# Whats the oldest memory you have? **URL:** \ **Category:** In My Humble Opinion\ **Created:** [May 27, 2014, 5:19am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/whats-the-oldest-memory-you-have/689352 "2014-05-27T05:19:09Z")\ **Posts on this page:** 20\ **Page:** 2
**Author:** ![Artemis\_Tardis](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/a/4bbf92/32.png) [@Artemis\_Tardis](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Artemis_Tardis)\ **Post date:** [May 27, 2014, 2:58pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/whats-the-oldest-memory-you-have/689352/21 "2014-05-27T14:58:23Z")
ANother one: I was laying on my red crib. I could probably draw it right now and it would be quite similar to the original one. Dad installed two lights on the top of my crib. They had reflectors on their back, just like [that one.](http://www.lampsavers.co.uk/images/uploads/original/reflector-lamp.jpg) It was creeping me out, because they really looked like a pair of huge eyes. I cried for mummy and slept on her bed. I also ate crayons with the thought that they would taste like chocolate, probably because of their texture/glossiness). And grass. ---
**Author:** ![Artemis\_Tardis](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/a/4bbf92/32.png) [@Artemis\_Tardis](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Artemis_Tardis)\ **Post date:** [May 27, 2014, 3:01pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/whats-the-oldest-memory-you-have/689352/22 "2014-05-27T15:01:41Z")
I could also draw a pretty accurate floor plan of the place I lived on the Netherlands. I did saw some pictures of that place, but I think it is still safe to say that I know about places that were not pictured. Dad had a workshop on the basement. I spend time there with him, randomly nailing nails to a block of wood. It ended up looking like a porcupine. ---
**Author:** ![Zeldar](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/z/b77776/32.png) [@Zeldar](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Zeldar)\ **Post date:** [May 27, 2014, 3:14pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/whats-the-oldest-memory-you-have/689352/23 "2014-05-27T15:14:57Z")
My dad was a camera buff in my early years and there are several albums of pictures of me (and others in the family) from age 0 to maybe 6 or 7. I enjoyed looking at those pictures from as early as one or two and therefore have blurred the distinction of real memories from those images in the pictures. To this day I can’t really identify the first legitimate memory. Best guess, maybe 2 or 3, but it’s only a guess and I have no clear sense associations with it. The downside of having doting parents who loved taking pictures. ---
**Author:** ![Quimby](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/q/22d042/32.png) [@Quimby](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Quimby)\ **Post date:** [May 27, 2014, 3:25pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/whats-the-oldest-memory-you-have/689352/24 "2014-05-27T15:25:32Z")
My earliest memory was watching Bugs Bunny on TV. Based on where the TV was positioned in our living room, I had to be between 2 and 3 years old. ---
**Author:** ![AHunter3](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/ahunter3/32/368_2.png) [@AHunter3](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/AHunter3)\ **Post date:** [May 27, 2014, 3:40pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/whats-the-oldest-memory-you-have/689352/25 "2014-05-27T15:40:52Z")
I don’t know with precision. Our family moved when I was 2 years 2 months old and if I have any memories of my life before the move, they are so vague and so unattached to conscious analytical thoughts I might have been having at the time that I dont’ know that’s what I’m remembering when I do recall them. On the other hand, we lived in the next house until I was 4 and I have quite a boxful of memories from that timeframe. So somewhere between 2 and 4. ---
**Author:** ![Clothahump](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/c/51bf81/32.png) [@Clothahump](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Clothahump)\ **Post date:** [May 27, 2014, 3:57pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/whats-the-oldest-memory-you-have/689352/26 "2014-05-27T15:57:42Z")
I have a very clear memory of an incident that occrred at age nine months. My sister confirms it, as she was involved. ---
**Author:** ![MonkeyMensch](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/m/82dd89/32.png) [@MonkeyMensch](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/MonkeyMensch)\ **Post date:** [May 27, 2014, 4:09pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/whats-the-oldest-memory-you-have/689352/27 "2014-05-27T16:09:33Z")
One or two recollections at age four followed by whole bunch starting at age five. My guess is that the memories started slowly and accelerated but I have so much in those memories at five that can be anchored to events (we moved and I started kindergarten) that I’m convinced that that was the starting point of real memories, for whatever that means. ---
