Early Memories

I have often wondered just how far back we can go in our memory. As John Taylor taught (and I think scientists are beginning to agree), our memories are all up there somewhere. We just don't seem to be able to get at them.

For me, I have the glimmers of a few early memories. I am unsure if these are really memories, or if Mom or Dad told me about them and so I remember them from the telling and not from the experiencing. (I have at least a few stories that I know are from Mom or Dad telling me about them. These are the butter story, the drink story, and the bar story.)

The earliest event that is in my mind is the summer of 1953. At least I think it was that summer. It is a fleeting glimpse of the house in Union. We weren't living there yet, but the walls were up and the roof was on. It was tight. The floor was just concrete. I think it was a Saturday because Tommy Pomikala was there with Dad and I. They were laying the green tile on the cement floor. The tiles started at the west end of the south side of the house. Only that south side (where the kitchen was) was tiled. As they came up to the east end of the house, they ran out of tiles (or they decided to stop laying tile). They were about 18 inches to 2 feet away from the outside wall when it happened. They couldn't or didn't even complete the line of tiles. That was where the kitchen sink was placed so it covered the area where there were no tiles. Funny how I can see them there. Tommy is standing; Dad is squatting down (you know how he used to sit back on his heals.) I want to say that Dad is having a smoke, but I'm not sure. It is warm, and a bit dark in the house.

The next two memories are a bit wrapped together. I am not certain which one is earlier.

I remember coming home from Junior Sunday School in the spring of the year. I think it was about 1954 or 1955. The sun is shining, and there is a breeze blowing. In a word, kites! Little Walt is there visiting (so it has to be before 1957 when he got married.) He and Mom are standing outside on the front walk that leads from the south porch of the house (remember sitting there on the porch on a warm summer evening with Dad and Mom watching the lightening off to the south west?) out to the south. They are right near the lane. It is before the Saris' built their house. I don't think they had bought the property from Aunt Alice and Uncle Judd yet. Walt has a kite up in the air, and he lets me take the string. I feel so excited that Walt (whom I adored at the time!) has let me fly his kite.

Perhaps this last one is a bit later than the kite story, but I feel that it is in the same year. Joe and I (I think Darrell was too young) are playing in the professor's field to the south. We have been gone all morning in the fields - avoiding the field where the bull was pastured, but up and down in the fields. We go down to the canal and then walk to the west almost to the creek. Then we come back up the canal bank, and cross through the fields, climbing through the barbed wire fence. The field is full of daisies. They look like the most beautiful flowers in the world, so Joe and I pick great armfuls of these wild daisies and bring them back to Mom who has called us for lunch. Mom (bless her heart) doesn't tell us right then that they stink (they are weeds after all), but she let's us bring them into the house. It is only later that she tells us kindly that there are flowers that belong in the house, and there are flowers that need to stay outside.

Do you have any early memories?