Odd Memories from Early Age
 

As I was falling asleep last night in my apartment, I heard a bang downstairs. My super lives directly below me, so it didn't really alarm me, but instead I got the image of being a kid at my cousin's house, and they were horsing around and threw a football (I believe it was) which hit a ceramic lamp and broke it. I felt awful for them, but they all were laughing, as was the mother (my Aunt) who said, "I hated that lamp anyways, now I have an excuse to buy a new one!".

The other day vacuuming, as I was going through my bedroom, I had the image in my head of again being a child, and watching my friend's mother vacuum her room and anything that was on her floor. This included many 'cool' things to a kid, such as stickers. The mother seemed unconcerned, I ran around frantically picking stuff up before the Hoover could grab it.

Another is when I see honey bees (yes, the thread about bee stings got the wheels turning to post all this!). When I was very young, the elementary school was down a large hill from the high school. It was often the case that the kids would run from the elementary up the large grassy hill to the high school and back as recess ended. The only reason I recall this particular 'event' is because as I was running back down the hill as a young girl, in my sandals (with socks on, nothing has changed there!) I noticed a pain in my ankle. I looked down and a honey bee had stung me through my sock. I guess I had ran too close to it, running through the clover that littered the hill.

I don't remember a lot of my childhood, but I find that everyday activities and events trigger certain memories that are, for reasons unknown to me, ingrained in my memory. Anyone else recall memories from being a child that often return to them while doing the most mundane of activities?

Yeah, I get that sometimes. My kids bought me a bike for Christmas (with some $$ help from Dad). I began riding it this month. I've been a bit shaky with steering/balance, and I flashed back to when I learned to ride a bike when I was 6. I can remember the terror as I would fall after my dad let go of the bike. Just like the terror I feel now on my new bike... :eek:

Also, every holiday when I make my mom's famous oatmeal raisin cookies, I can remember her baking feverishly, but happily (Christmas was her favorite time of year). The aroma takes me back to me standing beside her, watching her every time. It makes me miss her so much...:(

Sometimes when I make my coffee in the morning, I remember the big 'ol Mr. Coffee maker my mom had. About the size of today's microwave ovens, LOL.

Christmas time reminds me of her sugar cookies. She used to grind up orange rinds to put into the recipe to give it some zest.

Baseball games remind me of my dad umpiring for my softball games and my brother's baseball games. And yes - he did call fairly. LOL, nothing like being called "out" by your parent. :)

I get that sort of deja vu sometimes. A smell or a sound or the taste of something will take me back in time to an event when I was young(er).

To this day if I ever get a whiff of resin from a pine tree I'm right back in my backyard sitting at the huge pine picnic table my Dad had. We'd cover it with newspapers and slice watermelons out there on summer days. That picnic table oozed resin and there would be sticky places all over it.

i get this too i remember running about getting stuff off the floor b4 my mom vacuumed cause she didnt care either, away it went

Well if any of yall know what country perfume is, every time i smell it brings me back to my childhood, and all those farms that were around us

we use a stove top perc for coffee and every time i brew a pot and the aroma fills the house i am back at my nana's same smell rich aromic smell of coffee

You just made me think of when I learned to ride a bike.

I'd gotten a little red bike with training wheels for Christmas. We had a warm winter, and I remember my dad telling me that he'd show me how to ride it on a warm day. (unseasonably warm...we werent even wearing coats and it was like probably early february or something at the time. I'd been staring at that bike since Christmas just waiting for a warm day) He was going to take the training wheels off for me. I'd been riding it in the basement, but kept tipping over and the training wheels were doing a number on the linoleum every time the bike tipped.

So, the warm day was forecast for the next day (pretty sure it was a weekday) My dad told me that he'd show me how to ride my bike. He just didnt tell me that I had to wait till he got home from work.

So, all day, I'm freaking out because my dad wasnt home and I really wanted to learn to ride the bike without the training wheels on it.

I finally couldnt take it any more. I went inside. Got the bike. (by the way, I was probably about 5yrs old) I pedaled around the driveway, and I just wanted to try riding it without the training wheels. I ended up going inside, and got into my dad's tool box. I think I brought out a screwdriver or three...a big huge adjustable pliers thingie that my dad used to use to clamp wood to his workbench when he was building stuff. (had a screw on the end of it that you turned to make the mouth of the pliers wider...not sure if it's a pliers or has some other name) and a few other tools that were probably inappropriate for taking training wheels off.