**Author:** ![El\_Kabong](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/el_kabong/32/496_2.png) [@El\_Kabong](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/El_Kabong)\ **Post date:** [May 27, 2014, 4:19pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/whats-the-oldest-memory-you-have/689352/28 "2014-05-27T16:19:55Z")
I believe the absolute earliest dates from when I was 2 or so. It was Christmas day and the house was full of people. I had somehow got hold of a pair of wire cutters and snipped through the cord to the transformer of the American Flyer train layout under the tree. While it was plugged in. Despite what I was later told was a spectacular flash, I was unharmed. Most of my other early memories seem to start from around age three, and are made up of an unending series of traumatic events like having my stomach pumped out after (maybe or maybe not) swallowing half a bottle of aspirin; being hospitalised for bronchitis, getting my stomach pumped _again_ for God knows what, throwing up what seemed like a full pound of spaghetti all over the kitchen floor, getting tossed in a pool by my Dad in some misbegotten attempt to ‘teach’ me to swim by necessity, and completely losing my shit the first time I was exposed to the sound and light of fireworks. Looking back, it seems obvious why I had a reputation as a skittish and fearful kid all the way into my teens. ---
**Author:** ![Ethilrist](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/ethilrist/32/4604_2.png) [@Ethilrist](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Ethilrist)\ **Post date:** [May 27, 2014, 4:37pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/whats-the-oldest-memory-you-have/689352/29 "2014-05-27T16:37:19Z")
I remember going to a picnic with my Dad and going home with my Mom. Naw, just kiddin’. Two or three years old, Fourth of July, standing on our front lawn watching my older brothers burn [Black Snakes](http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Black_snake_(firework)) in the gutter, back in the day when letting 10-year-olds play with matches was perfectly fine. ---
**Author:** ![gracer](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/g/8e7dd6/32.png) [@gracer](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/gracer)\ **Post date:** [May 27, 2014, 5:04pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/whats-the-oldest-memory-you-have/689352/30 "2014-05-27T17:04:46Z")
> [@El\_Kabong](#): > > Looking back, it seems obvious why I had a reputation as a skittish and fearful kid all the way into my teens. But not as “the kid who will eat a bunch for random crap for laughs”? 😃 I thought that was the theme… ---
**Author:** ![Skywatcher](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/skywatcher/32/254_2.png) [@Skywatcher](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Skywatcher)\ **Post date:** [May 27, 2014, 5:12pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/whats-the-oldest-memory-you-have/689352/31 "2014-05-27T17:12:02Z")
Stopping for lunch supplies at a convience store in Indiana on a family trip up to the Dunes in Dad’s green Ford van. Dad replaced the van with a brand new Ranch Wagon the year I turned 3 so I had to be younger than that. ---
**Author:** ![Magiver](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/m/4491bb/32.png) [@Magiver](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Magiver)\ **Post date:** [May 27, 2014, 5:15pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/whats-the-oldest-memory-you-have/689352/32 "2014-05-27T17:15:42Z")
> [@Mangetout](#): > > I remember being bathed sitting up in the kitchen sink - it was a double sink and my sister was in the other one - we pretended the two sinks were a train. > > I can’t have been older than three when this happened (as we moved to a different house in a different country) Same here. Sink baths. I can peg a lot of early memories because I moved at age 5. One of my fondest was the city “[pool](http://www.bing.com/maps/?v=2&cp=r58wx78pwp8r&lvl=19.16&dir=274.02&sty=b&q=oneida%20new%20york&form=LMLTCC)”. It was dug out next to the reservoir. It was filled with sand and had telephone polls staked lengthwise into the sides with a dock at one end with a diving board. to clean it they just drained it off and refilled it. It’s still there and is now a preserve with trails. I was heart broken when the city built a pool in town and abandoned the other one. It just wasn’t the same. ---
**Author:** ![bump](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/b/7c8e57/32.png) [@bump](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/bump)\ **Post date:** [May 27, 2014, 5:40pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/whats-the-oldest-memory-you-have/689352/33 "2014-05-27T17:40:54Z")
I have a few memories that have to be from when I was 3; for example I remember going around our neighborhood with my parents looking at the Bicentennial-painted fire hydrants, that happened to be the same height as me. Considering that I was born in Sept. 1972, I wasn’t 4 yet when the Bicentennial rolled around in 1976. I also have some “unanchored” memories that may be earlier, but that I don’t really have any idea as to when they happened or what order they happened in. Ones like getting my “dancing shoes” to dance around when I was a very little boy, or being the same size as my teddy bear and wearing the same clothes. I do have one old memory of riding in a car seat in my parents’ car, which means that I must have been very small- probably 2 years old or so. I also faintly recall getting the scar on my forehead by running into a light post and getting 2 stitches. My parents swear I was 2 when that happened as well. ---
