Favourite Childhood Memories

[La Femme Fatale]

Thought it would be nice to share some of our favourite memories from childhood together. I have two major ones;

- We have a pond in our backyard, and when we were young every winter the whole family would play ice hockey together. Our dog, Meka, would always, always be one of the goalies and she loved it. We'd obviously never shoot very hard but nothing got past her.

- Every year we'd go up to Toronto for a weekend. We'd go to Medieval Times - which, for those who don't know is a dinner theatre here in Canada (I think there might be some locations in the States). My sister and I would always dress up to the nines and one time, our knight had motioned for me to come up and he had given me a carnation and kissed my hand. Which probably has greatly influenced my fondness for carnations, medieval-era things and guys with long blonde hair.

- And another weekend, we had taken the boat to Ontario Place and docked it right close to the Molson Amphitheatre. Clay Aiken was playing at the time - and I remember there was one moment that was totally silent, I yelled 'you suck' because I used to be super obnoxious and then he had said 'Who said that? That really hurts!' And the crowd started to boo. It was great.

Anyway, enough about me - what are some of yours?

 

[Tron8]

I remember my mother holding me in her arms as a baby. She carried me into the kitchen and gave me a pacifier. The room was quite dark, and all i remember seeing was the fridge open and a large orange light shining right before my eyes. It's the earliest memory that i have of life in general. It's interesting thinking back upon it, despite my mother being some what of a stranger at the time, I never felt any sense of danger. This intrigues me because the idea of my mother giving birth to me made me feel an aura of comfort and safety without having to cognitive abilities to process all of those emotions.

 

[Popo]

Well, I remember when I was a little kikd and my mom used to play Streets of Rage with me, I really loved that.

I also remember the first time I played Resident Evil, which introduced me to zombie stuff, and has since fascinated me.

And last but not least I really miss when my dad went out to get drunk(I don't miss this part) and me and my mother, my sister, my brother and my grandma all sneaked out to eat out at a restaurant. We'd never go out to a restaurant with my dad, so when we sneaked out ot do this it felt really good.

 

[Angel]

Sounds clichéd but Christmas.

We were dirt poor and moved around to different houses a lot to stay with other people whilst my parents scraped the deposit together for our own home and as a kid, it was just one big magical adventure. Other adults took pity on me and my sister, I guess, and made every Christmas we spent elsewhere utterly amazing. We didn't get more than one gift each but the whole build up, atmosphere and general fun was wicked.

Even when we finally got our own place to live, we would still have really cheap Christmases and often share them with another poor family - we'd pool our cash and food and everyone would pack into our tiny living room and just have fun.

Other kids would be getting the latest whatever and fighting with their families and what have you but us? We were just so damn grateful to get anything at all. My parents saved all year round to get us our presents and by hell we appreciated it.

 

[KevinStriker]

During our trip to Seattle years ago, playing House of the Dead and Sunset Riders with my brother in the arcade while our parents shopped around.

 

[Scrumpeh]

When I was around 6, my Dad would always take me to Caesars Palace in Las Vegas, and we would just walk around and look at all of the cool stuff like the statue show that would play every 40 minutes. Actual Animatronic statues. I never knew what it was about, but it was so cool!

 

[Romero]

I have so many memories. We were poor so most of the fun happened at my neighbour friends. There, I got to drive cars, tractors, lorries (US English: trucks), motorbikes, go-carts, snowmobiles, bulldozers, excavators and what not. The race circuit was often public roads. We lived in a valley pretty much out of reach for the law.
Motor vehicles was always fun, whether they ran or not. If they didn't run it was great fun taking them apart and repairing them.

My best friend and I went hunting or just had fun with target shooting. We used BB-guns and shotguns. When we hunted we shot at everything that moved except people and domestic animals. A little bit like the South Park characters Uncle Jimbo and Ned lol. I was so young I didn't think of it as a crime, not until my dad found out and told me.

My crazy friend also shot at windows with the BB-gun, just to see if they broke or not. To my knowledge he never cracked a window.

We hunted crows at a garbage dump and the nearby cemetery when we got a little older, there was a reward for shooting them.

We also distilled liquor a couple of times. We didn't sell it, it was only for personal use. My parents was not too fond of it, but my grandfather was proud. (In case you wonder: NO we did not try drugs, it was a completely drug free community. Not even weed.)
I also went to Christian Sunday school as most kids did. It's not one of my favorite memories, but I mention it to balance out your impression of my childhood lol.

I actually remember something legal I did, I used to fish every summer. And late in the winters when there was a chance of a few hours sunshine (March-April), we used to take mountain trips skiing.

 

[tremor]

I remember I always played with the boys. The way the girls played just seemed so boring to me. I'd rather run around, pretending I was blowing things up and whatnot. My parents raised a tomboy is what they did. Plus I spent more time with my dad than my mom. She was always working during the day.

