BS: Earliest memories

Subject: BS: Earliest memories
From: muppett
Date: 28 Oct 03 - 07:37 AM

I was chatting with my daughter t'other day and we got talking about our earliest memories, hers was going to playgroup, mine was being pushed in my pram in the evening and seeing the moon, must have been about around one years old. What early memories have other Catters got.

Subject: RE: BS: Earliest memories
From: Beverley Barton
Date: 28 Oct 03 - 07:56 AM

8am this morning. last night's intake of stella artois has wiped my memory clear

Subject: RE: BS: Earliest memories
From: Rapparee
Date: 28 Oct 03 - 08:01 AM

We'd attended a minstrel show in which my father acted. When we got home my brother and I wanted to be made up and dressed up so we could play "show." We were, with rouge and everything and big crepe-paper bow ties. I must have been around 3, my brother 2. Somewhere there a slide of this.

Another was when I locked my parents out of the house. I got in first and locked the door for a joke, then became too frightened of what was going to happen to my bottom when they DID get in. My father used a ladder to enter by by a seccond floor window -- suddenly there was someone behind me! I must have been around 4 at the most.

At five, I attended my father's funeral. I remember a lot of this, too.

Subject: RE: BS: Earliest memories
From: katlaughing
Date: 28 Oct 03 - 10:28 AM

I've got several, but I think the most memorable is when I fell in a pile of red ants. I was about 3 or 4, playing with neighbour kids. I remember all of us screaming, my mom dashing out the back door, swooping me up in her arms and rushing me into the bathtub which she filled with cool water to drown them off of me. I still had a lot of bites from them, but she was my HERO(ine)! That Christmas unbeknownst to each other, two relatives gave me underpants which had red ants imprinted on them!

Subject: RE: BS: Earliest memories
From: Mickey191
Date: 28 Oct 03 - 10:35 AM

A sunny day, with glass doors opening on to a patio. The curtains were blowing and I was standing in a crib crying my heart out. I could hear music playing & I was totally alone. Mother said I had to be younger then two.

Does anyone believe that some people can remember being in the womb? Also, some claim to recall their birth.

Subject: RE: BS: Earliest memories
From: Deckman
Date: 28 Oct 03 - 10:37 AM

Hey ... what about my conception. That might explain .... Oh, never mind! Bob

Subject: RE: BS: Earliest memories
From: Bill D
Date: 28 Oct 03 - 10:39 AM

3 yrs old..riding on a train to visit my grandparents in San Diego and going to the zoo, where my grandfather pointed out a 25 foot snake...and I didn't see ANY feet!

Subject: RE: BS: Earliest memories
From: GUEST,MMario
Date: 28 Oct 03 - 10:40 AM

I remember when we went to woolworths and purchased our parakeet - I was somewhere around two - and then my next memory is cooking breakfast for the family the day of my youngest sister's birth - I would have been 3 and a half. I had to stand on a chair to reach the stove (highly supervised of course!) and likewise to put the bread into the toaster!

Subject: RE: BS: Earliest memories
From: Ebbie
Date: 28 Oct 03 - 11:01 AM

I tend to believe that we all have memories from much earlier than we think. In my case my family moved just often enough that we can establish a time frame.

I was 8 months old (August. My birthday is in late November) when my family moved their large family (I was the 8th child) in one car from North Dakota to Oregon. What I remember is being awfully tired. There were all these legs and I kept being passed back and forth over the front seat.

My mother said that every evening I scooted around happily as soon as we stopped for the night; every morning I cried when we got back into the car.

I don't remember that.

My next conscious memory is of when I was 11 months old.

Subject: RE: BS: Earliest memories
From: InOBU
Date: 28 Oct 03 - 11:17 AM

Three earlist... 1st, in my crib, long before I could walk, a yellow blanket watching the tiny dust particals floating in a beam of sunlight in my parents bedroom, likely mid morning... 2... Looking up at a bar high over head, (the handle of a tiny wheal barrow, reaching up for it, steadying myself and taking my first steps... 3. I was four, standing leaning against a wall in a dark hall in the morning, thinking that as years pass I would think back remembering being four, and for some reason I did...
and NO Spaw, memory number two was NOT when I was 45... and suddunly too poor to avoid a drink...
Cheers
Larry

Subject: RE: BS: Earliest memories
From: Bill D
Date: 28 Oct 03 - 11:24 AM

wow....people who remember back to 1 year or so!...I have only spotty memories around 3 yrs!..perhaps it was because we moved all the time and I had no steady surroundings to focus on...

