Reply #20: I have a fair number of memories [View All]

and the more I think about my youth, the more they come to me.

I have a clear memory from about the age of two and a half of my mom telling me I needed to take a nap and I didn't want to. I didn't feel tired. She said I should just go put my head down a few minutes and I did just that. She got mad at me when I came back out of the room a few minutes later.

I remember my neighbors butchering chickens later that summer. It was the first time I realized where drumsticks came from.

I also remember moving about six months later to a new town about 2 hours away. My mom was driving the car and my grandmother rode beside her. I was too short to see out and because we were in a snow storm, they made me wear my seatbelt. Blue vinyl seats are totally boring after about 10 minutes. I remember that a semi passed my mom and splashed slush on the windshield. For a few moments my mom couldn't see and my grandmother went into a rant about discourtious truck drivers.

I remember walking up the street at my new home to the fairgrounds to see the sulky races. Been in love with horses ever since.

I remember moving again to a house on a lake, the neighbor boys and their collie, Rocky, learning to ride a bicycle and sledding down a huge hill in the neighborhood out onto the ice for what seemed like miles.

I remember being afraid of my great grandfathers. One I could never understand any more than to know he was teasing me, then he would hook his cane around my neck and drag me to him. Scared me to death. The other was quiet and loved to watch boxing. Never mattered when we visited, he always had boxing on TV and a half-finished solitare game on the table. He let me try his chewing tobacco once. Nastiest stuff I've ever put in my mouth.

Odd, the things we remember from childhood.