Favorite Childhood Memory

[Janet]

I know we all have lots of memories from younger days, but are there any favorites you want to share? Pets, trips...etc.?

I have a memory (more like a lesson learned...lol) of riding my little orange pedal jet down the sidewalk with the neighbor girl. I wasn't allowed to go as far as I did and when I turned around to ride back, there was Mom walking toward me with a switch in her hand swinging by her side. I got switched darn near all the way home. Nowadays that would be child abuse, but it sure taught me not to ever do that again. I was probably only about 4 or 5 years old.

Another memories is from still sleeping in a crib. My Mom remembered it too. I had a dream there were chickens on my crib. There was two sitting on the end piece, one on the foot of the bed, one on the headboard and one on my chest pecking at my face. Pretty traumatic for a little one so needless to say, I've been afraid of birds every since then.

A favorite memory is of getting my Barbie doll house. It folded up and was made of cardboard (anyone else have one?) and it was my absolute dream present.

[DianaB]

I didn't have a Barbie house but I did have 2 Barbies, Midge, Skipper, and Skooter. I loved my dolls and even yet it's hard for me to let the kids play with them.....Silly, I know. Skipper and Skooter were my absolute favorites!! I didn't have a Ken so Barbie had to date G. I. Joe!! My brother had him!!

Ah.....memories!! I grew up in a neighbor with lots of other kids and I have so many memories.....from saving a couple of sisters who were "drowning" in a mud puddle!! Making cement mud pies from an opened bag of cement my Dad had! Climbing trees.......making a play house from an old tarp and propping it up with odds and ends in the yard. Playing the "Girl from U.N.C.L.E" with a neighbor girl.....riding bicycles.......playing kickball in the street with a mailbox for a base......two tar spots on the road for bases and a fence post for the last base!! We used our imagination so much....it's sad to see kids that can't figure out how to really play any more.

[2tiredmom]

LOL what a great post you guys..I remember being about 4 and we lived in the country (always) Thank good ness. My mom had chickens. seems she always had chickens. any way. The feed was stored in a shed in a cattle water tough. one day i went in there and saw some baby mice in the feed. Then the door shut on me. I was in there what seemed like forever. I was crying and screaming to get out but could not. Until my mom came looking for me and found me a few minutes later. I still am not crazy about the dark or tight places. Also at the same house. My dad was a hired farm hand so we lived in one of the farmers houses right next to some hog barns. Back in the day they had a manure pit next to the barns where the liquid manure would go. My oldest brother and I would walk around the pits. And yes they were full of liquid manure I was 4 or 5 and he was 5 or 6 at the time. GOD was watching over us. We couldhave fallen in. Oh the memorys of country life. I have so many stories but will not bore you with them all. Thanks for starting this post Janet. Can't wait to hear more stories from everyone else.

[DianaB]

When I got to be a teenager I read the book "Rascal" and I wanted a baby raccoon so badly. The next spring my Dad had a friend that found some baby raccoons and so I finally got one. She was the neatest pet!! I would ride my bicycle to the nearest little creek with her on my shoulder and I would turn over rocks so she could find crawdads to eat. I remember her washing them with her little hands before she would eat them. I can still picture people driving by me as I rode my bicycle.....pointing as they drove by!

Oh...the stories I could tell about her!!! She came in the house once and ended up underneath of my bed.....playing with the fringe of my bedspread......she scared my brother and cousin half to death.....they thought I had a monster under my bed!

She learned to open up the old time screen doors and helped herself into the neighbor's houses as well!!

One night my Dad heard some dogs barking outside and thought that they had her pinned up a tree (when she got older we didn't keep her caged and eventually she went back to the wild.) so he ran outside in his underwear to save her. According to my Dad.....there were some "little old ladies" that came driving by and here he was out in the yard chasing dogs!! I guess he ended up darting from tree to tree but they got quite the sight!! My Dad also had an aunt and uncle who were staying in a little camper in the yard so no telling what they saw!!

I never really had a for-sure name for her......but she was the neatest pet ever!!!

[Janet]

Your post Diana...we could have been sisters!!! I still have my Barbie, Midge, Ken, and Skipper. My brother also had a G.I. Joe and I used him as Midge's boyfriend...lol.

I didn't play "Girl From U.N.C.L.E. but my cousin and I played like we were the wives of the Men from U.N.C.L.E....lolol. We always played "kick the can", road our bicycles in the rain...so fun, and went swimming on Tuesday and Wednesday. Tuesday was girls free day and Wednesday was boys free day. Always came home starved and ate chocolate chip cookies.

I have a fellow bus driver that has a raccoon now and is always taking "Scout" to the creek. Sounds like fun.

