What is something that happened when you were a child that you'll probably never forget?

1. My mother accidentally letting go of my hands and me falling under water, petrified…when we were on a beach, once.
2. 5 nurses holding me down so that they can perform an endoscopy on me without anesthesia (this was in a Russian village) and having to suffer through the procedure while soaking up bed sheets with my saliva.
3. Having my adenoids taken out without anesthesia (same village, you get the picture) and put next to me on a tray.

@Simone_De_Beauvoir Yeah I can see how they’d kind of linger. I jumped into the deep end of an outdoor pool on holiday once. I was maybe six, seven. Absolutely terrifying. I remember my Mum thought I was waving happily at her. Far from it, death throes more like :¬(

My younger sister threw a gun at me and it split a wide gash in the top of my head, blood all over the place like you’ve probably never seen. I’d have been better off if she shot me. It was a cap pistol.

It wasn’t the pain or the blood that I recall as much as… my mom covered the wound with a diaper, and I was wearing that for days. Pain I can forget, blood ain’ no thang… wearing a diaper on his head for a week is something a boy don’t forget.

My brother dying after getting hit by a car. No need or desire to elaborate.

I was lost at age 4 in the rugged arroyos in Santa Fe N.M. where I lived.

Wandered off with the neighbor kids who were 7 & 8 and they ditched me in the mountains.

I remember it getting dark as I sat by a giant boulder and was terrified listening to the Bobcats screaming in the canyon.

Fortunetly I was found just at dark by a search team.

I also hopped on the school bus with same kids once and went to school with them early one morning while my mother was showering. haha
Sat down in a 1st grade classroom with my friend and the teacher didn’t even notice for about an hour and then found out who I was and called my friends parents who relayed the message to my frantic mother!

I was an adventurous little thing. lol

@CyanoticWasp You had a “nappy” on your head? An absorbing little tale. Although I may have that blood count beat. My brother & I when we were very little, apparently chose to bash each other repeatedly over the head with brass candlesticks. My Mum was slightly taken aback to see her “little cherubs” basically bashing the shit out of each other, soaked in blood. Ahh, happy days!

This one is ironic, because I actually don’t remember when it happened, but my mom told me why I have this permanent mark on my forehead when I wrinkle it. It was Christmas morning, I was 6 years old, and I came running down to see all the presents under the tree. Instead of going down the stairs, I decided to take off from the top and ended up going head first into the corner of a table. I will always remember this story that I don’t remember.

The time I brought home with me a dead mouse and showed my mom who screamed and quickly got my dad to help me throw it back outside and then wash my hands. I was about 8 years old and have no idea why I did that.

When I was 13, my neighbor’s dog chased me down and bit me on the leg. Not a whole lot of blood and the shot the doctor put into it was much more painful. Still have the scar to this day.

Wearing a pink hat and saying goodbye to a neighbor before leaving for vacation in Myrtle Beach.

Sexual ‘experimentation’ with an older boy. I was in 2nd grade. Not sure how old he was, but not too many years older than I.

Walking through Cape May, wishing I could know everybody.

9/11.

Cutting open by accident my wrist with a sword (don’t ask).

The first time I popped popcorn. I remember being at a friend’s and we were watching scary movies. We put about a half inch of oil in a pan and put a couple of pieces of corn in the oil. We put the lid on and decided when the couple of cornels of corn popped it would be hot enough to put in the rest. We forgot about the pan on the stove. About an hour later my friend went in to the bathroom and said to me check the corn because he could smell something. Don’t ever pull a tight lid off of really hot pan of oil. BAM the oil exploded and flames went from the stove to the ceiling. It burned off my eye brows, eye lids and my bangs. The force threw me back against the cabinets and I was yelling at my friend. He said throw some water on it. Don’t ever throw water on hot burning oil. BOOM it exploded again but it did put the fire out. I was thrown again against the cabinets. When we looked up at the ceiling it was black. We spend the next 3 hours scrubbing his ceiling.

@JustmeAman That is intense! It really burned off your eye lids? Shouldn’t you have gone to the hospital instead of worrying about the ceiling? How old were you when this happened?