Subject: RE: BS: Earliest memories
From: *daylia*
Date: 28 Oct 03 - 11:25 AM

I think Ebbie's right -- we all do have earlier memories than we think. My family moved to Washington DC from Vancouver when I was about 9 months old. I was learning to walk by then, and I remember two things -- the pain of falling and skinning my knees on the cement patio outside, and the sweltering heat of DC in the summer. My brother was born that year, and I remember that beautiful baby smell. I used to climb into his cradle just so I could cuddle up and smell him!

My next memory is about a year later, when I was 2 and he was 1. He had a terrible temper (still does!) and had flung his glass baby bottle across the room we shared so hard it went right through the mirror and made a hole in the wall behind it. I think it was the fear of the loud noise and breaking glass, as well as my VERY upset parents (we were renting that house!) that makes that memory so vivid.

Next memory is him smashing me over the head with a big Tonka dump-truck shortly after the bottle incident. Nothing like pain to enhance a memory!   

Then when I was about 3, I remember standing at the train station with my weeping mother, waving goodbye to my Dad as he left for peacekeeping duty in Egypt in 62. It was the first time I'd ever seen her cry, and it really frightened me. I was to young too understand why she was crying ....

Shortly after that, I remember her and my grandmother sitting crying in front of the black-and-white TV, watching John F Kennedy's funeral. They were SO upset, and again I couldn't understand why.   I guess grief and fear work just as well as pain to make a memory permanent!

daylia

Subject: RE: BS: Earliest memories
From: GUEST,petr
Date: 28 Oct 03 - 12:00 PM

at about 2 or so I remember being out in the pram with my mom showing me off, and another woman looking down at me and talking to me, she was blonde and quite attractive - I remember thinking ..gee I wish that was my mother..(never told my mom this by the way)
another memory was as a baby being tossed up by my parents, it wasnt very high, and they did catch me but still it was a vivid memory.

Subject: RE: BS: Earliest memories
From: GUEST,Kim C no cookie
Date: 28 Oct 03 - 12:16 PM

I have a vague recollection of sitting in a high chair and spitting cereal at my father. Also of standing up in my crib and looking out the window at my brother and his friends walking to school.

Subject: RE: BS: Earliest memories
From: Ebbie
Date: 28 Oct 03 - 12:20 PM

Guest/petr brings up an associated thought. It's amazing to me to realize that very young children have standards and perceptions for things they cannot even name. For instance, I remember a green comforter (batting-filled quilt) when I was under a year old. How did I know it was green?

Subject: RE: BS: Earliest memories
From: C-flat
Date: 28 Oct 03 - 12:21 PM

I have a clear memory of being bathed in the kitchen sink while watching my elder brother play out in the back yard. I can't have been more than a year old. I also remember being pushed in my pram while my brother was sitting on it.
Curiously I remember very little else until I was school age.

Subject: RE: BS: Earliest memories
From: Rapparee
Date: 28 Oct 03 - 01:02 PM

Now that I think of it, perhaps my oldest memory is of Christmas, 1945. I was about 10 months old and was given one of those things that a baby can "sit" in and work themself along with their feet. This one was metal with wooden beads on a metal rod, and had blue metal "wickerwork" on it. Perhaps that memory endures because only a few days before my father had returned from the South Pacific war.

Subject: RE: BS: Earliest memories
From: Ebbie
Date: 28 Oct 03 - 01:42 PM

Rapaire, those things were called 'walkers'. I remember when my niece, born prematurely and late in learning to walk, scooted everywhere in her walker. When her family eventually discovered she was picking it up and walking over obstructions before setting it down and scooting off again, they decided it was time to retire the thing.

I don't know how old I was when I discovered I could no longer walk under the kitchen table, it bumped my head. I clearly remember thinking I would be able to do it again eventually.

