So that's me just starting out and I was clueless about the world. My brother actually looks pretty happy, but maybe they said, "Hold her so we can take a picture and you'll win a prize!"~
I've been very introspective lately and the more I think about it the more I realize what a strange child I was. And I think I was just very lonely. I was always going to people's houses and inviting myself in to just "hang out" from the time I was three. I guess because I was an easy kid and my brother was the troublemaker, I was pretty much left alone. The reason I know I was three when I was wandering around the neighborhood, is because we moved a lot so it is easy to verify dates from where we lived.
~
My brother had a friend that lived up a dirt road hill from us and I was enamored with his mom. I was always walking up there and knocking on the door. As an adult, I can imagine how annoying that must have been for Mrs. C. But she was very nice.
~
Mom worked nights and slept during the day and a large black lady kept house and was supposed to be watching my brother and me. My only memories of her are of us sitting on the front porch and she is sprinkling salt on lettuce. I asked her if I could try it and she looked around and let me have a bite. I thought it was good. I wonder why she was so chubby if she snacked on lettuce?
~
Another memory from that time was coming home from something with my Mom and brother and my brother saying, "You have another name, you know? You have a middle name." For some reason it was like he said, "You have horns growing out of the back of your head and you smell like dog poop." Because I went crazy yelling and screaming, "I DO NOT! I DO NOT!" It took me a while to accept the fact that I had a middle name.
~
I used to go around in the various neighborhoods I lived in and knock on doors with a coffee cup in my hand and ask, "Can I borrow a cup of sugar?" When the lady would ask, "What do you need it for?" I would respond, "Oh, I don't need a cup of sugar, but this is how you meet people on TV."
~
When my Dad became a Little League coach someone got the idea to sell Krispy Kreme donuts to raise money for the team. They didn't have them in our town, so Mom, my brother and I made the drive to Raleigh, N.C. and filled our car with boxes of donuts. I went out on my own with a little wagon full of donuts at the age of 6 and sold more than anyone. I didn't get why everyone was so surprised because I "knew" everyone. I'm guessing those people bought the donuts because they were relieved that that was all I was there for.
~
When I was in school, teachers were always sending me to the teachers' lounge to get coffee and I became depressed knowing I could never be a school teacher because I knew I would never drink coffee. For some reason I thought you had to drink coffee.
~
When I was 3 or 4, I used to think that the music coming out of the radio was all being performed live by all those different bands. It was sort of thrilling to think they were all just down the street because the local radio station wasn't far from our house.
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When men would visit our house and say how cute I was, I would always ask them if they had a quarter. (And my parents never told me that was wrong.)
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Every Christmas I would wish for a magic wand. I never got one and thought Santa didn't like me.
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When I was in daycare, I wet the cot during naptime and didn't have a change of underwear. My first cousin had a spare pair so they put those on me and he was more embarassed than I was. He also broke his arm out on the playground and it was so gross I blocked it out of my memory. I may have fainted.
~
When my parents went to parties where everyone took their kids, I wouldn't go in the back room and play with the other kids. I would curl up in a corner under a table and pretend to be asleep and listen to the "grown-up talk."
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I learned about hot and cold in relation to skin and pores from reading some weird serial comic in the back of Playboy magazine. I think it was "LIttle Annie Fannie."
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My brother and I could hear the TV from our bedroom and would discuss the shows from what we heard and that's why I think TV is more of an aural than a visual experience for me.
~
Speaking of that, my brother and I shared a room until we were 8 (me) and 12. For years I was very embarassed about that, but I got over it.
~
So what are your weird childhood memories? Did you think Bozo the clown looked like that 24/7? Did you think fast food was modern and scientific like the Jetsons? Were you ever clueless?
14 comments:
I enjoyed your sharing all of these memories of your early childhood....and I got such a 'feeling' about you as a child....The lonliness, particularly. It is amazing--the things we do instictively as tiny children, to survive, isn't it?
I remember believing everything. I waited daily for the romper room lady to look through her magic mirror and call out my name. I wanted Mom to buy Imperial margarine, so that when I ate it, that big magnificent crown would appear on my head. And my mother told me that Jack Frost painted the windows at night; I still have a vision of that when I scrape my windows every morning.
Later, I was chubby and awkward, and teases mercilessly, which served to make me socially shy and standoffish; I still blush when I remember some of the things I said to junior-high classmates that asked questions of too personal a nature, in my mind. "It's none of your business!" didn't make me any friends, I soon found out.
I think I'm wiser now. In some respects.
Great post! Sounds like you were a lot like Eloise, the precocious little girl from the picture books. I used the think the guy we called for the time and temperature was actually there saying "70 degrees at 4:00" (or whatever). I had no idea it was a recording. Also, I thought the actors on TV could see us like we could see them. (I was 3 at the time.)
It's funny, as a young child I was also friends with the older ladies in our neighborhood. They'd offer me chocolate chip cookies and milk and they were never rude to me. In fact, they missed me when I didn't come around.
Not so long ago there actually were live bands playing at radio stations, though I'm pretty sure you're not that old. Okay - my oddest childhood memory is at about age 4 or so walking to the highway on a Sunday afternoon while my parents were "napping"(quite a hike) and laying down in the ditch at the side of the road hoping someone would see me and think I was dead or injured and stop. No one ever did except our neighbour who would load me into his truck and take me home with a big exasperated sigh.
When I saw my dad smoking in winter I thought it kept him warm (and overheated in summer)
When my parents had friends over, I'd sit at the head of the stairs and listen to their conversation. It was fascinating. Now I realize just how NOT fascinating it actually was.
