Favorite Childhood Memory

[Lindsey]

I love this thread!!!!! I can start with a few...

I remember on my first day of playschool, I was sooooo terrified to go by myself. So my older brother was allowed to take a day off of Grade 1 to come to playschool with me I also remember one day at the beginning of playschool, and we built a big wall out of soup cans. Our teacher saw my mom coming to pick me up through the front window, and the teacher and all the kids whispered to me to hide behind the wall so my mom couldn't find me lol! I was so shy back then, and I would never speak out loud, I would just whisper to my best friend so he could talk for me. His name was Neil and his grandparents lived across the street from me.

I also remember in Kindergarten, we lived in a house that we could see the school from. One day my mom came to pick me up and I made her go home because I was a big girl and could walk home by myself. I'm sure she watched me the whole way! There was a big gully beside the school and one day on my walk home, a picture I made at school flew out of my hands or backpack and went way down the hill. I ran home as fast as I could, crying. My mom was on the phone with a friend and I was trying to tell her we had to go find my picture! She came out with me and we searched until we found it!

I also remember my husky, Brandon. In the winter, we had this sled we would hook him up to, and my brother and I would sit inside and my dad would stand on the back and Brandon would take us for sled rides!

I also remember in the winter, my parents getting together with all the other parents around the town and we'd go out to this big hill with sleds and snowmobiles. There'd be a big bonfire and hot dogs and hot chocolate, and us kids would sled down the big hill all day, and at the bottom our parents would hook the sled to the snowmobile and pull us back up the hill!

Those were all when I lived up north when I was really little. My dad worked for the power corporation and we were friends with the pilots, police, other power and energy families, and things like that. Every day our front window was covered in eggs... we were hated because we were "white". I don't remember anything negative like that, other than the constant eggs on the house. I found out later the reason we moved was because my dad caught my brother's classmates (in grade 2!) in our backyard in the middle of the night, sniffing the gas from our snowmobiles. My brother was getting to the age where his friends would be influencing him soon, and it just wasn't the place our parents wanted to raise us any longer.

We moved when I was 6 so all these memories were before that!

[Janet]

There is a memory I'm not real proud of. My nephew (sister's son) is two years younger than me. When we were little we were in the backyard playing. We were not allowed to say bad words and it was like Mom had radar or something....lol....so we always made sure we never said bad things. Well, one day Bobby Joe was over and kept saying swear words. I kept telling him to stop before Mom heard him but he wouldn't so I hit him in the head with a shovel. Bobby Joe had to have stitches and I got into big trouble. They did stuff like that on the Three Stooges all the time and they didn't have to have stitches.

[gja1000]

Lol! Janet that is so funny! Once my mom and I were sitting in the living room of our house. My mom had remarried and we had moved from the farm into this very small town (about 350 people). All of a sudden the door opened and a person dressed in a gorilla suit, from head to toe walked in. The person didn't say a word and just walked straight through the house and out the back door. Mom and I just looked at each other, like, "did that just happen." Then, a few minutes later, the back door opened and the gorilla walked into the house again. This time my mom jumped up and said, "if you don't get out of here, I'm going to knock the hell out of you" At that time my sister-in-law began to giggle and we knew who was in the suit. We sure had a big laugh then, but it wasn't too funny when we didn't know who it was. She spent several hours in that suit that day, walking around town spooking people. Today someone probably have beat the hell out of her.

[DianaB]

Oh Gayle......How funny!!

One Halloween after Glen and I had gone to bed we had three people in costumes come to our house. First of all they just beat on the sides of the house......then when we let them in all they would do is laugh......a spooky, witchy laugh......or say nothing at all. We couldn't figure out who they were and eventually they finally left. We did take some pictures of them and later found out that it was two of Glen's aunts and his little brother!! What happened was .......Glen's uncle's birthday is on Halloween and they went out for his birthday and decided to stop by our house on the way back to town!! They sure had us puzzled!!

I don't remember ever having anyone get seriously hurt from something I did......except for a good spanking!! I was always into things that I shouldn't have been!!! My Mom had her hands full with me.......sometimes I think that she still sits back and shakes her head at me!!

One time when I was probably 5th or 6th grade I was at a neighbor's house and he was pounding on a 22 shell!! I stood up on the porch.....which was about 6 inches taller than the driveway!!! He did finally get it to go off! It's a wonder that neither one of us was hurt!! Oh the things that my parents never knew and my kids will never know!!!

[gja1000]

LOL Diana, those Halloween costumed relatives are pretty funny! I bet you really were puzzled! When my sister in law pulled the gorilla costume on us, it was in the spring, not anywhere near Halloween, so we were just bumfuzzled!

When I was living with my grandparents we had one of those old time phones with the crank. Our "ring" was one long ring, two short rings and then one long ring. When you turned the crank, everyone on the party line could hear the phone ring and you had to listen for your "ring". My aunt's "ring" was one short ring, two long rings, and one short ring. I don't know how many were on our party line, maybe 10 homes, I'm not sure. Anyway, when I was about 4, and everyone was out of the house doing chores, I would get on the phone and crank away, which of course caused A LOT of ringing in everyone's house on the party line. One time a man got on the phone when I was ring ring ringing and told me if I didn't get off the phone he was going to come cut my ear off. Let me tell you, that was the last time I played with the phone. That scared me to death!!!

[DianaB]

So funny, Gayle!!!

We used to have an old lady who lived across the street from us and she had a fence around her yard and garden. If our ball went into her yard we had to knock on the door and ask permission to get it. Well.....her strawberry patch was close to the fence and some of the boys reached their arms through the fence and was picking her strawberries and eating them.......she yelled at us that she was going to call the police. She didn't but it was a threat that she often used. We never did know her very well......she was a grumpy old woman!!!

My first bicyle was a full sized bicycle with training wheels that I got for Christmas. Riding it in the house was impossible so it was put in the garage. The next summer my Dad said that if I wasn't going to ride it then he was going to get rid of it. I told him that if he would take the training wheels off of it then I would. I hated the bumping back and forth that it did with the training wheels on it. So I took it out in the front yard because we lived on a gravel road and tried and tried and tried to ride the bike. I can remember falling and falling which wasn't easy with a full sized bike......but I did learn to ride it!!

When I got a few years older......I came home from school one day and there was a nice new bicyle in the front yard. My Mom used to ride bicycles with a friend for exercise so I assumed that it was the friend's bicycle. It ended up that it was for me!! It was the first bicyle that I saw that had the narrower tires. Dad called it an English Racer!! I was so excited!! My Dad was always a softie for me!!!

[Janet]

Isn't it fun thinking back on these old memories? I'm enjoying reading all of yours. When I was young, so young in fact that my younger brother and I slept on the same army cot, we camped in a 9x9 tent. It was my mom and dad and Brad and I. We always went to this place called Sandy Beach and that is were we learned how to swim. I think we were there just about every weekend for quite a few years. We then got a larger 9x12 tent and then we got a 13 foot camper. We really had more room in the tent...lol. There was always another family that we knew that would go camp with us and that's how we spent our vacations too. Then Mom and Dad joined a campers club and we made so many new friends that have lasted till this day. When Mom passed there were only about 5 members left and most of them were women who had their sons or sons-in-law pull their campers for them. I have a lot of great memories from those years including meeting Cassius Clay (Muhammed Ali).