Memories

Have you ever tried looking back as far as possible into your childhood to try to see what may be the earliest thing from your life that you remember? Every once in a while, I play this game. The problem is, I am not sure how old I was at different events from my past that I remember. It kind of helps that we lived in several places while I was growing up. I know what the progression was in our living in different places, and I can attach certain memories to certain places.

I was born in Elwood, a small town in Indiana. Mom and Dad were buying a house there when I was born. I have no memories of living in that house at all. I only knew that house from later on when Mom and Dad sold it. My first memory was of a house where we lived in Tipton, which is where I grew up and went to school. I would have to check with my Mom about details, but I remember a sandbox in the back yard and one of those play balls; the inflatable, vinyl kind. For some reason we moved from this house when I was very young, maybe when my brother David was born. We moved to the Oyler farm. (Mr. Oyler was the landlord.) I remember a lot about the Oyler farm.

At the Oyler farm, I remember the dogs. My dad raised beagles. I don't have any memory of dogs before the Oyler farm, though we may have had them before then. But I remember Lil, Queeny, Shotgun. I remember we kids used to play in the barn, but we shouldn't. I remember we got Uncle Steve's bicycle, which was humongous, but I learned to ride it anyway. I remember one day deciding to run away together with my little brother, David. Our older brother, Larry, ran after us and begged us not to go. I remember Larry was a bully back then. He was the first one who ever sucker punched me in the stomach, and that, too, happened at the Oyler farm.

Funny the kinds of things you can pull up from your childhood. What was your earliest memory?