I once read a quote that said something like, "Childhood is a lot like being drunk: everyone remembers what you did except you." I've never been drunk, but I have been a child and remember very, very little about the experience. Much of what I do know has probably been pieced together from stories my parents and others have told me throughout my life, but here a few ACTUAL memories from my childhood that have stood the test of time.
My earliest memory is of living in some red brick apartments in Orem, Utah just west of University Mall. I think I loved there from about ages 2 through 3. We lived in a basement apartment, and one of our neighbors was a little girl who, according to my mom, was one of the most hyper kids who ever walked the face of the earth. My first memory is of her stomping on my toy organ and breaking it. I also remember being kicked in the eye while walking past her in the swingset (probably my fault for getting too close), and one time she and I were picked up by the police while walking down an island in the middle of a busy street (State Street). I still remember thinking it was pretty cool that I got to ride in a police car :) I also fell off the bed while we were living in those apartments and cracked my head open, and I still remember screaming while the doctor shoved me under the sink in his office to clean the blood off my head before giving me stitches. My last memory of those apartments is of the day we moved to Provo. I was worried that my favorite Christmas present, a spring horse that I could ride, would be forgotten. So I sat by it as I watched everything get loaded into the truck, and my spring horse was the very last item that was loaded before the door was closed.
Our new house was an actual house. It was located in East Provo and had white wood siding. There was a basement apartment with a young married couple and on Halloween just after my 4th birthday I decided to go trick-or-treating to their house ... at 10am. They were more than a little surprised to see me there so early in the day, and they hadn't bought candy yet so they gave me a banana :) A few months later I decided to try my hand at shoplifting. Allen's Drug Store was about a block away and my friend and I went there with a friend. It was Easter time and we decided the Cadbury eggs looked good, so we took a few and put them in our pockets, walked outside and around the corner and ate them. Then (and this will betray my abundant lack of criminal experience), we walked back INTO the store -- probably with chocolate all over our hands and faces -- to get more. Someone must have recognized us because our moms both arrived a few minutes later. To this day I have never forgotten the spanking my mom gave me.
We had a garden while living in that white house. I didn't mind the green and yellow beans they grew, and I think I even liked the peas. But I drew the line at zucchini. One night at dinner my mom was trying to get me to eat some, and it tasted so bad I was gagging. The main dish was stroganoff, which I liked, so my mom said to me, "Maybe if you eat the zucchini with the stroganoff it won't be so bad." So I tried it, and threw up all over the kitchen floor (which, unfortunately, was carpeted). Now that I am an adult, zucchini tastes completely different. Maybe my parents just had a bad variety or something, but if I ever again taste anything that reminds me even remotely of the way that zucchini tasted when I was a kid I'll spit it out of my mouth so fast even Spiderman wouldn't be able to move quickly enough to avoid getting hit by it.
There was an apartment complex across the street from where we lived that had a brick planter box, and one day I was climbing onto the planter box and jumping off when another little boy decided to join me. His name was Clayton, and he was my first real friend. I liked playing outside so much that I didn't want to come in for any reason. Being a boy, it was easy to find a way to use the bathroom without actually having to go indoors. And when I got thirsty, well, there was a convenient gutter filled with water that I could drink out of. One day when I wasn't feeling well my mom said to me, "Were you drinking from the gutter? Our neighbor said she saw you." I vehemently denied it, but that was the last time I drank from the gutter. Having to go inside for water was a small price to pay to avoid having to lie in bed for an entire day.
I remember the day my sister was born. My parents had been talking about how exciting it would be for me to have a sister and I was really on board with the whole idea. When it was time for my mom to go to the hospital I was shocked and more than a little displeased to discover that my uncle had been assigned to take care of me. I had thought my parents and I were a team! A couple years later that same uncle let me watch "Raider's of the Lost Ark" and I had nightmares for weeks. My parents never asked him to babysit again. (Maybe that was his plan all along :) )
My great-grandmother (my dad's dad's mom) lived about a mile away from us and we visited her often. She always wore sneakers, often complained about her ingrown toenail, worked harder than anyone I have ever met before or since (and she was in her eighties by the time I knew her), and made the world's best peanut brittle. To this day I have still never tasted anything that compared to hers. She worried about tripping over the vacuum chord and falling, so when I did chores at her house I always kept the vacuum chord coiled around my arm, letting out just enough to do the job but keep it off the floor. When my parents bought an upright vacuum I was vacuuming at home one day and did that exact same thing. My mom kindly informed me that it wasn't necessary to do that when I vacuumed at our house, and it made the job of vacuuming much easier for me. My great-grandmother loved getting Christmas cards and saved every single one she received. I remember seeing them strung up all over her house. She also adored her iris garden, and would invite my family over every spring to see them in bloom. She had two big walnut trees in her back yard and I enjoyed climbing on them. We occasionally visited my other great-grandmother who lived in Layton (my dad's mom's mom). She always gave me a snicker's bar and her husband always gave me a crisp dollar bill.
I lost my first tooth when I was about four or five years old. I was walking down the sidewalk chewing purple bubblegum and suddenly there was something crunchy in it :) I got a blue bike with red tires for Christmas a few months after I turned five. I still remember walking into the living room and seeing it sitting next to the tree in all its glory. I could hardly contain my excitement. My parents used to take walks on Sundays, window shopping in downtown Provo. I started bringing my bike with me and learned how to ride on those walks. I had training wheels for a while, but one day I was riding around the neighborhood and an across-the-street neighbor noticed that I wasn't really using the training wheels and offered to take them off for me. Soon after that I was riding my bike in bare feet and parked it on the lawn, only to step on a bee. I had an allergic reaction to that sting and had to be rushed to the hospital, but I've been stung since without a similar effect. I also had a piece of ply wood fall on me one time and got a splinter so deep we had to go to the doctor to get it removed.
All things considered, I had a pretty fantastic childhood. There are good and bad memories, of course, but I knew I was loved and my parents took good care of me and tried to start me off heading in the right direction. When I tried to wander off in a different direction, they did their best to get me back in line. Now that I am a father I hope I am trying to pass their legacy of love on to my own children.
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