Random Memories

[willow]

I remember climbing to the top of an eight foot wire mesh fence to rescue my cat. The cat was not stuck of course, but I soon was. 2½yrs old.

I remember falling off the arm of the sofa and breaking a guitar by landing on it. I've no idea who owned the guitar. No one in my family can play a musical instrument.

I remember my first day of school. The teacher taught us how to raise our hands to answer questions by asking which breakfast cereal we liked.

I remember being a fairy in the gala day parade. A float full of flower fairies. We all wore white sticky out dresses, frill edged net wings, white gloves and flowers in our hair. My mother made my dress and I loved it! It poured with rain all day and my dress was stained all the colours of the rainbow by the dye dripping from the thousands of soaked paper flowers.

I remember falling off my bicycle and grazing my arm. I had to walk home because the front wheel was twisted. It was the height of summer and flies kept landing on the graze. I was convinced I'd be eaten alive from the inside by maggots.

I remember picking wild flowers on the way to the cemetery to place on the graves of various family members.

I remember trying to light the coal fire one freezing winters morning. We were out of kindling so I set fire to an old shoe.

I remember my first day as a student nurse working on an actual hospital ward. My uniform only just fitted (pin stripped dress, starched apron and hat) and the ward sister mentioned something about hoping I wasn't a big eater since the canteen food was so good (big fat lie) I was so embarrassed that my uniform was soon hanging off me and I had to be fitted for a smaller size. I have been dieting pretty much continuously ever since.

[Ginger]

Originally Posted by Duchess

I remember looking forward to the tent revivals that our church would host. They always felt so good.

Duchess

What do you remember about them? I have never been to one, have no idea what it's like.

[Ginger]

I remember the summer my aunt died. I was eight. The day of her funeral, we went back to my grandparents' farm, and I wandered around by myself outside all afternoon, looking in the windows now and then at all the strangers. In the back bedroom, the one that looked out over the pasture, I saw my uncle. He was in his thirties, a very tall man, maybe 6'3", and he was sitting in my great-grandmother's lap, sobbing. She was a tiny old woman, patting his back, and his long legs were dragging on the floor. I didn't look at grownups the same way, after that.

[Electrocell]

I remember riding horses bareback and feeling free.

[Little Fish]

I've been planning a trip home to California. I grew up in the SF Bay area and haven't been back in almost three years. I can't wait to walk my favorite beach at San Gregorio--so many important things happened to me there...

I first learned how to free myself from a rip current there--and almost drowned too.

I realized I was gay on this beach (one beautiful, classic California sunny summer day) with my two best (str8) friends....who are still close to me 31 years later.

I also got my first Butch Cock Blow Job on this beach, one warm summer night...laying against the bank of the small creek which cuts thru the beach and empties into the ocean.

I asked a girl to wait for me while walking this beach...as my Army unit was being mobilized for war in the Middle East. (She did.) I made an important decision while sitting on this beach by myself, after I returned.

I'm going back to make another important decision too.

Tonight, I'm remembering San Gregorio State Beach...and missing my other home.

[Gemme]

I remember my mom, after the breakdown and before the primary abuser. She was happy and healthy and looked and felt good and we had a really good time together. That's probably the best we ever got along.

[Kenna]

a sudden randomly sparked memory... two actually.
My favorite beach trips...
December 5th, 1998 beautiful spring-like weather as I walked on the beach for my very first time; in total, delightful solitude while everyone else was at the company Christmas party...a nice long walk just me, the birds, the slight wind, peaceful beauty and the sound of surf crashing...

many years later, on a sunny Valentine's weekend trip to Myrtle beach for my first time...the whole trip filled with wonderful, fun, delightful memories and laughter, contentment. My morning spent sitting on the dunes waiting on the sunrise, the cold sand, the crisp air, breathtaking colors of the sun, delighting in the textures around me like the dune grass and shells... being in total peacefulness, how calming the crashing surf, the slight wind feeling like it was cleansing my soul. The comforting sense of knowing a friend was watching me from the balcony, allowing me to have my moment but looking out for me. How cool the February weather was (and how the sand froze my butt cheeks), but how warm I felt inside. My inner 'little kid' joy and delight while visiting the Aquarium. God, I want to go back!!! Especially to those peaceful, inner-warmth times.

[VintageFemme]

A friend and I were just chatting about how we can talk and talk and talk forever and I was reminded how once I talked my sister right to sleep and then I remembered this that I hadn't thought about in years...