1. Stealing at small bicycle bell from a friend’s store at the age of 3. Nobody had discussed the concept of theft with be before that point, and when my parents sat down and explained it to me, I became so upset that we rushed right back to return it.

2. Getting buried up to my neck at the beach. It was loads of fun, until the swell picked up and nearly drowned me. Good times.

My mother made me wear hats that looked like birthday cakes.I was not always feeling festive.
damn her!! XD

Getting shot in the foot with a BB gun
Breaking down on the Brooklyn Bridge
My pre-school graduation
Stealing something from Blockbuster
When my pants fell down in Blockbuster
When my best friend hit me in the head accidentally with a rock

@Aesthetic_Mess Did both those incidents at Blockbuster occur at the same time?

@erichw1504 Nope. Totally separate incidents.

@Aesthetic_Mess Were you caught stealing? And what did you steal?

@erichw1504 I was young, and no I wasn’t caught. Ever. No one knew. I think it was when Beauty & the Beast came out on VHS and it came with some kind of toy, and I ripped open the package without anyone seeing and took it. I don’t even have it anymore.

@Aesthetic_Mess Haha, that’s funny. And now for the real question: How did your pants fall down??

@erichw1504 Ah. They were too big! and I was walking behind my sister and all of a sudden, they fell. It was even more awkward when a group of people came by at the exact same moment.

Sorry I didn’t mean my eye lids. I was blistered though. It just got rid of all my hair on my face and forehead.

@JustmeAman Beats the heck out of shaving! Minus the blisters.

Bad – Sexual abuse from someone I should have been able to trust.
Good – The many stage shows and concerts my dad took me to. I got my love of theatre from him and I am eternally grateful for the amount of time and money he invested in my passion for the arts. He is the best daddy in the whole world!

I am please to say that the good far outweighs the bad in my memory.

Too many that are bad, so I’ll share one that is good:

Standing on a stage at 11 because I won my city’s school region’s spelling bee. I didn’t win city-wide, but I made it to a respectable 3rd place.

I took good care of my guppies for 4 years with no problems. My sister agreed to watch them for a few days I was away, and they were all dead when I returned. :(

The day my leopard gecko (Marco) died. He was my first pet and his death was very sad for me.

Narcissistic much, @erichw1504? In the first place, who can tell when a leopard gecko is sad (or if it even can be ‘sad’), and even if you could tell, why would he be sad for you when he was the one doing the dying?

@CyanoticWasp

I percieve @erichw1504 words to mean it was very sad for HIM, himself.
Not that hard to decipher IMO.

I think we all knew what was meant just another one of those things that people do.

… was just reading what was actually written. I’m not an activist Flutherer who has to delve into people’s motives; I just read what they write.

@CyanoticWasp What are you talking about? His death was sad for me. How was he sad?

@lucillelucillelucille Awww, I bet you looked so dumb…....silly…....I mean sweet! :¬)

Being upset because I had to go to bed earlier than everyone else, and ripping up my favourite book (The Very Hungry Caterpillar) in frustration.

Thanks all, interesting however how the majority remember bad shit. I guess maybe those tend to stick in the mind longer.

This is an interesting memory. I did not remember it for many years, then when I was in my 20’s, my older sister (10 years older) asked me if I remembered, and it all came flooding back, the memories the feelings, the panic…

When I was about three, we moved to a small rural town that had a railroad running through it, like many other small towns. Even at that young age, my parents knew that I had a tendency to wander off and explore, and they were concerned because of the speed of the trains. One day my dad (and I think my sister was there, too) took me down to the crossing. There was a train coming. I remember the bells ringing, the lights flashing, and the horn on the locomotive. Dad picked me up, and held me in his arms, and just stood there on the track as the train got closer and closer. I started to cry, and told my dad to move! He just stood there, as the train approached. The engineer sounded the horn again. My dad just stood there, with me in his arms. One more time, the horn sounded, and seemed to be with extra urgency. Finally at what seemed to be the last second, my dad moved off the track and carried me to a safe distance.

Oh, you want good memories?