I remember my dad introducing me to metal music lol. He had this really great stereo system. One day he sat me in his recliner, put these big headphones on me and I listened to bands like Megadeath, Metallica, and Pantera.

Even though it scared me so bad, I always sat on the couch, behind my dad, and watched X-Files over his shoulder lol.

 

[Romero]

I sounded like a barbarian in my previous post. But we didn't shoot often and we hunted even less often. So while I probably were a barbarian to some degree (and probably still are, in the eyes of city dwellers ), I wasn't as bad as it sounded.

And I must correct something. My friend did shoot at domestic animals, and even at people.
He shot with the air gun at their own cows a few times, to see them jump. But the distance was far so the lead bullets didn't leave marks on their skin.
And he loaded the air gun with rabbit poop when he shot other kids on their thighs and asses. That was funny.

 

[tremor]

And I must correct something. My friend did shoot at domestic animals, and even at people.
He shot with the air gun at their own cows a few times, to see them jump. But the distance was far so the lead bullets didn't leave marks on their skin.
And he loaded the air gun with rabbit poop when he shot other kids on their thighs and asses. That was funny.

LOL your friend sounds a lot like my stepdad!

 

[Jen]

Like some of the people above, I come from a poor family. My dad worked away for two weeks at a time, he'd be home for the weekend and then go away again. Some of my favourite memories are of when my dad came home and how happy we were when he did. He'd give us all tons of attention and we loved it.

Somehow my parents always managed to scrape together for us to have a holiday in the south of England. My grandparents would come too and there are so many happy memories I have of those times.

Another standout special memory is when we first got our dog, Jericho. I was 7 years old and me, my brother, sister and some of our friends did karate. I wondered why my mum wasn't there to walk us home, it was just my friend's mum there. On the walk home my friend's mum tapped me on the shoulder and pointed to the road. My parents were in my dad's work van and my mum held up a box to the window, and a little black furry head looked out of the window, and I literally remember jumping up and down on the spot. We went back to my friend's house and my mum and dad brought the puppy to their house to meet us all, and then I carried him down the road to our house. He snuggled into me every time a car passed by because he didn't know what they were. He was so tiny and I adored him straight away. I have so many happy memories of Jericho.

 

[tremor]

I was looking through my box o' important things and I ran across a hawk feather that I thought I had lost.

The story behind the feather is a cute one. My hometown used to hold a Riverfest every year and I loved going. They had all kinds of things to do, plus reinactments of sorts. They had a little Creek indian village set up and I ALWAYS visited it, every single year. You could buy handmade jewelry and you could also watch them perform their war dances and whatnot.

The "musket man" (he liked to show off his musket to everyone lol) had a son who would do what they call a hoop dance. Well I always thought he was really cute and one day I approached him and told him that I really enjoyed watching him dance. He was surprisingly shy but he smiled, and said thanks quietly. I started to walk away and I felt him tap me on my shoulder. When I turned around, he produced a beautiful hawk feather and since I had my hair pulled back, he tucked it into my hair.

So, each year after that, he always noticed me and smiled at me. The last time I ever went, I was 14 years old and they had added on a dance that you would find at any powwow. Anyone from the audience was welcome to join in, but I was really shy about joining in. My mother is half American Indian, so I knew a lot about how these things work, I was just shy. Anyway, this dance goes in a circle around the guy beating the drum and chanting, so when the boy made his way around, closest to me, he looked over at me and motioned for me to join in. Something came over me and I hopped right up and got in, right behind him, held his hand, and danced around for the remainder of the dance. My ancestors would be so proud lol It's really hard to explain the feeling I got from it, but I felt it in my heart and my gut. I'll never forget that feeling.

I never knew the boy's name but I will never forget him regardless.

 

[La Femme Fatale]

That's a really sweet story, Tremor.

I have another that's not-so-sweet but my parents won't ever let us forget. There's this place called the Garden Gallery close to where I live, and it's liquor/beer and home decor store with a giant greenhouse and a little petting zoo with peacocks and goats and a couple other animals in the back (now Safari Niagara). I know it sounds like I'm kidding or on LSD, but I'm totally not.

I believe I was around 8 or 9 and my sister was 4 or 5 when we were there with my mom and my aunt. We usually went off ourselves to the zoo while they did their shopping. My sister, Karyn, really had to do #2, and we couldn't find a bathroom. So like a good big sister I took her behind some bushes and let her do her thing. One of the employees looked like she was coming over so I took my Karyn's hand and went back to find mom. Mom asked us where we were, I said the bathroom, she asked where it was and I pointed to the two employees who were very loudly complaining about the kid who just took a dump.

Mom went as white as a ghost and we booted it outta there.

 

[AgentZero]

Oh man . . . I have so many. I was a very adventurous child, and I did a lot of things.

Probably some of my favorite memories would be when my best friend and I learned parkour at the age of about 10. Those were the days lol