So, I was talking to someone recently, and I realised that I have these memories from when I was 4, from the Martial Law in Poland, which are not something most people have - I remember my parents (a medical doctor and a private business owner) raising little chicks in the basement, and smoking our own ham bought from the black market. :outback:
Do you have any out of character, weird memories like that? :P
I remember being absolutely terrified at night. I would see... things. A snarling wolf's head. People without eyes. Horrors beyond Horrors.
I can remember one memory from when I was 4 - my family was in Bermuda (my dad was working there), and we were swimming at a beach; my parents put a sort of styrofoam bubble strapped to my back as a safety device - only, the effect was to make me float face-down unless I dogpaddled frantically. A sort of un-safety device if you will. :lol:
I remember trying to get them to take it off me, but I was too young to describe why the thing was a bad idea.
I also remember from around the same time my brother having a pet spider the size of his hand, that he caught in its web - a web the size of the house. The spider bit him, causing him to scream, but he kept it anyway.
I also remember a smell, of a certain tropical plant. A sort of humid, perfumy smell. Every once in a while I come across it, but I still have no idea what causes it.
I thought this might be a false memory, as I was so young; but later I saw a slide taken at the time, of me wearing that damn bubble. My brother confirms the spider.
Why don't people in Poland remember Martial Law?
I remember a scene about my father teaching me how to walk. We were at home. He kept demonstrating to me how to walk correctly, and I followed. Somehow he thought it was wrong, and repeated the exercise. Apparently even today, my wife (and everybody else) thinks the way I walk is wrong.
Many years later. I was like 9 or 10. I ran for a bit. Just a few steps in a quiet mall. Then my mother openly wept. "He has never run before. Not outside the physical education classes." I was perplexed. I thought you guys told me that good kids don't run, eh?
I can remember playing in the back yard and my sister saying "I am four years old." That would have made me two. That is the earliest memory I have.
Several days ago, my mother and I were grabbing a bite at Arby's. I was mentioning how I fiend over curly fries because we used to frequent Olga's Kitchen when they still had a spot in the Oxford Valley Mall in PA. I pointed out that, thanks to Olga's, I fiend over 1) curly fries, 2) pita bread, and 3) plain yogurt.
Mom was really surprised to hear that I had such detailed memories of this, because I was 2-3 the last time we ate there, and was apparently still using a sassy seat.
Quote from: Admiral Yi on August 28, 2014, 10:47:24 PM
Never heard this before.
Basically, this contraption:
(https://languish.org/forums/proxy.php?request=http%3A%2F%2Fwww.babyborrowrental.com%2F22.jpg&hash=a77ab1169d2e140f14424df43a454275fdfa7206)
That's sassy!
I can't remember a time I couldn't read. I do remember a time before I was toilet trained. I think the fact I could read before I knew how to use a toilet should have tipped off my parents that something was wrong.
Oddly enough - I remember a trip to Edmonton (well St. Albert - an Edmonton suburb) as one of my earliest memories.
Our family went to visit my dad's friend and his family (another sports writer). They had another little boy the same age as me (as well as another littler boy, the same age as my little brother). I just have a few odds and ends. I remember that the boy (Brent) had a big R2-D2 lamp, which flashed with different colours (this was the late 70s - R2-D2 was super cool). I remember his parents had a giant mirror on the ceiling above their bed - I had no idea why they'd have that. :lol:
I remember the two of us peeing in the toilet at the same time and being excited that our pee formed an "x" as we were wizzing.
And I remember Brent's dad telling us a story, which I believe was actually telling us about the '72 summit series. :cool:
Now that I live in Edmonton, a year or two ago when my parents came to visit my dad hooked up with his old friend - and both me and Brent came along as well. It's a funny feeling meeting someone you haven't seen since you were just out of diapers. We actually got along rather well. :)
i remember the moment i decided to piss in a urinal for the first time. it went everywhere, and then i went back to class with stains all over my pants. :Embarrass:
We moved into a new house when I was almost 4, so that's my reference point for when stuff happened in my early memory. I remember lots of things from the old house-- when my brother & I had chicken pox, different times when we had company, the three friends I had on my street that were the same age as I was.