I recall the first time I was on a sailboat, with my family. The boat was a 15’ daysailer with a patched-up wooden hull shot through and through with dry rot. (And none too well patched, because it always leaked.) It had purple canvas sails, in a shade I have never seen before or since. I recall lying on the foredeck soaking up the sun and watching the rays disappear into the depths below, thinking how like an octopus the light looked down there. I recall the peace of just being there. I recall taking the tiller and making the boat go (mostly) where I wanted it to.

I always recall sailing.

Well it does request either in my details. So yeah, would be nice.

Many of my early “good” memories are centered with my grandfather:

First shopping trip to buy school supplies before starting first grade (I can still see my “book satchel”—the 50’s version of a backpack)
Getting up before dawn to go with my grandfather to the oil patch and the wonderful lunches my grandmother would pack for us
The cool “toys” he made for me: trapezeze, go cart (I was injured on each, BTW)
The first snow (and one of very, very few in Texas) at my grandparents house at Christmas!

When i was somewhere between the age of 3 and 5 i would visit my dad for the summer, he would get me a babysitter for while he was at work. She would take me to a local pool and her way of teaching me how to swim was grabbing the straps of my bathing suit and holding me under water for extend periods of time.

Abuse

@ucme -I can’t argue.XD

@lucillelucillelucille Could have been worse, she may have put lit candles on the hat. You know, just to set it off a treat :¬)

Mostly little things:

The first time I got into a fight with my best friend, the little boy next door. We were probably in 1st and 2nd grade. He kept calling me a honkey, and I was so mad and frustrated because I couldn’t think of anything worse than “Yeah, well you look like chocolate!” I can still see him riding his bike around in circles while we yelled at each other! We got over it and were friends again pretty quickly.

The first time I thought I was going to die. I called my brother a nigger not knowing what it meant good thing I hadn’t heard that word yet when I got into the fight with my friend. When my mom came flying at me from across the room, I honestly thought she was going to kill me. I was completely terrified, and had no idea what I’d done that was so bad. I have never since called anyone a nigger, and I even have a hard time typing it out for something like this little story!

I remember feeling really guilty over a box of Girl Scout Cookies a little old lady a few streets over had ordered from me. She was so happy and excited to order the cookies, but when they came in I never delivered them. It was only one box of cookies, and I can still picture them sitting in this big bread box on our kitchen counter. I don’t know why I never gave them to her, but I felt terrible. At least she didn’t pay for them.

Other things…sneaking downstairs in the middle of the night with my little brother on Christmas Eve to see what Santa left. The time the neighbor girl peed in a cup, told my brother it was lemonade, and tried to get him to drink it. Hiding in a ditch from some teenagers in a pickup truck that were throwing garbage at me and cutting my hand on barbed wire. Then walking home with blood dripping off my elbow. The time I forced my little brother to eat one of the dried up red things in our parrot’s food, not knowing it was an insanely hot dried pepper (hahahahaha I must be evil because that still makes me laugh).

My mother always being there for me my whole entire life when my father wasn’t. She took both her part and my fathers, well actually her brothers (my uncles )helped her with some of the father part
When she was at work, my uncles/aunties took very good care of me.
As I grew older, I moved to the village with my grandparents and they have also helped a lot in my life.

I guess the thing that I will never forget is how much I am very thankful for how they’ve raised me <3

When I was about six, I came within a hairs’ breadth of getting hit by a car. The driver braked in time but I felt the front of the car just touch my sleeve.

I must have led a boring childhood because these are not directly related to me.

1.) It must have been in 1965 when I was two or three and old enough to stand in viewing height of the black & white TV screen. The family was sitting on the sofa watching a news report of a coffin draped by an American flag being carried by a group of men. All I remember is that they were saddened by watching it. I have no idea who it was.

2.) Dad waking us up while it was dark and having him hold me while we watched the house that was being built next door and up on a hill burn to the ground. At some point, he put me down to go outside armed with a garden hose to put out the burning cinders that came our way.

@ucme -I would rather have had sticks of dynamite than wear that hat! XD

The time my brother and sister put salt in my ice cream. There wasn’t any more ice cream. I was enraged.