[gja1000]

This is a fun thread. I don't remember a lot of details about my childhood, more just general memories. I lived on the farm with my grandma, grandpa, and my mom after she divorced my dad. We didn't have indoor plumbing till I was 9 and I hated to go to the outhouse in the summer because there was always yellow jackets in the ceiling, so I would (ahem) "go" behind the barn. I remember taking a bath in a round tub in the kitchen and i remember pulling a bucket of water up the well. The bucket sat on the kitchen counter and we had a dipper to drink with. I remember grandma catching a chicken, killing it, and cooking it for Sunday dinner (which was at noon). I remember swinging in the water tank at the windmill. I remember playing for hours in the attic, all sorts of games made up games with my cousins.

[Janet]

I remember one Sunday I was sitting on the front porch waiting for Mom and my brother to get ready for church. Mom always dressed us up for church and I was wearing a dress with one of those stiff petty coats that itched the daylights out of you if you sat for too long..lol. Anyway..a neighbor girl came outside while I was sitting there and I told her..."I'm prettier than you"...so bad. My mom who was in the house heard me and told me to get my butt in the house. Boy did I get a talking to over that remark. I wasn't very old, but I had to go apologize to the girl. I just felt pretty I guess...who know why kids do and say the things they do.

[DianaB]

Janet......that sounds like something Karlie would do!!! LOL

I can remember when my brother would get new shoes he would take off running as soon as the car stopped and would declare that he could run faster because of his new shoes!! Cute!!

Delaine was dressed for church one time and was outside playing before we left. He got all muddy and told Mom that the mud just "jumped" up on him!!!

I got sent out to get my own switch once and came back with a short little twig.......didn't work.....I got sent back out!!! Dad always laughed about that one!!

One of my Grandma's lived a couple of blocks away from us and when we rode bicycles we rode around her block because it was a full block and paved all the way around. One day I got mad at my brother and told him I was running away, got on my bicycle, and rode to Grandma's. When my Dad got home my brother was crying but Dad knew where to find me!! I'm sure that I got in trouble (which was ALL the time) for making my brother cry!! The BIG baby!!!

[DIANE W]

Its lovely reading about everyone............. I was an only child until i was 10, i got very spoilt by my family, my Mum had 5 brothers and sisters and they all spoilt me rotten.

I remember getting a childs silver cross dolls pram, it was a carriage built navy blue pram, and it had a little oval plaque on each side with a pink rose on it. I thought i was the bees knees with that pram, i took it out to play and when we went shopping, i took my pram - i had a baby doll all dressed up in clothes, her name was Susie.

I had a little puppy too, a black minature poodle called Pepee, he was my best friend and followed me everywhere.

The memories are lovely to think back on.

[2tiredmom]

My older brother and I would go with my dad on Saturday mornings to help take care of the pigs. We had just got done when we were driving and my brother was sitting by the door in the truck and the door opened and he fell out. So Blessed he only ended up with a bloody lip. He could have been ran over. Another memory was when we put boots on and went out in the middle of this field that had water standing in it. I got stuck and my brother got a stick to try and pry my feet out of the mud. I had to leave my boots behind. lol It almost sounds like my mom never watched us. God was really watching over us. We also locked our mom out of the house when we were 3 and 4. Needless to say she took a stick to our bare legs. We never did that again.

[Lindsey]

I love this thread!!!!! I can start with a few...

I remember on my first day of playschool, I was sooooo terrified to go by myself. So my older brother was allowed to take a day off of Grade 1 to come to playschool with me :) I also remember one day at the beginning of playschool, and we built a big wall out of soup cans. Our teacher saw my mom coming to pick me up through the front window, and the teacher and all the kids whispered to me to hide behind the wall so my mom couldn't find me lol! I was so shy back then, and I would never speak out loud, I would just whisper to my best friend so he could talk for me. His name was Neil and his grandparents lived across the street from me.

I also remember in Kindergarten, we lived in a house that we could see the school from. One day my mom came to pick me up and I made her go home because I was a big girl and could walk home by myself. I'm sure she watched me the whole way! There was a big gully beside the school and one day on my walk home, a picture I made at school flew out of my hands or backpack and went way down the hill. I ran home as fast as I could, crying. My mom was on the phone with a friend and I was trying to tell her we had to go find my picture! She came out with me and we searched until we found it!

I also remember my husky, Brandon. In the winter, we had this sled we would hook him up to, and my brother and I would sit inside and my dad would stand on the back and Brandon would take us for sled rides!

I also remember in the winter, my parents getting together with all the other parents around the town and we'd go out to this big hill with sleds and snowmobiles. There'd be a big bonfire and hot dogs and hot chocolate, and us kids would sled down the big hill all day, and at the bottom our parents would hook the sled to the snowmobile and pull us back up the hill!

