When I was 4 we went on a trip and every motel room we stayed in was numbered 4. (In those day, weel before freeways, we always stayed at “roadside cabins” that usually were numbered 1 to 10 at most.)
One was shaped like a teepee and I had my picture taken, and another picture was taken of me standing next to a relic restored steam RR engine. It seemed the whole world was my lucky number.
(My age is always my lucky number, but as you get older, some numbers are hard to run into. Now, it’s down to a few elevator buttons in skyscrapers that are age-lucky.)
I can’t remember what age I would have been, probably 2 or 3, but I remember playing on the living room floor in front of the bookcase with these blocks we had. They were unusual blocks, flat and rectangular, painted shiny red on one side. The other side was unpainted wood. That’s all I remember, playing on the floor with flat rectangular blocks.
I was less than one. I remember standing in a walker – one of those steel-framed things on casters with a tray around the edge and a wire with colored wood beads on the front. A dog (a beagle) walks up to me and licks me in the face (my mother tells me that would be my Grandparents’ dog, Pudgy).
I also have a lot of memories from around the age of three, particularly about “fixing” mommy’s vacuum cleaner (I removed the dust bag – it quit running shortly thereafter) and the subsequent shopping trip to find a new one.
My earliest is pretty barren. I don’t know the age, but I was in diapers and didn’t walk yet. All I remember is our living room and the grandfather clock behind the couch. I loved just sitting and watching the pendulum.
Later, still not sure of my age, in another house of which I have several memories, my earliest there recalls a day when my aunt was babysitting me. While I didn’t walk or talk yet, I did understand a lot of speech. I was in a crib and I managed to crawl over the side and out into the hallway. A stairway was at one end and I crawled down the stairs; since I doubt the stairs went directly into the garage, I must have maneuvered through another room, but that detail escapes me. I did however make it to the garage and was charging (on all fours) for the great outdoors when I became aware of my aunt shrieking something to the effect of “Where is he!” I turned around and headed back (no, I don’t really know why) and she found me coming back up the stairs.
My first memory is my third birthday, blowing out the candles. I was wearing a green hat and it was at my grandfathers, so only family was there since I didn’t have any friends in DC.
Well, my earliest memory that I can date definatively is the morning of my fourth birthday, I didn’t believe my mom that it was my birthday. Almost certainly earlier, though, are the time that I fell face-first into wet cement on the sidewalk in front of our house, and probably earlier yet, I remember having the whooping cough, and Mom holding me and trying to comfort me. If you’ve never had whooping cough, BTW, I don’t recommend trying it.
My first memory? 1978 or so – I was about 18 months old. I was toddling through the kitchen holding a piece of paper I’d swiped from somewhere in my hand. I was eating the paper.
Fast forward a couple of years to when I was three and a half or thereabouts. There was this girl named Sally that used to babysit my sister and me, and sometimes her boyfriend (I think his name was Mark) would come by and visit her. I liked him because he could do magic tricks like pulling quarters out of people’s ears.
OK, I’ve got the info on those two early memories: Falling in the cement was sometime when I was three, and the coughing was when I was two and a half. Also, I misremembered: It was croup, not whooping cough. Still wasn’t fun.
I notice that most of the memories begin at, or after age 2. Mine takes place when I was under 1 year old.
Mrs. Weathers used to babysit me, and she had a large (well, large to a 1 yr. old), plush banana that she kept in her living room, which I played with everytime I went over her house. To this day, I remember that banana, and what it looked like, and I can still feel it in my hands.
This may be hard to believe, but I remembered being in my mother’s womb. I have since forgotten it, but I told my Mom the story when I was 3 years old.
Burlington Coat Factory had a commercial out, in 1980, that showed fabric being “woven” onto the screen, in an interlaced pattern. I looked at the TV, and said to my Mom, “Mommy, that’s what it looks like inside you.” Now, this came from my 3 yr. old mouth. Both my parents were stunned that I knew what my mother’s uterus looked like. My Mom did not find out until many years later, after medical school, that the lining of the uterus does infact bear a striking resemblance to that commercial. She said when she saw the picture, she started crying, because she remembered what I told her when I was 3.
Memories are so important to me. Sometimes I’ll sit quietly, and remember things from when I was 3, like going to see “Empire Strikes Back” in the theater. I don’t know about all of you, but if I concentrate hard, I can remember nearly every day of my life. (To a certain extent)
All right, the thread’s title brought up this joke, but I can’t think of a better place to tell it than right after Zion’s post.
Three old men are sitting in a park. First one says “So what’s your earliest memory? I remember getting put in this scratchy outfit and getting splashed in the face with some cold water.”
Second one says “I remember it being all dark and warm, then getting horribly squeezed and coming out into a bright, cold place.”
Third one muses for a minute, then says “I remember going to a picnic with my father and coming home with my mother.”
rimshot Thenk yew, ledeez an’ gentz! I’ll be here all week, please remember to tip yer servers.
Olentzero’s earliest memory
I’m not sure if it was my sister’s christening, but it was thereabouts, which puts me at around 18 months. I was in a church with my family and was getting rapidly bored, so I booked out of the pew and went up to the choir loft. The singers were all impressed and gave me a hymnal to look at while I hung out. I think my grandmother finally came and got me.
I verified this one with Mamma O a couple of years ago because it’s a very vivid memory, and I wanted to make sure it wasn’t a remembered dream or something. She placed it with the appropriate age.