I was staying at a friends house one night w/ two other friends, kind of like, oh we're too drunk to drive home can we sleep here thing, and the two other girls were 'lovahs' lolol so they went off to one bedroom to sleep. I stayed on the sofa because K, the home owner had a thing for me, or so I thought and I so didn't have a thing for her back. I decided to leap over the sofa to land on it to sleep and well, that didn't work out lol I ended up tipping the sofa over and on top of me! I laid there laughing my drunk ass off as the three came to my un-needed rescue. K made me get in bed with her and to keep her from 'hitting on me' or so I thought that would happen in my drunken stupid mind lol I started talking. And talking and talking about god only knows what but I didn't shut up forever until finally K says to me, "Nita! Sssshhhh do you hear that?!?" knowing full well if I stopped talking for one moment, I would pass out. I did.

[Blade]

It's funny how, a simple phone call can bring random old memories back to life. I called my Pastor this afternoon to see if she was at the church. She said no we are at Mike's Dad's killing a hog. Chuckles you have to know my Pastor to get a laugh out of this but she is a Dallas Tx city girl. I'm sure there has never been any "hog killings" in her past.

So the random memory, it brought to mind was the cold winter days of long long ago when my family would kill a few hogs to put in the freezer. Big family day, everyone had a job to do and the day began at the crack of dawn which was also the crack of the sound of the rifle going off with the first kill of the day. My grandparents died in '82 and '84....but what I wouldn't give to spend one last day on the hill butchering hogs for the winter, with them.

IT's very hard to believe, that it has been 30 yrs since I heard their voices.

[jac]

Living less than 100ft away from a set of train tracks and learning there were realy live hobos on board at night.

It was in AZ and we lived at the riverbottom in Tempe. There was a small house between our tralier and the tracks but behind the house was a row of old shacks that were about 20ft from the tracks. Hobos would hop off the trains at night and crash in these shacks. When my three older siblings and I learned of this magical adventure (I was 5yo) we began cleaning out the shacks and making beds up for them on the little cots that were in there. We would leave food on the crates that were their makeshift end tables and every now and then we would leave clothing.

In the mornings we would return to find everything used, eaten and taken that was left for them. It was so fun!! We never saw the hobos but every time we heard the train blow it's whistle in the darkness of the night we knew our guests were getting off the ride soon and would be sleeping in their little shacks shortly there after.

Wow!! Fun times...

[Venus007]

I remember being little, maybe 5, and standing on my Pop's feet and dancing to the Andrew's Sisters singing "Begin the Beguine" and other big band songs and artists. My Pop always smelled like wool, dogs and old spice, wonderful smell. When I got older we went to the K of C Hall (Knights of Columbus) and danced to big band there.

[VintageFemme]

I remember when I was about five years old, we lived in a brownstone in Philadelphia with a bakery on one side of us and a fish store on the other. I don't remember the smells of either place though. I do remember walking our dog, Judy [a big german shepherd mix] with my two older sisters who were nine and ten years old, behind our house, across an alley and in a cemetery. I would sit on headstones of graves and daydream while my sisters walked Judy in the trees nearby.

I remember one day in that same house in Philadelphia... It had a long dark stairway that led upstairs to the bathroom & bedrooms, very dark for some reason, and my oldest sister and I were in the bathroom. I was sitting on the toilet and she was sitting on the edge of the bathtub and we were just talking and giggling like little girls do when we saw a white mist-like 'whatever thing' swoosh by the bathroom door in the hallway, and Barb fell in to the bathtub, I screamed and we both ran as fast as we possibly could down that dark stairway. We were so freaking scared.

I remember walking home from kindergarten when we lived in that same house, by myself for some reason that I can't remember now, and I got stung by a bee on my pinky finger. It was just after Easter and I had a classmade construction paper Easter basket with candies in it. I was crying so hard from the bee sting that I got completely disoriented and lost my way home. Fortunately a neighbor saw me and picked me up and gave me a ride home but when I got home my Mother made me share my candies with my sisters, nevermind the traumatic event I just went through.

[Semantics]

“And it’s awfully hard to know what one remembers oneself and what one’s been told to remember. I’m told that at the age of four I was taken to Hampstead Heath Fair by my father,
and greatly indulged in all the coconut shies and things, and when told I must get back for luncheon I rolled on the ground and shouted “You brute, you beast, you hideous ass”;
I was never allowed to forget that as a child but I’ve got no personal memory of it.”

-Evelyn Waugh

My family likes to tell a story about how, at the age of five, I ran away at a funeral. I remember being at the funeral. It was winter and I remember my mother holding me
inside her ghastly ankle length fur coat, which smelled like moth balls and Chanel No. 5. I don't remember running away, but according to my family it happened.

A decade later a girlfriend and I were driving past that same cemetery when she pulled in and ripped up a bunch of daffodils that someone had planted on a grave,
presenting them to me as a romantic gesture. I know I was tipsy at the time, but that memory, I'm certain, is real.