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Sunday, September 17, 2006

Sunday Seven

lifted from Jenn, who I think made it up herself. :)

1. What is your first memory?
I have a few scattered bits of memory from when I was around 2. One is from, if I'm correct about this, the national bicentennial, which would have been when I was nineteen months old. I remember bunting everywhere and being at the history center in town with the stamp mill going, and I remember I was wearing something frilly over my diaper. I don't know why I've always thought this was the bicentennial, come to think of it. I'll have to ask my mom where we were that day and see if I'm right.

I also remember sitting on a railing made of pipe in front of someone's house and falling off it into a bed of cactus. THAT was fun. I asked my dad about this later and he said that was at someone's house in Maricopa, where we lived for five or six months in 1977, the only time we've ever lived away from here since I was born. So I was about 2 1/2 when that happened.

2. What was your favorite thing to do as a child?
Reading. Closely followed by playing outside. As I got older, after I got my horse (I was 9), riding her was definitely way up there too.

3. What was your favorite family moment as a child?
When we were in the car going for a drive. This was a good cheap fulfilling form of family entertainment. We'd sing and play car games and look at the scenery. Much of the time we'd be in the pickup truck and my brother and I would ride in the camper. We had an intercom so we could talk to Mom and Dad in the front, or in some of our campers we had that boot-thing where you could open the back window of the truck and the front window of the camper and put the boot-thing around the opening to block the wind and voila, an SUV. Except without seatbelts (or even seats) in the rear. Man that was fun.

4. When and what was your first exposure to religion?
We went to the Methodist church my whole childhood (my mom had gone there for HER whole childhood as well). So my first exposure to religion was sitting on a pew surrounded by a bunch of VERY nice people whose Bibles were very dusty, listening to bland but brief sermons without any noticeable connection to the Bible. Your Methodist mileage may vary.

5. What was your worst nightmare as a child?
You know, I don't remember. I remember some strange dreams (going swimming in a river of paint with my brother's friend; this was when I was maybe 7) but I can't remember any nightmares right now. I know I had them.

6. What was your most embarrassing childhood moment?
I'm trying to think of one from early childhood but I was so clueless then. I have some memories that are painful ones because at the time I didn't know that I should be embarrassed, but those don't technically count as embarrassing moments. So I'll count childhood as including sixth grade. (no, this is not the dog-biscuit story; I've told that one too many times already). One day I found a note in my desk from a boy I liked, saying that he liked me and would I "go with him"? I was on my way to the library where I helped check out books, so when he put his book on the desk to check out, I put the note with a Yes written on the bottom into his book like a bookmark. He pulled it out and looked at it and was pretty embarrassed himself (he was a nice kid; I wonder whatever happened to him. I can't even remember his last name) because he hadn't written it. It was a prank, masterminded by a girl I still don't like much (not just because of this) and carried out by a boy with whom I later became decent friends. I never mentioned that incident to him, though.

7. Name one person who hurt you as a child that you have forgiven.
Tim Preston. I always swore I would hate him till the end of my life, because he had truly been very mean to me. Then I ran into him a year ago at the county fair and he approached me, spoke very kindly to me as if we'd never been anything but great friends, shook my hand, and walked away, and I couldn't hate him anymore. Sometimes I forget that they were just children, all those children, and that most of us grew up to be adults who didn't necessarily have a whole lot in common with our younger selves.

Sam M., though, that's another story. ;-)

Comments

Posted by: Jenn at September 17, 2006 11:38 PM

Posted by: Jenn at September 17, 2006 11:39 PM

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