Subject: RE: BS: Earliest memories
From: fat B****rd
Date: 28 Oct 03 - 02:08 PM

Being taken to meet my sister from school (she's fifteen years older than me) with all her schoolfriends cooing over me, being about three and helping my dad by picking his tomatoes well before they were ready. Being punished for helping my dad...

Subject: RE: BS: Earliest memories
From: mack/misophist
Date: 28 Oct 03 - 03:33 PM

When I was 2 or 3 or 4, my mother and my aunt locked me out of the house for some infraction and wouldn't let me in for any reason. I was angry and very cold. I was made to miss dinner and I soiled myself; the last time that ever happened. The only good part was some tulips in the yard next door. I studied them through the fence for a long time.

Subject: RE: BS: Earliest memories
From: WFDU - Ron Olesko
Date: 28 Oct 03 - 03:42 PM

5 months old. I distinctly remember my first Christmas in 1957. They may sound strange because it is hard to explain, but I sort of remember a feeling of "waking up" and in more than just the literal sense. I can remember being in my crib and opening my eyes to see my parents and my aunt and uncle. It is so distinct in my memory because I can recall the feeling of amazement as I was looking at everyone. I remember getting a teddy bear, which is still in closet in my mother's home.

I have other strong memories of being an infant such as remembering my mother pushing me in a stroller. I remember she stopped to speak with a carpenter on one walk, and I can still recall the bright blue sky. I also remember visiting a farm in Pennsylvania and seeing a cow close up.

After infancy, it is all a blur until the year after college!!!!

Subject: RE: BS: Earliest memories
From: Ebbie
Date: 28 Oct 03 - 07:03 PM

Neat, Ron Olesko.

Someone above mentioned that some people remember the process of being born. I don't doubt it. If the mass of people can do something, there will always be individuals who go beyond.

I've always known that if I held still long enough I would remember when my youngest brother was born- I was a little less than two years old so I should remember it consciously but I never have. Yet. I know he was born at home although I don't know at what time of day.

I remember though when my mother was pregnant with him. We were in church and I was sitting beside her on the bench even though I used to sit on her lap. But in this memory she had hardly any lap at all so that I had to sit beside her. (It's also one of my favorite memories, because at a certain point when I started swinging my feet, my mother gently laid her arm across my legs in a gesture filled with love and no acrimony. And I knew I had learned not to do that.)

Subject: RE: BS: Earliest memories
From: GUEST,Ely
Date: 28 Oct 03 - 09:58 PM

I remember things like sitting in my high chair, foods I didn't like, etc. Little stuff. I started talking to my mom once when I was six or seven about something that a neighbor said that I didn't like and she got upset because I hadn't told her; then, she realized that, when it happened, I didn't know how to talk yet.

Subject: RE: BS: Earliest memories
From: Neighmond
Date: 28 Oct 03 - 10:50 PM

lying on my back on a brown rug, looking up into a blue flame. Honest.

Didn't make sense to me, and I brought it up to my mother. She said that would have been when I was about eight monthes old, and that I used to lay on my back on the rug in the old farmhouse, looking up into the front of the old Siegler heater that stood in the front room.


Chaz

Subject: RE: BS: Earliest memories
From: LadyJean
Date: 28 Oct 03 - 11:12 PM

I have a vague memory of my uncle Richard. I remember a quiet spoken man with two golden retrievers. I was 18 months old, the only time I met him. He died when I was 3. Uncle Richard worked with Alan Lomax. I'm very sorry I didn't get a chance to know him better.
I don't know how old I was when I went downstairs one morning, and discovered it was Christmas. I remember no preparations. Christmas just appeared. I also remember hurrying downstairs, on other mornings hoping Christmas would be there again. It was, eventually.

Subject: RE: BS: Earliest memories
From: Cluin
Date: 29 Oct 03 - 01:53 AM

Lying in my crib, learning that it felt good to pull the blanket up between my legs, over and over.