This old dude I knew who lived a few houses away from ours when I was little really disliked kids, and always yelled and shouted at me, even when I just playing in the alley, not picking away his flowers. (Which I admit, I did do at times.)
So in the Summer, he died of a stroke, and I found his corpse. My gut instinct was to start laughing hysterically, and run back home to tell my parents that Mr. Whatever his name was is dead. Now because this guy was always mean to me, my mom was convinced that I was happy he was dead, and that’s why I was laughing.
My father on the other hand, suggested that at such a young age, death is not something that small children really comprehend, and said that it might have been a defense mechanism my body came up with in order to deal with something that completely confused me.

I don’t know if it’s because it was the first dead body I ever saw, or because my mom was calling me all the pricks under the Sun for my reaction to it, but I’ll always remember that haha.

Walking home from school with my sister and a car pulling up slowly beside us. I just remember a hand reaching out and her grabbing me and throwing me to the ground. She screamed like nothing I’ve ever heard before, or since. Neighbors came out and the car sped off. I was in 3rd grade, wearing a purple dress, my hair was long and in a ponytail. It was spring. I remember everything about that moment.

Moving, a lot. Have zero friends in the 6th grade because we moved so much.

The first time I went to Disneyland, right after it opened.

Sweet holy moly, when I was about 13 I had to walk about a half mile to the stores and this dude offered me a ride and I thought I was in luck. But soon after I was in the car this dude said “Do you want some action? I said, “Action? I don’t have time to go find any action”, me thinking him talking about robbing something. “What type of action?” He replied, “A blow job…” My blood ran cold and I was thinking fast, I told him I had to get the soda for some reason so he let me off at the store than waited outside. I got my pop then ran 150yards like I stole something to the corner gas station and hid. One of classmates was there and thought I stole the pop abd I told him there was this guy after me wanting to give me a blow job and if he seen the truck pass let me know. I was scared crapless all the way home thinking I was going to be found out by him taking a short cut through the warehouses to get home. I never told my mother because she might never let me walk to the store again.

@Symbeline Awww, & thus a morbid yet endearing fascination with the “undead” was awakened within thee XD By the way, my gut instinct would have been to piss my pants & scream like a little girl. I’m such a hero :¬)

When a man drowned at a beach in Italy. Lifeguards rescued him and needed 10 minutes to resuscitate him. He started breathing again. Everyone thought he was already dead.

One of my greatest memories was being 5, the first time I was put on a horse by my indian neighbor, a Navaho boy named Billy Banghart. ( Billy you were my first friend, here’s to you wherever you are! )

That was it!

Couldn’t get enough of horses forever after. ;-)

It would have to be the first day at school for me, the first time I can consciously remember being left alone…I was five or six years old…. I remember my Mother & myself in an office with the head teacher, the conversation going on about my first day (I don’t remember the details ) & then my Mother getting up out of her chair & shaking hands with the head teacher, then looking at me & saying “ Now you be a good boy & do as you’re told” at that she left the room without so much as a cuddle goodbye… I was mortified, no matter how much I cried she never came back, I was hysterical kicking & screaming & stuff, I never felt so alone in all my life…… after a few minutes the teacher took hold of me & walked me out of the room ( I thought to reunite me with my Mother) across & down the hall to another door.. I was made to wait outside the door while she went in, sobbing my little heart out, shoulders going up & down & everything… when she emerged my big sister was with her ( she was in her last year at that school before moving up ) she saw the floods in my eyes & obviously knew what was going on & gave me the biggest cuddle a big sister could give… And for that first day at school I stayed with my big sister all day in her class until it sunk in what school was all about & that I went home at the end of the day where my Mam was waiting for me….:-/
That was my very first emotional rollercoaster ride of a day & I have had many since.. I can’t help but think, that day helped prepare me mentally to deal with all the bad days I’ve had since, in that no matter how bad the day seems to be, I now know there’s always going to be a bright side.. You just gotta ride the rollercoaster & hang on until the ride is over, so to speak….. :-/
That’s it….

@Scooby

Awwwww poor little scooby. :-(

@Coloma

Lol.. I’m a big boy now! ;-)x