What's your favorite childhood memory?

When the beatings STOPPED.

Some of my most favorite childhood memories involve time spent with my grandmother . She lived just down the street. I spent every Saturday night with her. She made quilts, sewed for me, made me home made biscuits for breakfast, and spent so much quality time with me. She also spent a lot of time with my daughter, who loved her as much as I did.

sleepovers with my best friends Angela and Anita… Christmas Eves with my mom’s family, and Christmas mornings.

Eating homemade peach ice cream in the backyard while watching a June sunset.

oh, and living in Holland, Michigan during Tulip Time. (incidentally, Homer actually references it in the episode of the Simpsons where Homer buys a RV.)

We used to have a great backyard that looked out on the whole Denver metropolitan area. On 4th of July, all of my parents friends and their kids would come over for dinner and fireworks.

People used to bring in bags of different fireworks and we would set those off then watch from the porch as five different suburbs shot off their fireworks at the same time.

probably when i went to the aquarium with my mom. I just remember being obsessed with how the water shimmered and made little patterns on the floor and how the observation room was all dark and quiet and cozy…you would just stand there and watch these fish fade in and out of your view. it was so comfortable, anytime i go to an aquarium now i think of that.

Family get togethers where we played board games after dinner.

Special trips when we went to Florida, to amusement parks and such.

Time with one of my brothers, when we traveled together just the two of us.

I have a vague memory of my twin brother and I walking hand-in-hand to nursery school. One of the houses on the street had a great dane, who used to run up and bark as we walked by. We were so frightened, since to us, the great dane was the size of a horse. We would run past that house to the safety of our nursery school.

I was 6, I wanted something so badly, a pair of goalkeeper gloves… I used to see them everyday on my way back home , always on display in a store a flew blocks away from my house, I told my mom but she told me that we didn’t had the money and that she was sorry (I never complaint about it, actually is the only thing I remember I asked for when I was a kid) then one day the gloves were not there anymore, I asked the dependant and she said that they have sold the last pair that morning, I felt very sad, not because my parents didn’t had the money to buy the gloves, but because that was out of my hands and there was nothig I could do about it… I got home and when I walked into my bedroom the gloves were on my bed, I felt really happy and thankful because I knew, and now that I’m older I do realize, that my parents actually didn’t have much money and did a huge effort for every little thing my sister and I had… It’s funny because when you are a kid the concept of “being poor” is not what it is when you grow up, not having the money for the latest toy/shoes/whatever was bad, but as you grow up, you realize that being poor has nothing to do with money, actually is a spiritual thing…

christmases

all the family sitting around the tv watching the muppets together

My cousin and I made a snow fort in my front yard one year after a blizzard.
She grew up in California and had never seen snow before.

By the end of the week, we had three rooms under the snow drifts that we could both sit in and tunnels that connected them.

My neighbor had a dachshund. I loved that dog and went over often to visit her. When they bred her and she had puppies, they let me come and see them and hold them. I was thrilled.

Going fishing with bamboo poles and cork floats with my Grandpops in ponds in Georgia. On visits to him, getting up early and having leftover biscuits with cane syrup for—just the two of us. Gathering around the piano while my grandmother played, and we all sang—hymns, funny songs, all kinds of music.

Ranging for blocks and blocks in packs of kids on crisp Halloween nights trick or treating. No adults were needed. (It was a different world).

When I was nine my little sister was born on Christmas Eve. Dad came in on Christmas morning and told me I had a new little sister. We went to Christmas Mass, the priest announced my sister’s arrival and our family got to carry the gifts to the altar.

All of my other good childhood memories revolve around my grandparents’ house, all of my brothers and sisters and cousins singing along with the player piano, putting on variety shows for the parents and grandparents and a make believe place- that was really the den – we used to call “Antonio’s Bar and Grill.”

1. eating hoagies in the bed while spending the night at grandma’s on fridays;
2. the smell of burning leaves;
3. watching “creature feature” on friday nights;
4. staying outside after the street lights came on;
5. block club parties
6. puppy love
7. wet leaves and cool nights while trick or treating
8. playing outdoor games
9. enjoying central air-conditioning
10. camping in the sequoias in california

11. riding my bike in L.A. in the 1970s to a taco stand up on crenshaw
12. going to the liquor store for candy by pepperdine
13. playing 8-track tapes in my uncle’s camper
14. listening to “the carpenters”
15. eating tacos for the first time
16. going to disneyland
17. falling in love with a california girl named “clea”
18. eating “cocoa crispies” for breakfast
19. smelling gas heat come on for the first time in the fall
20. sunday dinners at the table with no TV on

Drinking tea and chatting with my mom.