Subject: RE: BS: Earliest memories
From: Joybell
Date: 29 Oct 03 - 05:11 AM

When I was 9 months old I pulled myself up on the edge of the bath and looked in. My mother was lying there and she let herself slip down until her face was covered with water. I screamed and she popped up laughing. 58 years later I can still recall feelings of fright and the anger at being laughed at. This incident was confirmed years later by my mother. She had never talked about it but remembered it when I asked her. She remembered that I was still crawling and just beginning to pull myself up on things. I was walking by 9 months so she was sure of the dates. The other early incident involved walking under a dog, again confirmed by my mother. I must have been quite small.

Subject: RE: BS: Earliest memories
From: Liz the Squeak
Date: 29 Oct 03 - 06:48 AM

Reaching up to the doorhandle and not making it because I couldn't stand properly. I reckon I was about 9-10 months old. I wanted to open the door because mother was the other side of it making lunch and I was hungry and alone in the room.

Sitting in the same front room, surrounded by my brothers' cars and mothers' shoes, listening to Ob-la-di on the radio - I was about 2 1/2 - 3 years old.

LTS

Subject: RE: BS: Earliest memories
From: GUEST,Shelley C at work
Date: 29 Oct 03 - 08:50 AM

I loved reading this thread. It's interesting to be reminded of what't important in the small world of a toddler. Everything is new and intriguing.
I have several early memories that all seem to be from around the same time - just before I was three. I'm not sure what is the earliest, but the most vivid is when my parents aquired a kitten. He had run under the bed, and I remember crouching down and looking at him - a little grey speck of fluff. I was allowed to name him and I called him 'Peter the Puss'. Quickly shortened to 'Pete'.

Shelley

Subject: RE: BS: Earliest memories
From: BanjoRay
Date: 29 Oct 03 - 09:01 AM

I told my mother that I had a very early memory of my first injection - I identified the building where it was done, I remember being carried by a nurse, and the shape and smell of a dish full of methylated spirits. She said I couldn't possibly remember as I was only six months old.
I have a few very dateable early memories, because they definitely must have occurred during WWII - I was born september 1942.
Cheers
Ray

Subject: RE: BS: Earliest memories
From: Mooh
Date: 29 Oct 03 - 09:11 AM

Not sure.

I remember my Dad telling me I was a good whistler, and in my memory he seems very young. I might have been three. Funny that it's a music memory.

I remember my older sisters hugging me often, and my older brother bouncing me in the top bunk by pushing up from below.

But I think my oldest memory is of my mother putting me to bed with a hug and a story and she's leaning over me so it was before I landed in a bunk bed so I must have been maybe two years old. I don't feel that I was very aware then.

I wish there were more memories...

Peace, Mooh.

Subject: RE: BS: Earliest memories
From: muppett
Date: 29 Oct 03 - 09:35 AM

Another early memory I have is a bit of a painful one and I still have the scar, I must have about 3 years old. I was with my Mum & Dad and we were going out for the day, I saw a bus going down the road and decided that I was going to be one as well, so I started running down the path making bus noises, the real bus turned a corner, so did I only I ran straight into a garden wall and badly cut my forhead.I remember picking and eating the scab a few weeks later, it was a massive one.

Subject: RE: BS: Earliest memories
From: GUEST,Jim Henry
Date: 29 Oct 03 - 12:10 PM

We must have been about 6 months old, my twin brother Johnny and me. We were sitting on our daddy's knee, having a "horsey ride" when Johnny picked up a hammer and little peice of steel and said, just as clearly as anything, "Waa doo doo, dada!"

Me, I picked up my daddy's guitar when I was about 18 months old. Got my hands slapped because I used it to swat the cat and the neck broke plumb in two. Later I learned to play it, changed my name a little (put an "i" on the end of my first name, and changed my last name a bit too, and had a little success as a rocker some years back.

Of course, I'm dead now.

Subject: RE: BS: Earliest memories
From: Cluin
Date: 29 Oct 03 - 01:53 PM

Maybe so, but Jim Henry is a helluva good guitarist and singer/songwriter too.

Subject: RE: BS: Earliest memories
From: Deckman
Date: 29 Oct 03 - 02:31 PM

I'll alter the question slightly, as doing so allows me to tell a quite wonderful story on my late Father. The year was 1940, my Father was a master carpenter, and he was building "our house." I was about two, and I well remember toddling into a basement room, which eventually became my bedroom, as he was planing a door edge.