When my parents went out, and my brother babysat, we were supposed to be in bed before I Dream of Jeannie came on. Obviously, we stayed up and watched. I thought my parents were magicians, or that they had cameras in the house, since they always asked how the show was. We were so naive.
Well lil sister I finally figured it out years later. It was an old B/W TV with tubes that put out an awful lot of heat. All they had to do was put their hand on the TV to know that it hadn't been turned off long before they arrived. ;o)
Nice memories Geewit... the neighbours must have found you very cute or they would have kicked you out...;o)
In the house I grew up in we had a gas water heater in an upraised closet in the hall. The door had a hole cut into it in the shape of a crescent moon. When I was really young, I thought that the closet contained a rocket ship destined for the moon.
I always had a large imagination, and I use to flip a padded rocker over and sit on the long part where your back would rest and look out over the seat and pretend I was adrift on the ocean. Then you know how Hershey bars come with those lines that make up little squares; I would break mine into those little pieces and pretend to ration it out so it would last because I was lost at sea. I was young because I played this before I ever started school.
I always loved to play with my 2 older brothers toys when they were at school, especially right after Christmas. I played with all their stuff including my oldest brother's record player and records even after I got older. How is it there stuff was always much cooler than my own stuff.
In about the 3rd or 4th grade I realized that if I ran all the way home from school, I could make it home in time for the soap opera "Dark Shadows". Do you remember "Dark Shadows"? We also played it in school at recess, ya know with the Vampires and all.
Gee,Thanks for that walk down memory lane!
This is a really interesting post. I really enjoyed reading it.
Your examples brought to mind a couple of memories... my brother and I shared a bedroom, too. I think I must've been about 6 or 7 (he was 2 1/2 yrs. old than me.) We had bunk beds. One night I somehow got turned around in my sleeping bag which was on the floor (I have no idea why I was on the floor when I had a perfectly good bed, but I'm weird like that still.). I remember crying and screaming because it was so hot in there (since I was turned around my head was now in front of the heater) and I was so scared.
The other memory is that somehow I got it in my head when I was 12 or 13 that I couldn't be rriends with people who have flat butts. A flat butted girl stole my best friend, so from that time on, I didn't like flat butted people. I know, don't ask.
I used to invite myself over to the neighbours' for visits, probably because I was lonely, but I was so shy I never knew what to do once I got there.
My childhood memories are very sketchy, but my mother told me that there was no television during the day and only on Saturday morning for cartoons. I think she told me they were over when she got tired of the noise. The thing was, I believed her for years. When I was at home sick, she would turn the radio up for me to listen to, and if I was a good quiet patient, I could get up when 'television started' at 4pm to watch I Love Lucy. It never ocurred to me to turn the thing on myself until I was much older. Sadly, then I discovered General Hospital, Secret Storm, and an addiction to every soap was born.
BB - No shit? And here I thought it was simply because, obviously we werre watching it since we so loved the show. I don't remember them ever being angry about it...
LMAO at the middle name story. That is hysterical. I have no childhood memories. I was born fully evolved. I just walked out of the womb and asked for a martini.
you have some very vivid memories of your chil dhood. they were nice to read. you slept with you brother till you were 8 and he twelve. i bathed with mine! mom didn't wanna waste bathwater .... lol
Naomi,
~~Yes, I guess I was a lonely child. But oddly, I also like being alone. Or maybe that's why?
GnightGirl,
~~I think it's kinda sweet that you believed everything. I probably did too until I was about 6 and we got the silly sand and it so did not make those castles! It's hard to believe you were ever awkward, but I think EVERYONE was somewhat awkward in junior high. I certainly was.
Scarlet,
~~I have no idea who Eloise is, but I'll check it out. I also thought the T&T man was there and was just rude because he would just hang up when I tried to ask a question.
Xup,
~~I have to say that doesn't surprise me. I hope that translated into your doing theater?
Jazz,
~~We did the same stuff. My brother was in charge and we broke all the rules. In our case it didn't occur to us that our parents could see the lights going out as they drove up.
BB,
~~I figure it was either shock, pity or good old southern hospitality that led to those ladies being nice to me.
Carole,
~~"Dark Shadows" came on earlier at my house but I got to watch in in the summer and when I was home sick. I used to sit on the couch upside down and pretend I was in a space capsule! And if I had seen a crescent moon cut out on a closet, I would have thought there was an outhouse in there.
Jammie,
~~That flat-butted thing is hilarious! That's about the age I decided redheads were somehow superior (I wasn't one then). I think it was from reading all those Archie comics.
VioletSky,
~~That's funny! So you were never anywhere else where a TV was on during the day? Also, do you watch "All MY Children?"
Phil,
~~I have no idea why it was so traumatic. It probably didn't help that my middle name was not a common name and I had never heard it before. I never even met someone with that name until I was an adult. Martini? Pfffft. I'm sure you asked for something goofy the first time.
Raino,
~~"Slept with" is an odd way to phrase it. We shared a room with twin beds. But I do vaguely remember taking baths together. Probably at like 2 and 7.
I guess not, or else, of course I was at school.
And yes, AMC which clashes with Days, and Y&R (you do know Katherine Chancellor is alive and has no memory of her former life and is living as "Marge" but has been found out by some good citizens of Genoa City...) but not GH anymore (though I read today that the 47 yr old nurse's station is about to get a much needed facelift by having a fire in the hospital).
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