I'm trying to concentrate hard enough to have my earliest memory come forth. I can remember before kindergarten, and I remember pre-school with Mrs. Chimes. I remember living on Aqua Lane, before Kathy was born. But we lived in a little house in Northeast Philadelphia for two years before we moved to NJ, and I have no recollection of that.
Here's what I can remember from living on Aqua Lane:
I remember asking my mom who the devil was.
I remember having dreams about water coming through my bedroom window and washing me down the short flight of steps to the kitchen.
I remember listening to 45s on our children's record player, and thinking the song "Animal Crackers in My Soup" was eerie.
I remember when four of my cousins spent the night and we got up before it was light out and my youngest cousin, Mark, turned the radio on really loud and woke up my mom.
I remember Mary Anne and I would, every single morning, say goodbye to my Dad as he was going to work and we would yell out the door after him, "DON'T FORGET TO FEED THE MONSTERS!!!" (I do not know where we got that from. Sesame Street?)
I remember sitting around the kitchen table and my parents asking Mary Anne and me, with enormous enthusiasm, "Who wants to go trick-or-treating tonight?!?" and, instead of saying "Me! me!!", Mary Anne (who was in kindergarten) quietly raised her hand, and then so did I.
I remember sitting around the same table and my parents telling us that we were going to have another brother or sister soon and how exciting that was.
I remember running home from this kid P.J.'s sandbox [as if he owned it. We all called it "P.J.'s sandbox," even his older sister, Heidi] and, when I got to the front door, I was surprised that there was a giant pumpkin decoration on it. (That's the second memory from Hallowe'en that year. I must have just turned four that September.)
I remember an older girl in the neighborhood, Barbara Weiner, told me that Ronnie Ferro (a neighbor) poured a whole bottle of ketchup over his head and said "Bloody Mary" in the dark in the bathroom and she appeared to him in the mirror. (I mentioned this to her a couple of years ago when I saw her while visiting Delran and she looked at me like I was out of my mind and said she did not remember, which was disappointing for so many reason.)
I remember that I liked the pink crayon in our Crayola box because it was mottled from having rubbed up against all the other crayons but pure pink on the inside.
I remember my two favorite books: The Laughing Dragon (top favorite) and Stand Back, Said the Elephant, I'm Going to Sneeze!! (second only by a smidgen -- my dad would do all the voices of the different animals).
I bet I could keep going. I wish I could remember stuff from northeast Philly, but I don't think I can. I know there was a girl named Darah who lived on our street at that time, and I feel like I could picture her, but maybe that's because my parents always made fun of her parents because her parents were of the belief that they should never say "NO" to their child. And, one day, when Darah was over and doing something she shouldn't have been doing, my father yelled the word so loudly at her that she got scared, started to cry, and ran home. That was before we moved to New Jersey.
How about it? Do you have your earliest memory? What was it and how old were you?
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6 comments:
i remember when i lived in northeast philly, and our house backed up to a convent. The convent had it's own cemetary, where we would play hide and seek. One time I was hiding,apparently pretty well and noone found me,or the older kids forgot to look. the sun went down and there were bats flying in the twilight sky. i got spooked and came out of my hiding spot, and looked up and there was a life size statue of Jesus,sacred heart style and I got so terified i ran home with my eyes closed. this is my earliest memory that doesn't involve a picture or someone to colaborate the story. i was under 5 years old.
i can remember when i was two or three, in myton, before my mom's boyfriend mark "fell down a flight of stairs" (ie, od-d). i remember him hiding my shoes and teasing my best friend shelly and i, giggling when he chased us around. i remember being either older or younger and the little catterpillar thing with wheels that toddlers ride on disappeared and i suspected my parents but it did no good. it all had to be before i was four, because i stopped living with my mom when i was 3 1/2. i remember waking up late, every night, and eating carrots from the refrigerator, when everybody else was asleep because my mom told me i was allergic to them, but i loved them. maybe i wasn't supposed to have them because they're choking hazards? i don't know. she said i was allergic, but i've never heard of anybody allergic to carrots before, and i'm not now.
miah
i think i was two, definitely not older than three, because we only lived in the house on camillia st. until i was 3. i remember being out in the street, or on the sidewalk across the street from our house. i was with an older girl named sheri, i am guessing she was about 4 years old. she said "let's touch tongues!" and stuck out her tongue. i did likewise, and we touched the tips of our tongues together for a split second, then withdrew them and giggled. for me, it was a simple sensory experiment with another person. when i got home and reported the new game to my mom, she scolded me and instructed me never to do that again. "germs" i think, was the reason she offered.
I have a distinct memory of standing up in a crib, in my parents' room in our house on Bryn Mawr in Austin. My mom was standing in the doorway.
Once, I fell down in the driveway of that house. I don't remember falling down, but I do remember sitting bleeding in an emergency room with my mom, and I remember the strange feeling of the stitches in my eyebrow, the twine and the hair. I can imagine I had a hard time not touching it, and had to be told not to. Now I have a scar in my eyebrow, where my eyebrow doesn't grow.
my younger sister remembers waking before dark to eat an apple. she pulled it from the crisper in the fridge -- every single morning, for about a year. she says it was because she was hungry. she was three.
I remember a hillside in Mobile where there was a flowering tree. The flowers hung down and were conical, and, I believe, orange. Another kid and I put the flowers on the tips of our fingers and pretended to be witches. I spent a lot of time looking for that tree later in my childhood, but could never find it.
I also remember my grandmother's ancient refrigerator in Bombay. Every time you tried to open it, you got a strong jolt of electricity. Not enough to knock you down, but enough to make you think twice about looking for a snack.
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