Earliest Memories - 1966 - 1971

Why record my memories and why make them public?
Good question. Probably no one else will ever read these... but who knows.

1966 - 1971 (pre-school)
My earliest memories, from the time before my sister Janice was born, are completely without order now. It is amazing to me, that I can sit down at the age of fourty-four, and remember a time when I was two years old... and yet, I do. Certainly, I remember the time before my sister was born, and I was only three at the time.

I remember a time when I still wore diapers and onesies with the feet attached. I can remember playing in my playpen as clearly as I remember my sisters playing in theirs. I remember being afraid of the dark, and imagining that the ceiling would rise a little off the walls, and animals (like giraffes would look over and talk to me. I talked to those animals for years, as long as we lived in the little house on Sidney St. I remember getting bathed in the kitchen sink.

I remember playing on the floor with my dad, climbing over and around him like he was a tree or driftwood, and I remember being tickled quite a bit.

I remember an electric table clock in my parent's bedroom, and I clearly remember examinging it and thinking I could take it apart and put it back together. I vaguely remember getting in trouble for taking it apart, but I also remember feeling proud (perhaps for the first time) that I HAD taken it apart. I vaguely remember references to that clock in subsequent years.

I remember getting turtles. Small, baby turtles. And I remember putting them under the cushions of our couch. I didn't feel any malice when I did this, I think I was just playing with them... but I remember how guilty I felt when my parents told me I had killed them. I still feel guilty, over fourty years later.

Amoung other things, I had a big rubber snake. All these years later, I can still remember how that snake felt in my hands and how it smelled. I remember a friend or cousin destroyed it on me, but I cannot clearly remember who or when it happened.

I remember Christmas, with the tree in the corner, and Christmas morning I had toys and a working electric train set. I still feel the same excitement every Christmas that I felt then, probably at the age of 29 months. I remember my mothering being pregnant, and I remember going to the hospital to bring my sister home. I don't remember getting to visit them in the hospital, somehow I feel like I wasn't allowed to.

I remember when my sister came to live with us, and I remember feeling jealous one time as I looked at her in her crib. But I also remember loving her, and enjoying the limited amount of play we shared when she was a tiny baby. I remember travelling to Ardoch and Peterborough with my parents and my sister as a baby, but I do not clearly remember travelling before she was born.

I remember my books, and my parents reading to me and helping me to learn to read. I probably remember this from before the birth of my sister, but I am certain I remember it from after as well. I clearly remember being praised for learning the names of animals and being able to say words like "hippopotamus". Four decades later and I still need to look up the spelling. There were other books as well, that almost have a mystical effect on me when I think about them, but I do not remember any of the details.

I remember exploring a nearby field with my best friend and neighbour "Sonny". There was a bit of rough, with bushes and some trees, and in the middle there was the body of a lawn mower. No wheels, no handle, no engine, just the body. I remember plotting with my friend, going home, taking the matches, and returning that spot with him. I do not remember the fire being set, or spreading out of control, but I remember we ran to the street, then walked home on the sidewalk so that no one would think we set the fire. It was big enough to require fire trucks and threatened to destroy houses in a nearby a subdivision. This may have been before of after my sister was born, but I suspect I was around the age of five at the time.

One year I got a car as a present. Birthday? Christmas? I don't remember, but I do remember how happy I was to have it, It had peddles I could work when I sat in it... the few times I did. It was stolen soon after I used it for the first time, but I survived.

I remember watching soap operas with my mom while I waited for Mr. Dressup and The Flintstones.