the cord out of the wall. She tried using her teeth to pull the cord out of the wall from the outlet, and her lip touched the live Plug electrocuting her and giving her third-degree burns on the left corner of her mouth. I alerted my parents by repeatedly, yelling “snippy, scissors, snippy scissors.”   
 My sister underwent repeated plastic surgery on her mouth thru her mid teens as a result of this incident and had a permanent scar as a result~ She was apparently a keloid former~   
 On a separate occasion, I recall my brother starting the living room curtains on fire, using a zippo lighter. There was a bee in the house at the large picture window, and he tried to burn the bee. I remember my parents coming into the room very excited and making a lot of noise~ My uncle was also there at the house~ His wife was not present. So, it was before he was married. My brother was four years older than me and he didn’t speak very well at that time. So, we were both very young.~  
 When my mom would tell the story, she would explain that she came into the room after smelling smoke and asking my brother what he had done, he apparently replied: “I burnded the bee’s bottom”~ What a little rascal~ 
 Also, my dad’s parents had some kind of a car with big wings on the taillights~ My brother took me with him to look at the car… The door was open and we both crawled in. I’m guessing the keys were still in the ignition because, somehow, while pretending to drive, he put the car into neutral across the street, and it rolled down the driveway, across the street, and into the pushes of the neighbors house. Everyone got spanked. 
 Good times~   
 I was very tiny. I really don’t think I was speaking very much yet. My language skills weren’t there but, I’ve always had strong visual and audio skills~ 

Edited February 8 by Tygerscent