In those days, carpenters treasured their hand planes, kept them razor sharp, and used them with great skill.

I can still see those long, twisty curls of wood peeling off the door edge. He'd been at it for some time, as the curls were ankle deep on the floor. When he saw me, he laughed, reached down and grabbed a handfull of shavings and placed them on his bald head. He laughed a great big laugh and said: "Look. I've got hair!"

That's my first memory of my Father. CHEERS, Bob

Subject: RE: BS: Earliest memories
From: Charley Noble
Date: 29 Oct 03 - 04:37 PM

My parents claim that I was too young to remember the two big pink pigs in their pen behind our farm house in Maine but they're wrong. I was all bundled up in my heavy coat and mittens and I found them quite fascinating. I must have been about two.

The next easy to date memory was the WW II Victory with Japan party some neighbors threw in August of 1945; I was three then and quite delighted with the cake and ice cream. I apparently did not notice the mixed emotions of the women there who were all working full-time at good jobs in the publishing industry and were soon to be laid off. But here's to cake and ice-cream!

Cheerily,
Charley Noble

Subject: RE: BS: Earliest memories
From: RangerSteve
Date: 29 Oct 03 - 09:13 PM

I remember being put into a crib with a stuffed Bugs Bunny. I hated it. Stuffed toys look cute to parents, but to babies, those things a fking HUGE. And Bug's grin isn't exactly benign looking, either. I screamed until they took it out.

Subject: RE: BS: Earliest memories
From: LadyJean
Date: 29 Oct 03 - 11:37 PM

I remember pushing my sister in a baby carriage. I'm 21 months older than she is, so I must have been pretty small then. She learned to walk and talk, and began pushing me around, almost immediately. She's never stopped.

Subject: RE: BS: Earliest memories
From: Metchosin
Date: 30 Oct 03 - 01:14 AM

First vivid memory is accidently dropping my cookie over an edge of a small boat and watching it float away. We moved from the place where we had the boat, when I was just under a year old and my parents always claimed I couldn't remember that far back, but I did.

I also remember the bitter taste of the paint and wood of the window ledge in my bedroom. I used to cry and chew on the ledge, while I watched the older kids playing outside, when I had to take a nap. (I'm positive the lead paint has had less than a salutory affect on my brain function.)

I also remember the personal affront I felt one morning when, my baby brother, lying on his back, being towelled after his bath, sent a perfect arc of piss over my head, which landed in my porridge. The piss, not my head.

Most of my early memories tend to be traumatic or upsetting.

Subject: RE: BS: Earliest memories
From: Cluin
Date: 30 Oct 03 - 09:22 AM

That's why I'm happier with mine... the gift that keeps on giving.

Subject: RE: BS: Earliest memories
From: Nancy King
Date: 01 Nov 03 - 12:35 AM

My earliest memory is of Franklin Roosevelt's funeral procession, which occurred when I was almost three. I remember being with my parents on the steps of a big building, and looking to the side to another street, and seeing lots of horses and people marching. It was very crowded, but VERY quiet -- the only sounds were the horses' hooves.

When, as an adult, I described this to my mother, she was absolutely ecstatic -- "You DO remember!" It turns out we had been watching from the steps of the Justice Department building, looking left toward Pennsylvania Avenue as the procession went by.

Subject: RE: BS: Earliest memories
From: Miken
Date: 01 Nov 03 - 01:45 AM

I have a strong memory of dusty old car seats and heat and my Mom being curled up next to me. I later found out I was only two months old and we were moving from Minnesota to Washington State in an old Ford model A. This was in 1941.

Subject: RE: BS: Earliest memories
From: Firecat
Date: 01 Nov 03 - 03:44 PM

I can vaguely remember my third birthday party. I had a snowman cake with a green 3 on the side.

Next clear memory is Easter at nursery when I was 4. I remember there was a trail all the way round the nursery in "Easter Bunny footprints" and at the end of it, there were enough Creme Eggs for the whole class! I had a cat as my picture next to my peg.