I sat down next to the bike, and eventually got the training wheels off with the big pliers thingie. I was one of those kids who wasnt afraid to take things apart. I could almost always put stuff back together too. (I used to take the strings of christmas lights apart...while they were on the christmas tree so that I could make the lights blink...which my mom hated)


I immediately abandoned the tools. Left them strewn all over the driveway. Grabbed the bike, and went up the hill to ride bikes with the other kids. I think I only fell once or twice, but I figured the bike out pretty quick. Even remembered how to use the brakes.

I saw my dad coming home, and yelled down to him to watch. Went down the hill, rode into the driveway with my bike, and ran over a screwdriver or two and skidded out. I may have also scraped my mom's VW Bug with the bike.

My dad was mad that I'd dragged half the tool box out, but I think he was glad that he didnt have to teach me to ride my bike.

Good thing he's a nurse, because when I skidded out, I skinned my knee. He gave me a band-aid, and then made me pick up all his tools and the abandoned training wheels to take inside. At least he didnt insist on putting iodine on my scraped knee.

The mind is so powerful!

About 20 years ago, an image popped into my mind that I could not figure out for the life of me. It came back to me frequently over the course of a few weeks. Finally, I couldn't stand it anymore and I called my mom. I asked her if she had any idea why I'd have a very fuzzy image of a single, decorated tile in a bathtub wall. She flipped completely out! Apparently, there was, indeed a single decorated tile among the plain ones in the bathtub wall of our first house. When my parents built the new house and moved us out of that one, I was 20 months old.

To this day, the smell of freshly cut grass always takes me back to Saturdays of the early 70's and George Kell calling the Tigers baseball game; my dad wearing his demoted white dress shirts to mow the lawn. When he mowed past the family room windows, it was our job to give him the count and the scores.

The smell of cigars makes me remember my dad and his brother coming home one day when my dad got off work at the Air Force base that he was doing his reserve duty at. His car was broken, and my uncle went to pick him up.

They came home, reeking of cigars. (this was a few months before my dad quit smoking forever) My dad picked me up (I was probably around 5) and his name tag on his Air Force uniform caught on me. It actually put a cut in my chest and t-shirt where it scraped me. It had a sharp edge!

I started to cry and my dad couldnt figure out why, and he didnt understand why I had a cut on my chest. I was sitting there crying because it hurt and there was blood!

My uncle took me and started to distract me by swinging me around the yard. I calmed down (the crying, at least) pretty quickly, and ended up making him spin me till he probably wanted to barf. That's one of my favorite memories about my uncle. He died 13yrs ago...

My dad got the band-aids and took care of the cut for me. Because every kid wants a band-aid even if the cut is really minor.

Why a lot of my memories involve band-aids and bleeding, I'll never know.

Actually, a lot of my memories about my dad are from him repairing an injury I'd caused to myself. The time I accidentally stabbed myself in the head with a drill bit. (me and a neighbor kid got into HIS dad's tools, and chaos and the bloodletting ensued...stabbing cardboard was fun...until I ended up with a drill bit to the forehead). I ran home, with blood running down my face. Afraid to touch anything because the blood was everywhere. So I rang the doorbell. My dad answered the door and took one look at me and then grabbed me. Next thing I can remember, I'm laying on the floor in the laundry room, with a coat under my head and my dad was trying to decide if I needed stitches.

And the time when I was 3 or 4, and was playing with my doll and her baby carriage. I was running up the hill, pushing the doll carriage, and one of the big stones that were in the wall around our house had fallen off and into the sidewalk. I didnt see it...hit it with the stroller and then fell down onto the sharp edge of the stone and sliced my right arm open from just below the wrist down to the elbow. (more bloodletting)

It's probably a good thing that my dad is a nurse and was almost always home whenever I'd come home, dripping with blood because I fell down, or dizzy AND bleeding from getting hit in the head with the business end of a hammer that flew 10 feet across a yard from where a friend was digging dirt with the claw end. (good thing it wasnt the claw side that hit me)

Oh my gosh, reading about aromas took me back...
my DH has an old bottle of Brut cologne on his dresser...no idea how old it really is...
anyway, once in a while I take a whiff of it, and it takes me back to the first summer we were going out...I was going into 9th grade. He was so handsome...oooh, that aroma really takes me back!;)

Hai Karate aftershave, and Old Spice.

I had an uncle that used Hai Karate. My dad used Old Spice. One Christmas my dad and my uncle had dueling aftershave scents...and my aunt's perfumes were clashing too.

I think we had a cold evening. My grandmother opened the window in the kitchen to air the place out so that we could breathe enough to open presents. Her crocheted afghans were good gifts that year.

I dont think anyone wore aftershave or perfumes to a family gathering after that.

I wonder if that's where I got my scent allergies?