Childhood Memories

[Chuckie]

I think everyone would love to hear your favorite childhood memories. Maybe something that you think of often that makes you feel good or you laugh at. I think this will be fun to hear what everyone has to say....

Here is one that I have about my Grandmother that is simple. When I was really young, they lived in an old house way off the road. They had a coal stove in the kitchen to heat the house. When I would go to bed at night, she would have so many blankets piled on me that the sheets would be so cold that once I had that spot warmed, I didn't want to move out of that area.

When it was time to get up, I could smell breakfast cooking and could always smell her fried eggs first thing. I would jump up and run to the coal stove without my shoes on, and she would tell me that I was going to get sick because I did not have on any shoes.

She would ask me what I wanted for breakfast and I would tell her I wanted her fried toast.
She had an old black skillet that had a broken handle. She would put it on the stove; heat it up and put butter on thick bread, and brown the toast in the skillet. She would brown it pretty good on the butter side, and lightly on the plain side. It would be so crunchy. She would ask me how many pieces I wanted and I would always tell her four. She would always giggle because she knew I loved her toast.

She made all of her jelly because my Granddaddy grew strawberries and had peaches, apples and pears. They had grapes and blackberries too. My Granddaddy had orchards for years, so he was so good at growing things. They had the best gardens.

I would always ask for the peach jelly and I would pile it on.
Seems like when you are a kid, you were really hungry, and the food was so new, and so good. It was the beginning of your taste bud experience, and foods don't taste like they did when you were a kid. I think that is why we say, "That doesn't taste like the way my Mom or Grandmother made it."

Cokes were better too when I was a kid. They were hard to drink from those bottles, and I wanted to let it come out of my nose and it would burn and fizz. It seemed like they were stronger back then, but I think it was because it was so new to me.

 

[Chuckie]

Well, I'll bite again so I won't look so mean.
When I was in the second grade, we moved from Memphis TN to the farm. We moved into a frame house that had been empty for a while, and we came down a couple of weekends to get the house straight so we could make it livable.
I have two brothers, one younger and one older, and the younger one was always telling on us, keeping thing stirred up. My older brother was two years older and my younger brother was three years younger. So, we gigged him as much as possible.
My oldest brother and I found an old flat TV antenna wire that went to a simple pole antenna, that probably picked up three local stations and we started sticking it to our ears. We were passing it back and forth to each other and we told my younger brother we were listening to the TV.
We told him that Jackie Gleason was on, "The Honey Mooners," and we were laughing, and my younger brother asked if he could listen and we told him no.
We did this for as long as we could until he maxed out and started screaming for Mom and they both came in there to see what was going on. He told them that we would not let him listen to the TV. :lol2: Of course the aftermath was not so good. I still laugh every time I think about it as we passed that piece of wire back and forth.

The house had really rough floors and had a short hallway. We had a dog named Charlie that loved to hang on to a rag and would not let go. You could swing him around you a couple of times if you kept him low. We would run up and down that hall way dragging Charlie because because he would slide. I picked up quite a few splinters from that hallway. My Dad would sic Charlie on us and he would grab our hands and leave puncture marks between the bones that would turn blue. Once he had hold of your hand, you knew not to pull away. When Charlie would go to sleep behind his chair, we would get straws from the broom, and tickle his feet and his rear end to make him think he had a flea. But he soon learned that it was not a flea, and he would just boil out from behind the chair and nail us. It didn't take us long to stop doing that.
These are things kids did when there were no computers and electronic games.

