My first memory is not a happy one. It was not a great one because they beat the hell out of me. I was around five years old. My sister beat me. She was something like four years older than me. I was a saucy boy. I dyed her white dress in black. And that was not funny! And I did it on purpose because she pissed me off. I was a brat. I know.
(On the corner of N Fullerton Ave. and Claremont Ave.)
The year I turned 4, we lived in a railroad room apartment and our living room was at the end of the house with a big bay window facing the street. My birthday is a week before Christmas and that year I asked to sleep on the couch near the Christmas tree. I remember falling asleep gazing at the colored lights and shiny ornaments, which reflected the streetlights shining through the window, while listening to Judy Garland singing “Have Yourself a Merry Little Christmas,” and being so filled with joy.
I was around 5 yrs old when a kid in the neighborhood lured me to his backyard and dropped a rock on my head from the roof of his log cabin playhouse. When I saw the blood on my hand, I ran home screaming. My mother rushed me to the doctor, on foot, up the street and I received five stitches. There was no 911 then, no ambulance or Hospital visit or health insurance used and no lawsuit pursued. She instead visited the child’s mother that day, with me present, in front of their house and a loud verbal exchange resulted because my mother called her kid a brat. this drew a small crowd of neighbors that were cheering us on! Mother was screaming back and forth with her for 10 minutes. I’m not sure who won and couldn’t believe all the fuss, to this day. Some of the kids taunted me for being a crybaby and that hurt more than my head!
Your earliest memory is having a rock dropped on your head? That’s a tough starting gun. I remember standing in our living room watching my brother push over a tower made of wooden building blocks. They were light tan and dark brown, rounded a little on the corners, and it was amazing to see them spread out when they hit the floor.
I was very young, under 5. We lived in Vailsburg at the time. I used to know the name of the street. Fairmont Avenue? Anyway, one of the other tenants named Irene liked me and gave me a large (to me anyway) decorated piggy bank. It was a cherished memory for a very long time, then disappeared for a while. Thanks to the ‘remember when’ facebook pages it resurfaced. Wish I’d known her last name to tell her how much it meant to me.
i remember standing up in my crib, but then I remember nothing between that moment and my first days in kindergarden. I must’ve partied too much in between the two events.
In a dream….Hiding in my crib while Albert the alligator, from the comic strip Pogo, ran around the outside of my bars trying to get at me.
Holding and icecream cone in one hand and my grandmothers hand in the other, we were at Applegates and walked to the back of the buildings to look for the cows grazing. The houses werent there yet…. I was 2yrs and staying with my grandparents in Berkeley Heights Park… my mother was giving birth to my sister at Saint Vincents at Washington Street. I have lots of early memories at Berkeley Heights Park (Bloomfield) … especially at sunset because it was so dark….there were so many tall trees….but under the trees there was a brilliant afterglow. I also remember that my grandfather would make a skating rink for the kids in the park by flooding the tennis courts with his garden hose… all of my other earliest memories are icescating at Edgemont Park, Branchbrook Park or Turtleback Zoo.
My earliest memory is standing up in my crib waiting for my big brother David to come home from his paper route. He came home and put his arms around me even before putting his newspaper bag down. He is this attentive and affectionate throughout our lives. No surprise that he grew up to become a wonderful pediatrician. Thank you, David! Thank you Baristanet for this wonderful question!