What is something that happened when you were a child that will live in your memory forever?

The life I lived being raised by my grandparents, priceless. Some things I experienced and was able to see don’t exist anymore but they are mine.

My brother’s death when I was 4.

Sexual abuse

Being in hospital on my 10th birthday – I nearly died, but glad to say I survived and happily spending time here on Fluther !!

The assassination of JFK when I was in grade school

@MagsRags It is said that everyone can remember where they were on that day at that time. I was but a twinkle in my Dad’s eye.

This isn’t exactly an answer to your question, but I just learned this about long-term memories, and you’ve given me an excuse to trot it out

Recent research suggests that the act of bringing a memory back up into consciousness actually involves reconstructing that memory from its previous iteration that’s been subconsciously stored. That reconstruction then replaces the previous version, and will be the basis for the next recollection.

So when we remember past incidents, we’re not always calling up the same record engraved in our brain back when the incident happened. We’re looking at the last in a long string of regenerated memories, each of which is a slightly altered copy of its predecessor.

The implication is that, contrary to what we would expect, it’s the memories that we consult the most often that are the least faithful reproductions of the actual event. Memories that have been in “cold-storage” since the incident tend to be more faithful.

first kiss from a girl (and liking it), having a spring hinged gate hit my hard enough in the forehead to seek skull, my grandfather, seeing godzilla at a theme park for the first time, the experience of switching cultures, being chased by a very angry opossum that I thought was dead, watching the trains go by, climbing trees, wandering around in rainwater sewers, flying (it’s just different as a kid), friends who I’ll never see again, digging up kimchi, exploring… every place we could get to… and a whole ton of others that I’m sure I’ll enjoy remembering throughout the day now that you’ve asked :D thank you for the question!

@Harp That is really interesting and give some credence to the idea of the veracity of repressed or recovered memories of abuse.

@janbb But this has to be weighed against the fact that memories can also be subconsciously implanted. There have been experiments in which researchers coached subjects into forming “memories” of incidents that never actually happened.

So the implication is that actual suppressed memories are likely to be quite faithful, but also that not every “rediscovered” memory is necessarily factual.

Being abandoned by my Mother.
She put me in a cardboard box and left me in a Greyhound Bus Station.

Probably the summer of Expo 67, the Montreal World’s fair and the close to a hundred visits I made there! I was 13 and it was my first taste of relative freedom and the first time I experienced being something of an expert on a complex subject.

@Harp Yes, I’ve read about many cases of that; i.e. Satanic rites and incestuous acts that never happened. It’s a very complicated and tricky issue.

Crashing head on into a sppeding greyhound bus at the age of six, and watching them pull my unconcious brother from behind the wheel.

Getting up the courage to ask a girl for a date, and being laughed at in reply.

@wonderingwhy I need to hear more about the opposum, you should’ve heard me laugh at that one.

I remember spending the evening with my Mom before going to bed the most. It’s a very peaceful memory for me.

My Mom told me not to play with the escalator railings. “If you get your hands stuck, they will have to cut them off!” she said.
Naturally, I got a hand stuck inside. Trying to free it, I got the other one stuck.
I suddenly had the image in my head that I would have to live life with no hands. I freaked big time.
They stopped the escalator and I got my hands out without amputation, but the incident really put the jinx on my head.

I remember my first electric shock. I must have been 3 or 4. For some reason I got out of bed late at night. I am not sure why but I tried to plug in what must have been a defective light cord. I remember a big flash of light, pain in my right hand, and the feeling that I was hit with a big bag of sand. The next thing I remember is my Dad picking me up and putting me back in my bunk bed.

I later became an electronics technician and engineer. Maybe that was the spark for my ambition.

If you like the movie A Chistmas Story, you are going to love my answer. i was eight years old and grew up in an almost identical setting as this movie. ever since i was 6 years old, i wanted a Red Ryder Daisy BB Gun with a compass in the stock. i was disappointed on my 7th birthday…..no air rifle. BUT, on Christmas, right at my 8th birthday, there it was! i knew from looking at the outside of the wrapping paper, what was inside. i was not given this present, until the very last. my dad brought it to me and i had to shut my eyes for a big surprise. i thought my heart was going to burst from the excitement. i opened my eyes and there it was…...my very own Red Ryder Daisy BB Gun with a compass in the stock! my dad and i went over all the safety precautions and he demostrated how to load the air rifle with bb’s. this has to be the most enjoyable event in my childhood. I remember the words my dad told me, before he left me alone in the backyard with my new Daisy air rifle. he said, “be careful. never aim at any person. never shoot the birds and also shoot at only paper targets, or you’ll shoot your eye out”. he actually said these words to me. Santa was good to me that year and i will always remember my 8th birthday and Christmas that year.

@john65pennington good story, how are your eyes?

I do wear glasses, but its not because of my Red Ryder. i had a few close calls, but i did survive the best air rifle a guy could ever own. i believe my mother still has this bb gun somewhere in her house. she is 92 and does not remember.

I never had one, my mother wasn’t a fan of guns and would always hid our cap guns. I did have a cork gun which turned out badly.

We were moving into our new house, I was a few days away from turning 5. My brother and I had the gun and filling it with mud and shooting it. A neighbor boy came over and played too. Unfortunately he filled it with lye mud left in a pile of building supplies waiting for disposal. He shot the gun, hit me in the eye and I spent my 5th birthday in the hospital. I was thrown out when I tried to use my new clip on roller skates in the corridor.

Now that you are older, why not buy one now for yourself? if nothing else, than self-gratification? i also wanted a Cushman Motor scooter, but that never happened.

@john65pennington I’m way older. I did buy a BB gun for my wife because she is having a fight with a raccon at the bird feeder. Frankly, I’ve had to use guns in the military and don’t like them. I feel very uncomfortable with them.

My fifth grade teacher said I laugh like a “demented chicken” in front of the whole class.

I remember getting off the school bus on a cold December afternoon. It was after 5th grade band practice so it was starting to get dark. Our next door neighbor came out onto her porch and called for me to come over. I did and she said that my mom wasn’t home and that I was to come to her house. I asked where she was and she told me that she took my dad up to the doctor because he was having a physical. I happily played with her kids, had dinner there and did my homework. My mom came and picked me up. We got in the car and she told me that dad was in the hospital because he had a heart attack. I remember how bright and clear the stars were that night, and sending a wish up to them that he would be okay. Which he was. That was 1974 and he lived until 2002.

@tedibear39 I am relieved that you had an additional quarter century or so with your father after that horrible scare.

Watching my dad beat my mum.

@Dr_Lawrence Thank you. And he scared me plenty more times after that.

i am 15, and when I was 10, one of my memories were I was laying on the couch while it was STORMING outside in the dark with the only light: television At 3:00 AM when everyone was asleep. I ate an orange juice slushy and watched 90’s nick.
I am really happy when t rains, when it is dark, and I love Orange Juice!