What are some of your earliest memories ?

Olivia said:
When l was a young girl about three years old l lived in my great grandmother's apartment in an apartment building
in Vienna, Austria, along with my mother. My dad was U.S. ARMY and lived on the Army base barracks.

One day l was walking down the staircase from our second floor apartment when there was a little boy a little older
than me wearing a mask. l don't know where he went to but l'll never forget him. His memory for me has stuck
with me all these years of my life.

There was a meaning to that boy which I am yet to learn but l just know l will.
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what year was this Olivia ?
 

I think Mom wanted Shirley Temple but she got me instead. I was never going to be little and cute. :D
I remember in grade school she would dress me in dresses that tied in a bow in the back and shoes with lace anklets.
I liked to hang upside down on the monkey bars. Every day I would come home with my bow untied
and sometimes my dress ripped at the waist. Skinned up knees and my socks down in my shoes.
Great Gram made me fancy bloomers to wear under my dresses so I wouldnt show my underwear.

And I still remember those darn crinolines we had to wear under our dresses. If you sat on it that netting would hurt and leave hash marks on your thighs.

In the winter you still had to wear a dress no matter how cold it got but you could wear "snow pants".
As soon as you got inside you had to take them off. Heaven forbid little girls would be seen in pants in public. :D
 
hollydolly said:
what year was this Olivia ?
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It had to be 1951, anyway when l was around 3 years old. Left Vienna when l was 3 years old. Years later when l visited Vienna when l was 50 years old, a tenant let us in to the building and l was surprised to learn that the staircase (the one the boy was on) supposedly going up, did not exist.
 
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When my grandma took me for a walk and I ran into a parked car, it so hard I fell to the sidewalk.Grandma took me home and started trying to see how bad my eyesight was. She narrowed it down to I could see 3 inches in front of my face. Grandma had an appointment for my 15 year old uncle in a few days so she took me instead (He already had glasses).

She promised me cartoons if I was a good girl.I was a very good girl, but grandma couldn't find a theater in Los Angeles that had cartoons, so she took to a comedy. I remember it was Champagne For Caesar. In those days they didn't know as much about children's eyes. But my grandmother saved my vision!

Some years ago I made an appointment with an ophthalmologist, she checked me out and asked why I thought I needed glasses, I told her I had worn glasses since I was 5. She said there was nothing they can do for my bad eye (I knew that)but that my good eye was 20/20.Grandma was gone by then. How I would have loved to tell her!
 
I was in Rochester, New York about 1954, I think. I was in a high chair, and my mother was shoveling peas into my mouth, and I was spitting them back out. My mother, who was an 8th grade drop out, and not the sharpest knife in the drawer, kept yelling at me. Her mother came into the kitchen and said, "What are you yelling at him for?" My mother replied, "Because he won't eat his peas!" Her mother, who was light years smarter than her daughter, said "Then don't feed him the peas!" She knew her daughter was stubborn, and unreasonable, so she turned around and left the kitchen.

She knew her daughter was too thick headed to see the light and stop feeding her son that disgusting slop. My mother kept sticking them in my mouth, and I kept spitting them out. She kept yelling at me.
 
I vaguely remember my high chair and my crib. For some reason I liked to sit under the ironing board while my mother was ironing clothes. There was a railing along the back porch of our building and somehow I got my head stuck between bars. My father and a neighbor guy got me out; I think they bent the metal.

There was a luncheonette across the street called Lollies . We often went there. I remember the jukebox but I didn't know how to use it.

In later years I liked to go with my father on his practice bowling night for his league one night a week. Another girl was there with her father too and they fed us coins so we could play pinball while they bowled.

Playing in the woods, dancing lessons and riding my bike were great passions of mine,
 
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My grandfather always had something going on the side, some of it was even legal. I was 3/4, and there was a knock at the door. When my mom answered it, there was my grandfather standing there with a racehorse. It was a beautiful animal, black, shiny, muscular and huge. He wanted to keep the horse in our backyard. I remember my mom saying, "Dad, we can't. We rent here". I kept yelling "Put the horse in the backyard. Put the horse in the back yard". Then my grandfather left with the horse. The next day, we drove to a field and the horse was running around in it.
That's about all I remember, but that was typical for my grandfather,
 
When I was in third grade, I was very shy. We were in reading class, and you were supposed to raise your hand if you wanted to read. I raised my hand and the teacher never called on me. I didn't raise my hand to read; I raised my hand for permission to go to the bathroom. To make a long story short, I peed my pants and the teacher had to take me home on our lunch hour to change clothes.
 
TeePee said:
I might just be imaging this, but I don't think so. I remember the sensation of being in my mother's belly. I don't remember it per say, just the sensation. I also remember her carrying me on her hip. That I do remember for sure.
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My daughter says she remembers being born. She was breech, so I asked her to tell me about it and she did straight up.
 
This one took me many years to figure out.

As I've said earlier, I loved spending time at my Grandparent's house. I hung out with grandpa a lot. We used to watch//listen to the Cubs baseball on the radio/tv.

I noticed this one thing only happened if grandma was around, and grandpa seemed aggravated a bit.
He'd let the rest down on his chair quickly, and get up and go to the bathroom. Faster than usual, like he was "on a mission".

I'd ask where he was going, his answer was sometimes "I'm gonna go see Miss Jones".
One time I asked grandma who Miss Jones was, "oh, your pappaw thinks he's being funny"...
Several years later I realized what it meant!
LOL 😆
 

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