Some things I've mentioned to my mom & she said I couldn't have been more than 2 when they happened. My wife flat out doesn't believe I can remember anything that early, since she can barely remember things from when she was 6. But I've always had an odd tendency to replay past events in my mind (some meaningful and some trivial), which I guess helps them stick.
People who don't have memories of their early childhood are weird.
I remember being younger than 5 (like derspiess we moved when I was around 4) and getting "spanked" with a wooden spoon by my babysitter, I refused to cry and sat there on the bed and watched Speed Racer.
I remember being on the airport-transfer helicopter from Freetown to Lungi airport, in Sierra Leone. It's a very intense memory of thumping rotor blades, and looking out the window onto the bright blue sparkling sea below and the near-white sand of the beach.
I remember the weirdest and most minor stuff from when I was primary school age.
Like one time I was with my neighbour and some other older kids and they were telling me a load of stories about encounters they'd had with giants.
Another time at a Cub Scout visit to the beach and I found an interesting looking shell and left it with my dad. When I came back later he said it was a winkle and had come out to see him earlier... A bit later I accidentally stood on it and murdered the poor winkle. Still traumatises me.
I also remember one sleep over at my friends house where we planned to watch a show called eurotrash, I had never heard of it before but he promised it was amazingly bizzare; about a wacky Frenchman and lots of boobies. To our dismay the show never came on tv. The news was on channel 4 all night for some stupid reason- many years later I realised it was the 91 soviet coup attempt
Weird random bits from my days before school:
My granny sat down with me to teach me reading. But I don't recall that. However, I was standing with my Mom in front of a supermarket in the morning, waiting for it to open, when I realized I could read what was written on shop fronts, in ads etc. It was an odd epiphany.
In the first house I remember living in we had a rather large garden in the back. We had some fruit trees, some vegetable patches etc. There was also an old decrepit shack, separating the inner yard from the garden. Anyways. There was a large open area between garden and the shack, too, and my parents occasionally buried their junk there - an old refrigerator, car pieces, an old washing machine, that kind of thing. Cheaper than hauling it to the garbage place.
The house was pretty crap, and way below normal standards even in 1980. It had no bathroom, just an unheated toilet between the 1st floor where we lived, and the attic (there was another one in the ground floor). So once a week a huge tin bathtub was hauled from its resting place in the stairwell into the kitchen where my Mom painstakingly filled it with hot water from the boiler and cooking pots (it was emptied pretty much the same way).
Heating were coal ovens, and cooking was coal stoves. I recall we fried apples in the oven come Christmas time and they were awesome. However, someone (usually my older sisters) had to haul coal from the shack outside into the apartment.
In 1982(?) the anti-nuclear Easter Marches with thousands of participants passed our living room on their way to the army base where nuclear artillery shells were stored. My parents told me to stay away from the windows.
There was a little grocery shop across the street. I bought my first comics there ca. 1980 (Green Lantern, Superboy). On the way from that house to school there was a small shop, strategically placed at a traffic light used by many elementary school students, that sold stationery, school supplies and - most importantly - loose candy. So often we'd stop by, and get a bag that we mixed and matched ourself. The ladies were very patient when we were indecisive about what candy we wanted from the 20 or so drawers. The shop was also the place to go for sticker albums (football, movies etc.).
I recall a winter when the snow in our backyard reached above my waste (well, I was only 3 ...). Also, we used to let our planes fly. The candy shop also had "model planes", basically a styrofoam rump and wings, with a little plastic propeller at the front; the planes were loosely modelled after WW2 planes (Spitfires, Hurricanes, Mustangs ... no Messerschmidts IIRC).
My sistrs had their rooms upstairs. When they weren't there, and my Mom was at her Mom's across the street, and my dad asleep in his armchair after a day of work I would sneak up and "borrow" a bunch of their comics (mostly old Disney comics, but also a great collection of the German equivalent of "Tales from the Crypt" which I loved).