My father taking me to the county fair without the rest of the family. I got lost, it was nighttime, I had on a blue cotton dress, I was crying; someone took me to the Lost Children tent. My father was waiting for me, smiling, not angry, and in the car going home he sang for me, which he’d never done before.

Painting an incredibly beautiful picture in nursery school. It was orange all over. I was
completely blown away by my ability to make this enormous contribution to the world.

Making dams in the brook near our grandfather’s house with my brother.

a) Watching cartoons with my brother on Xmas morning.
b) Listening to bedtime stories by my grandfather (he is a master story teller)
c) I lived near the sea, and my friends and I would go to the park and on the “ramp” near the beach. There were a lot of benches there and we would sit there and watch the sun set while there was a cool breeze by the sea waves.

Thinking about this makes me so nostalgic ! GQ :)

@PnL: yes, it was a GQ. i love my childhood days. could that possibly some how happen with today’s youth?

“hey grandad, we are still paying the country back $700 billion—isn’t that the coolest?”

Sitting with my Grandma and her making us treacle sandwiches and tea.

My grandmother (who was a big mucky-muck at NIH…not your average grandma) making me bacon sandwiches on toast w/ mayo, because I only liked the “B” in “BLTs”. Easter mornings, when my basket held the only white chocolate bunny, because I didn’t like chocolate. “Shaving” (I’m a girl…so no blade) with my grandfather, and getting some “smelly” (aftershave) on my face.

August’s made me think of another one… way back when I was three or four, going out on Nan and Pop’s porch.. they had this wooden windchime and I loved to take one of the longest pieces and tap the others with it to make the noise, and he always used to say, “Do easy…” and so that activity was always known as “do easy.” When Nan (my great-grandmother) died about three years ago, I was allowed to take the wooden windchime.

@DD
GQ! I kept thinking about my childhood reminiscences and I think it was just in time (I’d been down because my birthday is coming and is the first time in my life I feel bad about it).
I do remember that I used to spent the weekend on my best friend’s country house, we used to have a lot of fun! Also we used to walk through the woods to a lake nearby, or ride our bikes to a cascade that was also close to the lake, we used to climb to the top of the cascade, there was a small cascade inside a cave and a pond deep enough to swim, we used to jump to the pond from the top of the small cascade, like Richard did in the beach :D
We used to play soccer until late late night (now I can hardly run a mile)
I got lost in the woods, twice!
I was super cute!
Then when I was 11, my parents decided to move and I left everything behind, but, gosh I had a great childhood!

Mom serving supper, dad calling me over to eat it (in the living room!) while watching an episode of one of two corny, sweet, hilarious Mexican shows called El Chapulín Colorado (The Red Grasshopper) or El Chavo del Ocho (The kid from (apartment) #8).

Sample video of El Chapulin
Sample video of El Chavo

Barbies. Recess. Pokemon. Roleplaying. And three people. Siobhan. Jill. Christina.

Picking blackberries with my Granny.
Stopping at Stuckey’s for ice cream on the way to Granny and Pawpaw’s.
Pawpaw pretending we’re following the car in front of us instead of telling us where we’re going. He liked to surprise us.
Pawpaw leaving us in the clubhouse while he went to play another 9 holes and telling us “if you want something just put it on my tab” and me and my brother ordering full lunches instead of just a soda. Pawpaw never did that again. :^>
Being called by the names of every female relative in rapid succession born between the speaker and myself patsyjackiesandrabrenda…um… <snap> <snap> Cyndy!
Riding our bikes all over town.
Pretending to be Nadia Comaneci.
Drawing cartoon gymnasts in books along the edges so they’re animated and doing flip flops and hand springs as you fan the pages.
Making double batches of cookie dough so we’d still have some to make cookies with after Colleen’s sisters stole half the dough.
Thinking we found a huge supply of “chalk” at a construction sight as we walked off with large pieces of broken drywall.
Forts in the woods.
Selling Girl Scout Cookies door to door.

with my playmates, we walk on top our fence (made of 15cm x 20cm diameter timber, 8feet high), from lateral front of our house to lateral back which covers i think 50 meters long.. along the way we would grab branches of trees scarcely planted along the way (for leverage/balancing).. if we feel off somewhere along, we are required to start again from the starting point..