Those were all when I lived up north when I was really little. My dad worked for the power corporation and we were friends with the pilots, police, other power and energy families, and things like that. Every day our front window was covered in eggs... we were hated because we were "white". I don't remember anything negative like that, other than the constant eggs on the house. I found out later the reason we moved was because my dad caught my brother's classmates (in grade 2!) in our backyard in the middle of the night, sniffing the gas from our snowmobiles. My brother was getting to the age where his friends would be influencing him soon, and it just wasn't the place our parents wanted to raise us any longer.

We moved when I was 6 so all these memories were before that!

[Janet]

There is a memory I'm not real proud of. My nephew (sister's son) is two years younger than me. When we were little we were in the backyard playing. We were not allowed to say bad words and it was like Mom had radar or something....lol....so we always made sure we never said bad things. Well, one day Bobby Joe was over and kept saying swear words. I kept telling him to stop before Mom heard him but he wouldn't so I hit him in the head with a shovel. Bobby Joe had to have stitches and I got into big trouble. They did stuff like that on the Three Stooges all the time and they didn't have to have stitches.

[gja1000]

Lol! Janet that is so funny! Once my mom and I were sitting in the living room of our house. My mom had remarried and we had moved from the farm into this very small town (about 350 people). All of a sudden the door opened and a person dressed in a gorilla suit, from head to toe walked in. The person didn't say a word and just walked straight through the house and out the back door. Mom and I just looked at each other, like, "did that just happen." Then, a few minutes later, the back door opened and the gorilla walked into the house again. This time my mom jumped up and said, "if you don't get out of here, I'm going to knock the hell out of you" At that time my sister-in-law began to giggle and we knew who was in the suit. We sure had a big laugh then, but it wasn't too funny when we didn't know who it was. She spent several hours in that suit that day, walking around town spooking people. Today someone probably have beat the hell out of her.

[DianaB]

Oh Gayle......How funny!!

One Halloween after Glen and I had gone to bed we had three people in costumes come to our house. First of all they just beat on the sides of the house......then when we let them in all they would do is laugh......a spooky, witchy laugh......or say nothing at all. We couldn't figure out who they were and eventually they finally left. We did take some pictures of them and later found out that it was two of Glen's aunts and his little brother!! What happened was .......Glen's uncle's birthday is on Halloween and they went out for his birthday and decided to stop by our house on the way back to town!! They sure had us puzzled!!

I don't remember ever having anyone get seriously hurt from something I did......except for a good spanking!! I was always into things that I shouldn't have been!!! My Mom had her hands full with me.......sometimes I think that she still sits back and shakes her head at me!!

One time when I was probably 5th or 6th grade I was at a neighbor's house and he was pounding on a 22 shell!! I stood up on the porch.....which was about 6 inches taller than the driveway!!! He did finally get it to go off! It's a wonder that neither one of us was hurt!! Oh the things that my parents never knew and my kids will never know!!!

[gja1000]

LOL Diana, those Halloween costumed relatives are pretty funny! I bet you really were puzzled! When my sister in law pulled the gorilla costume on us, it was in the spring, not anywhere near Halloween, so we were just bumfuzzled!

When I was living with my grandparents we had one of those old time phones with the crank. Our "ring" was one long ring, two short rings and then one long ring. When you turned the crank, everyone on the party line could hear the phone ring and you had to listen for your "ring". My aunt's "ring" was one short ring, two long rings, and one short ring. I don't know how many were on our party line, maybe 10 homes, I'm not sure. Anyway, when I was about 4, and everyone was out of the house doing chores, I would get on the phone and crank away, which of course caused A LOT of ringing in everyone's house on the party line. One time a man got on the phone when I was ring ring ringing and told me if I didn't get off the phone he was going to come cut my ear off. :eek: Let me tell you, that was the last time I played with the phone. That scared me to death!!!

[DianaB]

So funny, Gayle!!!

We used to have an old lady who lived across the street from us and she had a fence around her yard and garden. If our ball went into her yard we had to knock on the door and ask permission to get it. Well.....her strawberry patch was close to the fence and some of the boys reached their arms through the fence and was picking her strawberries and eating them.......she yelled at us that she was going to call the police. She didn't but it was a threat that she often used. We never did know her very well......she was a grumpy old woman!!!

My first bicyle was a full sized bicycle with training wheels that I got for Christmas. Riding it in the house was impossible so it was put in the garage. The next summer my Dad said that if I wasn't going to ride it then he was going to get rid of it. I told him that if he would take the training wheels off of it then I would. I hated the bumping back and forth that it did with the training wheels on it. So I took it out in the front yard because we lived on a gravel road and tried and tried and tried to ride the bike. I can remember falling and falling which wasn't easy with a full sized bike......but I did learn to ride it!!

