To: Ish who wrote (49539 ) 4/23/2000 10:17:00 PM From: Crocodile Read Replies (2) | Respond to
I'm always a little fascinated by the selective nature of childhood memories..... interesting to examine the things that make the biggest impression on kids. A few of the things that loom largest in my own memories are:
Age 5: Going into the garage on a winter day when there was nobody watching me and filling bucket after bucket of bird seed which I spread out all over the snow in the back yard. Our house was on the edge of a forest, so for the next few days, the backyard was filled with the most amazing assortment of partridge, pheasants, bluejays, and other birds... hundreds of them at a time.
Age 5: Being locked inside of a closet by my friend's older brothers when I was at her house for her birthday party. (Incidentally, I became very claustrophobic after that event).
Age 6: Catching a few dozen little black tadpoles which I brought home in a bucket. My mom put them in a plastic baby bath so that I could look at them for the afternoon. While I was doing something else for a short while, my brother dumped the baby bath over on the sidewalk and stamped all over the tadpoles. When I came back to look at them, they just looked like a bunch of smashed blueberries on the sidewalk... That made an unbelievable impression on me.
Age 6: The incident with the devil mask on the doorknob down in the basement stairwell (previously related on DAR).
Age 7: Standing outside of the door at school and having a big boy run out the door holding a basketball in front of him. He crashed into me and I was knocked backwards down the concrete steps and smashed the back of my head. I remember just lying there looking up at the sky and then having kids appear in a circle around me...and then a teacher coming along to see if I was ok.
Age 7: Getting my tongue stuck to the cold metal on the side of the school and not being able to "get away" when the end-of-recess bell rang.
Age 8: Tying my big labrador retriever's leash to the handlebars of my tricycle and zooming down the street going so fast that I couldn't put my feet on the peddles. The fun came to a rather abrupt end when the handlebars came out of the front of the tricycle and I spun out and crashed as the dog took off down the street with the handlebars bouncing along behind...
Age 9: Getting mad at my mom because she insisted that I wear a snowsuit outside on a cold winter day. I was sent up to my room, but I slipped out the door onto the 2nd floor balcony of the house, jumped down onto the garage roof and then tried to drop off onto the ground...only the skin on my fingers got stuck to the metal railings on the garage roof... so there I was...hanging there for a few minutes until the elderly man in the next house, looking out of his kitchen window, saw me there and reported the strange apparition to my mother... The story ended with me returning to my room by a rather round-about way...
I could write more..but I think you get the idea... Most of childhood memories are a little... uhmmm...hair-raising. Seems like something was always "happening"... :-)
croc
