Something happened yesterday that made me think.
At least one of my co workers is old enough to have voted for Adlai Stevenson.
At least one of them is young enough to have voted for Al Gore.
It's a bit like the time my former Headmistress did an assembly on 'memory'. She asked all the faculty to conjure up their earliest memory and share it with the school.
She was startled when I told of the Queen's Silver Jubilee in 1977. She had been teaching for 10 years at that point.
We grow old quick.
15 comments:
It took you four years to form a memory? Did you parents keep you down a well?
I'll tell you something else: policemen and professional athletes get younger and younger, don't they?
I've always liked that my dad's dad was an Edwardian, my dad is a Georgian, and I'm Elizabethan.
It was the first significant monarchist memory.
I can recall my old house (we lived in it until the spring of 1977). When you live in the same neighborhood until you are 19 the early memories tend to blur.
So you didn't answer your colleague's question accurately, prefering instead to substitute a more dramatic or benchmarkable memory, eh? Freud would have field day.
My first memory (as far as I can recall, natch) is of eating spaghetti hoops over at a neighbour's house (while I assume my dad was off pacing nervously at the hospital as my mum gave birth to my brother). December 25-26th, 1975. I also remember the nativity scene in the hospital lobby from one of my visits, but I don't remember registering the arrival of my brother until a little while later.
The next one is of this family next door to us who had an above-ground pool, and four girls much older than me who had a love of the Nolan sisters and a pogo stick.
Alright, My first memories are blurred but I do recall watching horse racing with my Dad (could have been anytime between 1973 and 2006).
I also recall waving goodbye to my brother and sister as they went to school. The jubilee is the first significant event outside the family that i can remember.
Freud would have a field day with me for so many reasons.
I fell backwards off my swingset. I was under the age of 4. Then I remember my mother moving out during the divorce when I was 4. That's it.
I remember my very pregnant mother drinking coffee and eating toast and asking if it was sloshing all over the baby in her stomach. I was 3 and a half. I really was bothered by the whole idea.
About four, summer, knocking a pitcher of lemonade all over the cabin of my grandparents' sailboat.
I don't think that grandmother spoke to me again until I was sixteen and she was sure I didn't need a sippy cup.
But she was a mean old bitch. I mean really, you hand a toddler lemonade (pink) in the cabin of a rolling sailboat, you should expect the teak to get a little sticky.
It's interesting that most of our earliest memories seem at best mildly ambivalent.
I remember the jubilee because I wasn't given any type of commemorative gift. My siblings were older and as school age kids were each given a coin and a mug. As a pre schooler I received nothing. When the 50th jubilee came around in 2002 I made damn sure I got myself a mug. The school I worked in ordered an extra one to stop me from ruining the celebrations by pouting.
So it seems with the rest of you (except Weasel who remembers with his stomach).
I've always liked my spaghetti hoops. I notice though that of the four non-Mondale memories posted, three involve food or drink in some way. Is this a record, Norris? (McWhirter, not Bill: I'll explain the arcane British reference sometime Bill).
If this was a more scientific survey I bet there would be something too the whole food/beverage trigger thing. As for the ambivalence, well look at the self-selecting survey set;)
FOOD...I guess Weasel and I were meant to be together- I can remember eating chocolate cake on my third birthday while a family friend had to retrieve a frisbee stuck up in a tree.
No need for clarification Weasel. I had a fascination with the Guinness Book of Records as a child, and the editor's first name naturally caught my eye.
I assume there was a Television program? We had an equivalent, on ABC, I think.
As for the food thing, I'd assume it has something to do with food being one of the earliest, external pleasures.
No need for clarification Weasel. I had a fascination with the Guinness Book of Records as a child, and the editor's first name naturally caught my eye.
I assume there was a Television program? We had an equivalent, on ABC, I think.
As for the food thing, I'd assume it has something to do with food being one of the earliest, external pleasures.
first memory -
age 2
there was a big car accident and fire that stopped traffic. my mom and i got of our car since the traffic wasn't moving. i went up on a grassy knoll to play with another youngster. he wouldn't share his tonka truck with me. i hope that kid where ever he is now has led a miserable life.
Norris McWhirter was a fascist. I think he's currently residing in Hell.
My earliest memory was also a monarchical occasion, Elizabeth Battenberg's coronation. One reason I remember it is that it was also the first time I can remember seeing anything on TV. I think the TV was more impressive to a 3-year-old than the guy in a frock putting a crown on some stiff young woman's head. But the horses were fun.
Clearly the occasion warped me for life, turning me into a republican (in the British sense of the word) and a technology geek.
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