 

[skyhightree1]

I will share a few but here is one. Growing up my great grandmother had an fruit orchard and we always picked apples together to make her apple butter or for breakfast apples. Well one year I think it was hornets I was 6 years old when this happened forgive me they had made a huge paper next on a low lying limb on the apple tree. Grandmother and I were picking away and I saw the biggest sweetest apple ever on a low lying limb that I thought I could get the apple and not disturb the bees on the same limb. I went over but the apple was out of my reach so then decided to jump pull the limb down some and twist it off. I jumped grabbed it yes i was thinking until I saw the next shake then fall to the ground. I yelled run to my grandmother and she was 80 something then and couldnt really run but a very steady fast walk and she always wore a hair net well I stayed by her side till we got to the house my grandmother that lives with me now her daughter yanked her hair pens out and hair net off and bees were in her hair and tangled in her hair net. She however did not get stung thankfully me I had to go to the hospital and will forever remember that. :tiphat:

 

[Jogeephus]

Chuckie, I had to smile reading your description of the morning ritual. It was the same at my grandmother's house except she burned wood rather than coal. Grandfather would awaken around 5 to milk the cows and she would start breakfast. The house was so cold and the spot in the bed so warm the only thing on earth powerful enough to get me out of bed was the smell of her breakfasts. And like you say, freezing feet running to the warmth of the kitchen and then the huge spread she put on every morning. Its a shame my children never experienced this as it was great.

Odd thing though. Breakfast and lunch were huge spreads but supper consisted usually of cornbread with milk and that was it.

 

[cow pollinater]

When I was a little boy I had blue eyes and straw blond hair. My hair is strait and fine and combs over perfectly(and is darker now) but I have never worried much about my personal appearance. My mother was constantly fussing over the perfect hair on her perfect little boys head... I always wanted a buzz haircut but mommy wouldn't let me.
One day my dad and I(I would guess I was seven at the time) were in town getting parts for a piece of equipment and the guy at the parts counter was teasing my dad about raising me wrong because I was the only man around without a hat. He gave me a hat and I told him I couldn't wear it. It wasn't a cowboy hat and those were the only hats mom would let me wear.
As I recall mom and dad were fighting that day and that did happen a lot.
My dad took the hat. We left, went to the barber shop and waited an hour but when I got in the chair I got my buzz haircut and I wore the hat home.
Thirty years later, I still like a buzz haircut and I always wear a hat if I'm outside and my mom is still pissed at my dad over ruining her perfect little boy.

 

[Chuckie]

I love cold milk with cornbread. I haven't had that in so long. I remember my Grandmother always cooked supper too. She would fix those Fordhook Lima beans and mashed potatoes. They never ate beef, just chicken and pork. Occasionally she would fix a hamburger, but she would keep mashing it in the pan until all the juice was gone out of it and it would be so dry that it would squeak when you bit in to it. I never mentioned hamburger again. She was a super cook, but she could really do some damage to the ground beef.

I bet you thought you were one of the guys when you got your head peeled and wore an equipment hat like they did. I would love to have been a fly on the wall when your Dad took you home to Mom.

 

[Chuckie]

Skyhigh, it is a wonder your Grandmother lived through that one. Even the thought of having to walk fast enough to get away from the hornets. I bet you were a sick pup after getting stung several times.

 

[skyhightree1]

Skyhigh, it is a wonder your Grandmother lived through that one. Even the thought of having to walk fast enough to get away from the hornets. I bet you were a sick pup after getting stung several times.

Yes sir.. I was sick had to go to the dr and get a shot it was bad.

 

[inyati13]

I remember my Great Uncle Willie. He was my mom's Uncle by marriage. His name was William Piper. Uncle Willie was married to my Great Aunt Allie. He was born about 1880. He fought in the Spanish-American War.

After Aunt Allie died he moved in with his daughter Elsie. I was only 5 or 6 when I was around him. But I remember how sweet and kind he was. He smiled when he looked down at me. The odors of his room are fixed in my memory. Old people smell old. No other way to describe it.

He would take Henry and I into his little room and take a sword off the wall. The sword was the sword he carried as a United States Army Calvary Soldier. He had very few possessions. But the sword, a rifle and case pocket knives were his treasures. My Uncle Bill got his sword and Uncle Herman got a big case Hunter knife with stag horn handles. I don't know what happened to the gun but I think it was a .45-70.

