What's your earliest memory?

My earliest memory is lying on my father's bare chest as he rubbed my back to burp me. I remember the sweet smell of his skin and hair. I felt safe and comfortable, as I smelled his smell and felt his chest heave as he took each breath. I was...around 4 to 6 months old.
 
Old Analog said:
Oh! Youngins probably know not what a ringer washer is, they'll have to gougal it, we lived in a house that was white I don't remember that house, I do remember the gray house we lived in, we children slept up stairs, girls to the left boys to the right a pot belly coal stove between, we would take a clay brick off the stove wrap it in news paper and put it at our feet under the covers to keep us warm at night, one night being tucked in I saw some webs in the corner of the ceiling, I must of thought they were spider webs, I don't remember what I said to mom but do remember her telling me they were cobwebs, and I asking her where were the cobs:ugh3:
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I am old enough to know what a ringer washer is! And I grew up doing something similar to warm up when going to bed in the winter. We used a Ziegler Oil Stove as the only main floor heat (a smaller one was in the basement and only on on wash day or when doing a longer project in the basement). So the folks did not heat the bedrooms. I would take what we called a sheet blanket and warm it up by running it back and forth on the top of the heating stove and then wrap up in it in bed with other blankets over it.

Didn't you mom go on the explain that cobwebs is another term for spiderwebs?
 
Jane B. said:
I am old enough to know what a ringer washer is! And I grew up doing something similar to warm up when going to bed in the winter. We used a Ziegler Oil Stove as the only main floor heat (a smaller one was in the basement and only on on wash day or when doing a longer project in the basement). So the folks did not heat the bedrooms. I would take what we called a sheet blanket and warm it up by running it back and forth on the top of the heating stove and then wrap up in it in bed with other blankets over it.

Didn't you mom go on the explain that cobwebs is another term for spiderwebs?
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No ... Maybe said something about dust don't remember that part:hmm:
 
I was 2 years old, my picked up so fast ! I had no idea what was going on. I later found out it was an earthquake around 1970 or so.
 
They had done surgery when I was a little over one. It was a necessary surgery and it was somewhat of a barbaric situation. Due to the lack of pain management that month. I got through it but thats about as far back I can go. Memories are more common after about two years or so on. There are others in between but they fade with passage of years.

A strange memory from those days relates to the Hopkins Hospital in Baltimore. They had changed over and closed off the motor cars that had a human staffer in it driving a motor and taking people to various floors. Now we were faced with the new automatic cars that were not quite always spot on which made for interesting situations now and then. I was probably around 4 or so back then.

As they say those things are good to the last drop. as far as I know in the old hospital section the motor car shafts are probably still there behind a thin concrete block veneer in the hall. Most people today walking past the spot would not realize there is a shaft there for 8 floors down. But its there.

In a corner there is a small pile of pictures from that far back. It is not difficult to maintain memories based on some of the pictures indicated as a tool to recall that particular day that far back. What I find more useful is objects from early trucking or further back in life through various things availible for sale for a few dollars. Just to view them online and read about them in some cases is enough to recall other memories related to them. For example replacing Transistor Tubes (Vacumn Tubes) on color tv's of the late 60's era generates a remembering when I was 6 or so having to go with father to a particular store that sold tubes. We got a couple replacements and had our ball game later that night. I last visited that shop a few years ago and its still there as is the original owner who is getting on well past retirement. He actually remembered the cost of the tubes from that far back. Another object is a mini club. Used for tires. I had that since my first year in the big rigs. Well as time goes by its not all that it was used for. A few knocks were applied to predators who got violent and tried to rob etc. It was useful for that. Or perhaps breaking out a glass of a burning vehicle to get a family out before they were burned up. Thats a little bit intense as it were. Not really supposed to happen like that but it did. Alot of owies to go around. But better than alternative.

More memories related to stress events or times of danger etc are easier to recall from childhood. Its not a problem now but some of those took time to heal. And some are deliberately forgotten on purpose. But its still there.

Alot of memories are passed on from older family members when they were alive and lived it in story form. In some cases its possible now to research the event online and read official reports related to the situation. Sometimes the stories they tell you would be a sanitized version of what really went down. I am pulling courthouse case load on one partiuclarly difficult relative who was not very good to most of us. That information is freely availible to the public. As it was held in open court. The thing is if the family decided not to tell children anything, at some point in life they are going to be able to learn about it anyway.
 
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