This and I would have to say just memories of my siblings in general. There were 6 of us, and my parents were what you might call “emotionally retarded”. We fought like crazy but we were there for each other when it counted. I was the youngest of the bunch so of course I got picked on, but no one else could pick on me but them. My brother and sisters were always there for me and always knew what to say to make me feel better. Now I we are spread out from San Francisco to Maryland. I miss them and think about them all the time, but it seems not a day has gone by when we finally all get to be together again.

roaming the farmyard in summer
Scrabble and fresh baked cookies at grandma’s
baling hay with Dad, brother, sister
Mollie the Collie
milking the goats
Mr. Rogers
Disney and pancakes every Sunday evening
Getting up at 6 for Saturday cartoons and Bay City Rollers

Pretty much all of mine involve spending time with my family:

- decorating the Christmas tree
– going sledding with my dad in the park near our house
– the whole family walking to our local Chinese restaurant for dinner on the night of the first snowfall every year
– helping my mom decorate for our giant Halloween parties (making tissue paper ghosts and pom pom bats)
– baking Christmas cookies with my mom and sister
– falling asleep on my dad’s shoulder as he carried me home

There’s so many more, but these are the warmest and fuzziest of them all!

Ooh, and making waffles with my dad on Saturday mornings – can’t forget that one!

Playing ringolevio with the kids in my Grandparent’s lawn as the darkness falls. It was the kind of endless summer evening, running around, getting hot, having fun, and never wanting to go to bed.

The best memory.I was eight years old.Was a dark and that was the time to play hide and seek.I was enjoying that time becouse all kids came among the panel houses from.That was a good fun.The another one was a play for police and thief.We were packs of two group.The area has been set and than the catching game begun.

That sounds sort of like Ghost in the Graveyard that we used to play as a kid.
There would be 10–15 neighborhood kids running around hiding and playing in the early dark hours with no adults around.

Does anyone still let their kids out like that nowadays?

I used to take a random assortment of spices and liquids, mix em up and then throw them away, when I was little… Dont remember exactly why, but I remember it was tons of fun :) I think I thought I was “doing science”.

the day I found out how to forget my childhood

Going to midnight mass with my sister and parents when I was younger. Then opening one gift before going to bed and eating homemade cinamon rolls. Mom is gone now, so I’ll be trying to make the cinamon rolls. Christmas is at my house so we’ll also be going to midnight mass with my husband, sons and my dad. My sister and her family too if they are here.

i’m sitting on the floor, unable to cut out a shape. my mom says, “here, i’ll show you how,” takes the paper and scissors and shows me how, moving the paper and scissors in circles and around and back and forth.

when she was finished it was a perfect cutout and my mom was now the smartest person in the whole wide world.

One of my favorites is from when my brother was 3 and I was 6. Back then, I still believed in Santa Claus. My brother and I made and frosted gingerbread men with my mom all afternoon. Then, we set out a plate of cookies and milk for Santa. Being kids, we even tried to rig some kind of trap so we would hear Santa when he came. We tied jingle bells to string and put them in front of our fireplace. Then, we took some plastic toy bells and tied them to every doorknob in the house.

At 3’tall, the smell of fields of fresh green peppers wet with morning dew. Ahhhhhhhhhhhh !

Playing Ghosts in the Graveyard, having super soaker fights, and um… NOT working.

I dont have many good memories but there is one summer that i did enjoy. My friends Scott, Chris, Daryl, and Dale would fill the days with endless things. We played tag or war in this cornfield next to my house. I learned how to ride a skateboard and fall off of one.
We played Atari (yes i am that old) to all hours of the night and we would play pranks on each other (soap on windows is fun until Daryl’s mom catches you and you have to clean them). Walking to the movies at the southland mall (did we really need to see Rocky 4 that many times?). Everyone’s parents knew us and they all looked out for us.
I only talk to Scott now but I do sometimes miss that summer. it was a lot of fun.

My favorite memory is just the natural childhood feeling of wonder and curiosity. The body was new, the world was new, the music, images and ideas were new. Its as if I could feel the world, and the things I saw. I cherish that feeling, and haven’t given up on it at all.