I remember coming home from 1st or 2nd grade one day, and our big color TV was gone. My sister thought I was pulling a prank, but no, it was gone. The official explanation was that it was broken. I learned much later that it had been repossessed to pay for some outstanding bills.
We moved to a much nicer apartment in 1983, when I was in 2nd grade. Electric stove tops! A bathtub and shower! Heating in the bathroom! :lol:
The old place has since been demolished. I may post some pictures in the back room if the fancy tickles me.
Speaking of events, my memory of the outside world is a lot fuzzier until I was around 9 or 10. I barely remember Carter being president (I was 7 when he left office). I do remember the 1979 energy crisis and the Iran hostage crisis. In second grade my teacher made us write letters to the hostages wishing them a Merry Christmas, which was a trick since she had no intention of mailing them :rolleyes:
Strange early childhood memories? Self-worth is the big one, obviously.
I remember clearly the day my mom came back home after my brother's birth, when I was 2 years and 9 months old. I came back from school with my dad and there were tons of people at home, family and friends, and my mom was resting in bed. I rushed there, climbed and snuggled next to her and asked her "Where's my baby brother?", because I couldn't see him, and I was told that he had to stay at the hospital but would soon be home (he had to stay there in observation for around a week because he was born with some kind of infant jaundice or something. Afterwards one of my mom's cousins showed me a lighter and taught me to use it.
Quote from: Syt on August 29, 2014, 11:50:12 AM
I recall a winter when the snow in our backyard reached above my waste
I just threw a little shade in my mouth. :x
I don't recall much of my early years, but then rarely actively try and recall it, it is after all the past.
I think there's a 'danger' with especially early memories or ones from a long time ago, that the act of remembering them, can distort or recast/retell the memories.
Off the top of my head, waiting with my sister for our brother to be born in the house, so that would be about 3 3/4 years.
I can remember a lot about my first school, also bits about kindergarten; I recently went to a meeting at a community centre in a large old town house, I climbed the stairs to the top of the building, the very same ones we climbed at kindergarten to go wash our hands, I didn't forgotten about it, but it's just something I don't spend time recalling.
In contrast I vividly remember a great deal of the events in the wider world from quit a young age, Vietnam in particular seems to have left an impression on me.
Quote from: The Brain on August 29, 2014, 04:54:31 PM
Quote from: Syt on August 29, 2014, 11:50:12 AM
I recall a winter when the snow in our backyard reached above my waste
I just threw a little shade in my mouth. :x
:lol:
Waist. :blush:
So Squeeze was a Cub Scout. Not sure what to make of that.
Quote from: The Larch on August 29, 2014, 12:42:06 PM
I remember clearly the day my mom came back home after my brother's birth, when I was 2 years and 9 months old.
Yeah, I was right around that age when my little sister came home; got to hold her on my lap on a big pillow. I remember a snapshot here or there of my mother pregnant, running my Matchbox cars across her belly, but that's it.
My Mom's story of my birth.
The contractions started at 5am. My Mom was unhappy because she wanted to make roasted duck that day. 12 hours of pain later, and still no baby Syt, the doctors performed a C-section (my Mom had three kids before me, and I'm the only one who was delivered that way).
I got my first name, because another lady in the hospital had a son by that name, and my Mom liked it.
When she came home a week later grandma - who had looked after the household - welcomed her back. They had a smoke and a cup of coffee. Grandma hadn't cleaned the place or done the dishes that day - she went home half an hour later and left the housework to my Mom.
I know I was born at 2 a.m. or so. I was an early child and had seizure attacks 3 or 4 times (they suspected epilepsy) until I was 5 - then they went away. And I turned out just fine. :P
I moved, also, when I was 4. I recall the moving day and the first night in the new house.
A mirror fell on me before the move, I don't remember it but I've got a scar to prove it (and pictures).
Do you know how much leg 15 suture point cover on a 4 year old? All of it.