**Author:** ![Qadgop\_the\_Mercotan](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/qadgop_the_mercotan/32/83_2.png) [@Qadgop\_the\_Mercotan](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Qadgop_the_Mercotan)\ **Post date:** [May 27, 2014, 5:58pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/whats-the-oldest-memory-you-have/689352/34 "2014-05-27T17:58:38Z")
Lying in my crib, staring up at the light fixture, and crying with the hope of making my mother’s face appear above me. I remember being upset when my father showed up instead. (Not that we had a bad relationship, he was a great dad. Especially for a 1950’s kid.) I must have been under 1 year. ---
**Author:** ![Artemis\_Tardis](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/a/4bbf92/32.png) [@Artemis\_Tardis](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Artemis_Tardis)\ **Post date:** [May 27, 2014, 7:48pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/whats-the-oldest-memory-you-have/689352/35 "2014-05-27T19:48:42Z")
> [@Magiver](#): > > One of my fondest was the city “[pool](http://www.bing.com/maps/?v=2&cp=r58wx78pwp8r&lvl=19.16&dir=274.02&sty=b&q=oneida%20new%20york&form=LMLTCC)”. It was dug out next to the reservoir. It was filled with sand and had telephone polls staked lengthwise into the sides with a dock at one end with a diving board. to clean it they just drained it off and refilled it. It’s still there and is now a preserve with trails. I was heart broken when the city built a pool in town and abandoned the other one. It just wasn’t the same. You are the first person I have ever seen using Bing Maps. ---
**Author:** ![Artemis\_Tardis](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/a/4bbf92/32.png) [@Artemis\_Tardis](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Artemis_Tardis)\ **Post date:** [May 27, 2014, 7:51pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/whats-the-oldest-memory-you-have/689352/36 "2014-05-27T19:51:05Z")
Nother one popped up: First day at Kindergarten. I entered the room. A boy hit me with his pedal tractor toy. Few weeks later all the mothers came over to build a paper boat (that was quite elaborate, actually) with us. ---
**Author:** ![OldGuy](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/o/3bc359/32.png) [@OldGuy](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/OldGuy)\ **Post date:** [May 27, 2014, 8:07pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/whats-the-oldest-memory-you-have/689352/37 "2014-05-27T20:07:48Z")
I can recall bits from my stay in the hospital after an operation on my eye at age 4. That’s probably a little earlier than one of my first days at nursery school when I was quite upset and crying because the teacher insisted my name was spelled John while I KNEW it was spelled Jon. I would have been 4 years and about 6 months for that. Probably an even earlier memory Dad spraying me with whipped cream when he tried to put it on my sister’s dessert. It was in the now ubiquitous pressurized can, but this was apparently my father’s first use of one. I was 5 or younger for that as we moved from that house, but I don’t know my age precisely. ---
**Author:** ![Filbert](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/filbert/32/3433_2.png) [@Filbert](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Filbert)\ **Post date:** [May 27, 2014, 8:19pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/whats-the-oldest-memory-you-have/689352/38 "2014-05-27T20:19:45Z")
The earliest one I can date was age 2.5, being hit in the fact with a hammer by my brother. It was an accident, and he was only 5, but nearly 30 years later I can still lay on the guilt trip 😉 ---
**Author:** ![Suburban\_Plankton](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/suburban_plankton/32/219_2.png) [@Suburban\_Plankton](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Suburban_Plankton)\ **Post date:** [May 27, 2014, 9:51pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/whats-the-oldest-memory-you-have/689352/39 "2014-05-27T21:51:52Z")
I have a memory of sitting on my living room floor in front of our old console TV, watching men walking on the moon…but I have no idea which mission it was. I was just a couple weeks short of my 3rd birthday when Apollo 11 landed, so it’s possible that’s the event I remember, but it could very well have been one of the later missions instead. ---
**Author:** ![Weedy](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/weedy/32/301_2.png) [@Weedy](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Weedy)\ **Post date:** [May 27, 2014, 10:27pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/whats-the-oldest-memory-you-have/689352/40 "2014-05-27T22:27:31Z")
Trying to grab a balloon that kept bouncing away from me. It floated onto the hall table, where it hit something and popped. I always thought it was my brother’s balloon but when I told my mum this memory she said it happened at day care when I was two and my brother was already in school then. [Previous page](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/whats-the-oldest-memory-you-have/689352.md?page=1) [Next page](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/whats-the-oldest-memory-you-have/689352.md?page=3)