I Have A Good Memory

Day 14: Your Earliest Memory


When I was barely 5 we moved from our city house to our country house. So these are the memories of the city house.. I was 4 years old. My sister was born 4 months before I turned 4.

• My mom folding cloth diapers into a dresser for my sister, but I don't know if it was before or after she was born. I think I remember waking up one morning and asking my grandmother where my mother was, and being told she was at the hospital, going to bring my baby sister home. It was odd to have Grandma there.
• Falling out of my new big-girl bed, getting up and going the other twin bed in my room and falling out of it, then going back to 'my' bed and staying there.
• The tiles were white and cold in my bedroom.
• The front closet smelled strongly of something, maybe mothballs and leather.
  
• Getting my bike with training wheels, propping it up on the curb so I could pedal fast and make the back wheel spin. There were wooden blocks bolted to the pedals so I could reach them.
• Eating real peanuts you had to shell.
• How the girl down the street's older brother was so big and fast on his bike. He scared me.
  
• How the boy across the street had low three wheelers and a dog just like the Benji dog on television.
• I remember sitting on an ant colony and them crawling all over me. My mom freaked out.
  
• The neighbor's had prickly pears on a vine along the fence beside our driveway and they hurt my finger.
• The mail lady always fed my dog a treat.
• I remember being scared of my Dad when he broke his leg because he was never supposed to break, he was superman. That leg in a cast wasn't his. It couldn't have been.
• I got in trouble for crossing the street and playing with the neighbors who had a deaf Mom. They had a bouncy ball with a handle the older boy refused to let us little girls play on. He bounced to me and I froze because I could see up his shorts.
  
• The day was allowed to go over and play on the slip 'n slide, I knocked the wind out of my lungs and was afraid I was going to die. Then I played hide-n-seek.
  
• I rode bikes with Mom a couple blocks to the park, my sister behind Mom in the kiddie seat, I on my training wheels. I don't remember the park, just the ride.
• Going to daycare with my sister and Mom, where she worked, and seeing a boy who had fallen and cracked his head open leave with papertowels wrapped around his head; the tire swings that everyone hogged; the book I brought was loaned to a kid who tore it and was returned with tape all over it; the girls thought it was funny to share a toilet at restroom time, two peeing at the same time; two girls arguing over who was darker skinned.
• My dog would come in when it was really cold and curl up on an old blanket and not move from beside the fireplace. I tried to play with him, but he was too shivery. I brought my toys to him instead.
• My Dad getting rid of a Strawberry Shortcake metal doll stroller that he claims was broken. I threw a fit over it. I don't remember playing with it much, but the moment he was going to take it to the dump, I knew it was my most prized possession in all the world and he was just cruel to take it from me. :P
• Flipping over the kiddie pool in my front yard to dump out the water, it was heavy, but I could do it.
• My dog getting a bath in a metal tub.
• Trying very hard to learn to do a cartwheel OVER the hose sprawled out in the yard.
• Visiting a neighbor lady who was old and had green shag carpet. She gave me jelly beans. I didn't like them.
• I hated the clown makeup they made me wear on Halloween. It was cold. The old people liked it. One house gave me strawberry candies with jelly in the middle. They were okay until the jelly part. I don't like jelly.
• My Kermit the Frog balloon. I took him swimming in the kiddie pool with me. He was on a stick. I was sad when he popped.
  

• The day we moved, EVERYONE in my life showed up to help us and I thought it was a Grand Time. Excitedly, I told the neighbor boy that we were moving today and I didn't understand why he was so sad and didn't want to play with me. The girl across the street had already moved. It hit me later what that really meant.

This work is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution-Noncommercial-No Derivative Works 3.0 United States License.