What are your favorite childhood memories? When I think back on my hustles as a youngblood, several come to mind, and I lay some of them on you!
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Swiss Family Robinson
I never got into strawberry milk, but picturing you in your costume brought a big smile to my face.
I had an almost identical experience when a friend of mine got his first motorcycle. We must have been in 4th or 5th grade and I did the SAME thing. Punched it, jumped it, crashed it. Damn that sucked!
Yeah, my two favorite childhood memories are:
1) Going to dinner every saturday night with my parents at a restaurant called the Village Cafe. It was an Italian restaurant that just rocked, and my grandfather would always be sitting at the end of the bar in the place drinking a Narraganset out of the can. We used to walk there from our house every saturday (it may not have been every saturday, but much like the pink milk it sure seems like it was) and then walk back. I miss how simple things were back then, when walking with your family to eat out was the highlight of your weekend.
2) WHen I was playing little league in my first year, I was a piss poor batter. I remember like going 0 for a million! (Admittedly it was only the first three games of the season, but is there anything more sad for an 8 or 9 year old then swinging a big metal bat and tasting nothing but air?) My dad was an umpire in the league, and he was due to umpire our fourth game of the season. I batted third, and first time up hit a grounder to shrt that I thought for sure would get me on base….. no chance as I thrown out. Second time up I got a meatball across the plate and killed it into deep center field. I just stood there, and watched the ball. Meanwhile, my Dad is behind the plae and he whipped off his face mask and pushed me and screamed “RUN JEFFREY RUN!!!!” I looked back at him and he was smiling and crying at the same time, givin up all sense of calling the game to appreciate his oldest son’s first hit. I totally could have had a triple for that shot, but standing there like a dufus resulted in a double. That was my only hit of the game, and I went on to be a much better hitter through my four or five year baseball career, but I won’t ever forget that one!
Riding in the car listening to radio when it was loaded with great music. Heading for Lunde’s massive seafood restaurant in Sheepshead Bay.
The steaming hot biscuit’s, the Jamaican waiter’s all in neat uniform’s speaking with their cool accents. The fresh hash brown potatos, steamed lobster and home-made apple pie ala mode.
Coming home and getting a whiff of my grandmother’s potato pancakes was right up there too.
My first green Schwinn stingray bike with the banana seat and the sissy bar on back.
Cuddling in that big, roofed swing seat in our backyard with my favorite cousin, Marion, wrapped in blankets and singing songs while it was raining.
Quietly sitting in the grass next to my dad while he was fishing on Saturday afternoons.
Squirting pictures on the dry road in front of our house in the summer, using some old plastic bottle filled with water, and then watching it dry.
Racing downhill on that rickety, crimson bike my uncle had built and which didnât have any brakes. What a thrill! :)
Eagerly unpacking parcels my aunt used to send every once in a while from West Germany. They used to be filled with coffee, cocoa, candy bars and those marvelous, colorful packages of bubble gum. I will never forget the smell that came out of these parcels when we opened them.
I was listening to this *again* on the way into work today. I specifically remember
* the first time my friend and I caught the bus downtown without adult supervision
* the time my step-brother and I were caught going to the candy store when we were supposed to be home
* going fishing early in the morning with my dad
* the first time my sister and I got on an airplane by ourselves as “unaccompanied minors”
* getting my very first record player and some favorite KISS albums one Christmas
Lol. The things we remember as children. I remember learning to ride a bike. I was 5 and my uncle was showing me how to ride on my older female cousin’s hand-me-down pink, banana seat, training wheel clade, bike (that ended up being my bike for the first couple of years riding and I rode it proudly) in the driveway. Now, this wasn’t your average driveway. When it snowed, my uncle had to use the parking to keep the car from sliding down into the street, but this is where he thought I should learn, so I got on. He told me, “Clau, I’m going to hold the back and you pedal down the driveway.” He said it was easy and once I got to the end I could stop by reverse pedaling. And so I pedaled. My balance was unnatural and I found myself wizzing down the driveway as I pedaled. I went down the driveway and onto the street and realized two things: 1) my uncle wasn’t holding onto the back of the bike anymore, and 2) I had forgotten what he said about stopping. So there I was, face-to-face with the garage door across the street. We met and in the way that only a childhood memory can be remembered, I rode right up the garage door and just as gravity began to take it’s course, for a fleeting moment, I felt what it would have been like to be Elliot in E.T. Needless to say, I used training wheels for far longer than the rest of my friends.
I can sum up my childhood memories in three movie titles: The Three Amigos, Help!, and Spaceballs.