Favorite Childhood Memory

[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).

[gja1000]

OK Janet, you are going to have to tell us about meeting Mohamad Ali!!!!!

[DianaB]

I agree.....do tell!!!

I can remember going camping at the lake. My Mom and Dad were in the tent and my brother and I had a mattress in the back of Dad's company station wagon. In the middle of the night a storm came up and Mom and Dad got in with us. My Mom had just gotten contact lenses and told Dad that they were in the tent......so he ran back out in the rain to get them......then she remembered something else......so Dad ran back and got it too. Then Dad remembered that his wallet was in the tent too but he decided to just leave it. The tent collapsed in the wind and we all spent the night in the car. The next morning there was Dad's money all over the ground and things scattered all over.....plus other people's stuff floating by in the lake. We found out later that there had been a tornado not too far from us. Glen remembers when the tornado hit because it damaged his Aunt's house that was at the lake. It's funny that we both have different memories of the same thing!!

[Janet]

I don't remember too much as I was really young. We always camped at Sandy Beach and it is on Lake Freeman. It's not a big lake where celebrities would come to so it was a shock that one was there. He was known as Cassius Clay then. We were up there for the week on vacation and playing around the boat docks scooping minnows for fishing when a boat pulled up to fuel. The attendant told us to stand back for a few minutes until the boat got tied.

Cassius Clay got out of the boat along with a couple of other people and greeted us kids, there was me, my brother Brad, Jim and Johnny Sanders and their little sister and another kid that I don't remember their names. We all got his autograph, but I didn't know who the heck he was...lol. I mean, come on...I was a girl and I didn't watch boxing. I don't know what ever happened to the autograph or if my brother still has his packed away somewhere. See, it wasn't exciting, but just a part of my growing up.

[gja1000]

That still really cool, Janet! Even if you didn't know who he was then

[Janet]

I also remember about that beach that just about every year, someone would not be watching their child and they would wander down by the boat dock. The cement would have that green slippery stuff on it and then the child would slide down. We always sat at the picnic table by the dock because our friend and uncle had boats. Dad would jump in and save the child, then we'd have to go find the parents with a crying child.

[DianaB]

Wow!! Your Dad was a hero!! How cool!!!

How neat that you met M A!!! Awesome!!

My Aunt Marva is 7 years older than me and when I was little I remember sleeping with her and she told me all about going to school. She said that the teacher had play dough and a place that I could sit at at the back of the room and that I could go to school with her the next morning. I was so excited and got up and around the next morning but it ended up that my Mom wouldn't let me go. I still remember watching Marva get on the school bus and crying!!!

I remember that there was a swing in the front yard of where Grandma and Grandpa lived and Marva would swing me in it and run under the swing making me go really high!!