My Earliest Childhood Memory
My Earliest Memory
WRITING PROMPT- what is your earliest memory? How old were you? Where were you? Describe the location, the people who were there, and what was going on. Was it a good experience or a bad one?
BONUS CHALLENGE - How would that experience be different if it happened today?
It was a sunny day in the a West End section of my hometown. We were driving up Fairfield Avenue heading to my grandfather’s sister’s house.
I remember making a right turn, going up a hill, and making another right turn. When we got out of the car, there was a sidewalk with very tall green hedges to our right.
We walked down a couple of steps between two hedges. We made a right turn at the bottom of the stairs and immediately climbed two or three steps to go onto an enclosed porch.
On this porch, I remember seeing a couch, a table with a lamp, and a refrigerator. I know there was more, but I can’t remember much of it.
The kitchen was right off the front porch. This is where my great-aunt Helen was cooking and talking to all of the ladies.
I remember being told to stay on the porch with my aunts and uncle.
I don’t remember much else about that trip. I don’t know if it was a special occasion or just a family get-together.
When I bring this memory up to my mom, she doesn’t believe that I remember it because I was so young. Apparently I was around two years old at that time. And people don’t usually have memories of their life that early. However, I have many! This is just the earliest (or so I was told.)
Families don’t get together like they used to. So if this were to happen today, odds are that there would not have been so many people.
And modern parents watch every move their children make. My mom was in the kitchen and left me with my aunts and uncle on the porch. I’m not sure that modern parents would let their children out of their sight at a family gathering that had so many people.
I’m not saying that my mother did anything wrong; in fact, she made sure I was being cared for and even checked on me quite often. The world just seemed so much safer because there were always so many other family members around and neighbors watched out for all the children, too.
