Memories

I was thinking, this morning in the shower, about memories and what makes a memory stick. Wouldn't it be nice to know that so that, during some pleasant times, you could do whatever it took and know that you'd have that memory to call up on demand?

My earliest memory, though for a long time I didn't know it was my earliest, is of going to see a baby calf with my Dad up in Berlin, PA, my Dad's hometown. When I mentioned this to him, some years ago, he gave me a sort of funny look and said that the dairy we had been walking to had closed down when I was 2 or 3. We always went to Berlin in the summer, so I had to have somewhere between, say, 18 months and 3 years old. Which does explain why I remember holding my hand way up over my head to hold on to my Dad and why the calf in my memory is so fricking huge! I think I was frightened, so perhaps that's why that memory held. My brother, though, can remember lying in his crib and seeing the sunlight on the wall. (I think that's right.) So what made that memory stick for him?

Another early and crystal clear memory I have is of one of my birthday parties. I was old enough to be in school because the kids from my class were all invited. And I remember Marius Masumas (I wonder where he ended up? He was, as I remember, really smart.) brought me this really cool music box. It looked like an old fashioned Victrola, with a horn and little records you put on it that played different songs. I remember the body of the Victrola was red plastic and the horn part was ivory plastic. I remember sitting on the floor, with Marius showing me how it worked, putting records on and off it. In my 40's, my Mom were talking about toys we had had as kids and I asked her where she thought the Victrola had gone. She gave me a funny sort of look and said, "What Victrola?" I described it to her in great detail and she said, "You never had anything like that." "Yes I did," I said, "I got it at the birthday....party....that.......all......my......class......." and I just faded off, because we never had big birthday parties like that. Mom always believed that birthdays were only important to your family. It had to be a dream, but I remembered it as fact, as a sure and certain memory....even though I had no memory of ever having the Victrola around beyond that one occasion...even though I knew that Mom never had big birthday parties for us.

I still miss that Victrola music box. It was one cool toy.

I wonder what sort of memories Rachel will think about when she's fifty. Will she, like most only children, have no clear memories of her childhood? Will she remember the bad stuff...getting dragged to the car to go to school, getting yelled at because she would not brush her teeth? I hope there will be plenty of good memories for her.

So, what's your earliest memory?

Oh, and does anyone else out there fiddle with their blog as much as I seem to? I find myself going back to past entries and adding little bits here and there. Nothing major, just sort of expanding on things or adding a little funny. I even just went and deleted one of my own comments and re-posted it because I found two typos. I knew there was one and figured I could live with that but this morning I noticed another and deleted that sucker so fast....now it's reposted, correctly.