When I got a few years older......I came home from school one day and there was a nice new bicyle in the front yard. My Mom used to ride bicycles with a friend for exercise so I assumed that it was the friend's bicycle. It ended up that it was for me!! It was the first bicyle that I saw that had the narrower tires. Dad called it an English Racer!! I was so excited!! My Dad was always a softie for me!!!

[Janet]

Isn't it fun thinking back on these old memories? I'm enjoying reading all of yours. When I was young, so young in fact that my younger brother and I slept on the same army cot, we camped in a 9x9 tent. It was my mom and dad and Brad and I. We always went to this place called Sandy Beach and that is were we learned how to swim. I think we were there just about every weekend for quite a few years. We then got a larger 9x12 tent and then we got a 13 foot camper. We really had more room in the tent...lol. There was always another family that we knew that would go camp with us and that's how we spent our vacations too. Then Mom and Dad joined a campers club and we made so many new friends that have lasted till this day. When Mom passed there were only about 5 members left and most of them were women who had their sons or sons-in-law pull their campers for them. I have a lot of great memories from those years including meeting Cassius Clay (Muhammed Ali).

[gja1000]

OK Janet, you are going to have to tell us about meeting Mohamad Ali!!!!!

[DianaB]

I agree.....do tell!!!

I can remember going camping at the lake. My Mom and Dad were in the tent and my brother and I had a mattress in the back of Dad's company station wagon. In the middle of the night a storm came up and Mom and Dad got in with us. My Mom had just gotten contact lenses and told Dad that they were in the tent......so he ran back out in the rain to get them......then she remembered something else......so Dad ran back and got it too. Then Dad remembered that his wallet was in the tent too but he decided to just leave it. The tent collapsed in the wind and we all spent the night in the car. The next morning there was Dad's money all over the ground and things scattered all over.....plus other people's stuff floating by in the lake. We found out later that there had been a tornado not too far from us. Glen remembers when the tornado hit because it damaged his Aunt's house that was at the lake. It's funny that we both have different memories of the same thing!!

[Janet]

I don't remember too much as I was really young. We always camped at Sandy Beach and it is on Lake Freeman. It's not a big lake where celebrities would come to so it was a shock that one was there. He was known as Cassius Clay then. We were up there for the week on vacation and playing around the boat docks scooping minnows for fishing when a boat pulled up to fuel. The attendant told us to stand back for a few minutes until the boat got tied.

Cassius Clay got out of the boat along with a couple of other people and greeted us kids, there was me, my brother Brad, Jim and Johnny Sanders and their little sister and another kid that I don't remember their names. We all got his autograph, but I didn't know who the heck he was...lol. I mean, come on...I was a girl and I didn't watch boxing. I don't know what ever happened to the autograph or if my brother still has his packed away somewhere. See, it wasn't exciting, but just a part of my growing up.

[gja1000]

That still really cool, Janet! Even if you didn't know who he was then

[Janet]

I also remember about that beach that just about every year, someone would not be watching their child and they would wander down by the boat dock. The cement would have that green slippery stuff on it and then the child would slide down. We always sat at the picnic table by the dock because our friend and uncle had boats. Dad would jump in and save the child, then we'd have to go find the parents with a crying child.

[DianaB]

Wow!! Your Dad was a hero!! How cool!!!

How neat that you met M A!!! Awesome!!

My Aunt Marva is 7 years older than me and when I was little I remember sleeping with her and she told me all about going to school. She said that the teacher had play dough and a place that I could sit at at the back of the room and that I could go to school with her the next morning. I was so excited and got up and around the next morning but it ended up that my Mom wouldn't let me go. I still remember watching Marva get on the school bus and crying!!!

I remember that there was a swing in the front yard of where Grandma and Grandpa lived and Marva would swing me in it and run under the swing making me go really high!!

[2tiredmom]

Great Stories girls. I remember being 6 yrs old and going to western auto to get my first bicycle with training wheels. Got it home rode it that evening. Next morning was Saturday. Dad had to work. So i got the wrench out and took the
training wheels off the bike and started riding with out them. I felt so big then.
LOL.

[Janet]

Linda, you must have been one handy little six year old...lol. I remember playing cowboys and indians with the neighbors and good friends across the street. I would be the indian princess and make Mike marry me....LOLOL.

This same boy is the first friend in the baby book my Mom kept for me. I guess when I was little I would be sitting on the couch and Mike would come to me and make me cry and then go play. When I quit crying he'd come back and make me cry again. My Mom and his always enjoyed telling that story for some reason. I'm still great friends with his Mom...love her so much!