Uncle Herman was so fond of the big case hunter knife with real stag horn handles. He brought it with him when he came over to the farm. I always wanted one just like it. About 2008, I found one on EBay. I bought it and I still have it. I think it is a 1960s version but the design and model of the knife was the same as Uncle Willie's. The theme of this is that the items our ancestors treasure, we also come to cherish.

 

[hurleyjd]

Here is a story that I still remember well all of the neighbors were also aunts and uncles. I asked to go down the road to play with James my cousin. Mother said no. I slipped off any way. Had not been there long looked up and my mother was coming down the road with a switch. I ran through the pasture and crawled under the smokehouse. I can remember to this day her looking down and telling me you can come out now and take your punishment or you can stay under there and think about it. Just the same you will be punished. I stayed under there until supper time about three hours. Slipped out and sit down at the table and ate my supper. Well I thought I had put a fast one over on my mother. She went about her business and got the switch grabbed my arm and had me whipped before you could say Jack Robinson. Not much fun then but a great memory that will stay with me for ever.

 

[Chuckie]

We had an old hay barn that had a large opening at the peak of the roof where the hay spear dropped; then another opening at the floor level. It was really tall. The ladder went up the side of the wall, and it had a huge corn crib too. We called it a government barn because they were built right after the depression. I used to see them at all the farms, but they have all disappeared now. Up in the hayloft, there was so much room that it was larger than some small houses. A tornado hit the barn in the late 70's when my horse was in it, and they had to cut him out with chain saws. The vet heard somehow what had happened and he drove out to put him down. When they cut the beams off from around his head, he just stood up like he had been laying down, and walked out. His name was Jigger. He had a nice little trot.

Anyway......the hayloft floor was huge, and it had some holes in it. My brothers and I knew where they were, but visitors didn't. So anytime someone came to spend the night that was new, we would always take them up there to play as we always had a hay house built from stacked square bales and a tunnel leading up to the house. Before they went up, we made sure that the holes were covered up with hay.
We would start running around and when their leg dropped through the floor they would panic and think they were going all the way through. Of course we would start laughing and some of the kids would cry and some would get mad. Some would laugh, but not that many. It was always fun to take the new kid up there.

 

[Bigfoot]

My father put an extremely high value on a days work, still does for that matter. We raised tobacco and cattle. Between the two, there was work to be done 52 weeks a year. We never got paid by the hour, but we did have a few cows, and a couple thousand pounds of tobacco to sell each year. I don't know how old we were, but at some point my dad decided we could have a weeks vacation a year. That week was as near as I ever came to having a childhood. We would usually take it right about now.

 

[CottageFarm]

My Grandpa died when I was just 3. My grandparents adored each other, and Grandma still called Grandpa her sweetie, so I can only imagine how crushing it was for her when she lost him. My Mom didn't want Grandma to have to be alone, and she couldn't stay as school was starting and my 4 older siblings had to get home, (and my Mom probably had to go back to work), so she left me with Grandma for awhile, maybe a month. Even though I was so little, and I don't remember most of it, one very clear memory I have is having a big bowl of Pasta Fagiole for dinner while my Grandma taught me how to spell my name. She would make letter shapes with her hands, point to her eyes for an "I". Silly stuff, but it stuck with me. I remember her teaching me about cooking, too. Mostly her love for it and for good food in general.
And she would cuss in French and Italian and occasionally English, depending on just how ticked off she was. :lol2:
Unfortunately, she passed away 7 years later when I was only 10.

 

[highgrit]

You folks had it made. I wish mine was a little better.

 

[bigbull338]

lets see i have something that i did when i was 6 or 7.i loved soupy eggs at that age.and my grandmothers lived next door to eachother.my aunt and uncle lived with my other grandmother at that the time.and i would go over and tell my aunt i wanted soupy eggs.and she would fix me eggs till i was full.and most times id eat 3 eggs.

 

[Chuckie]

Highgrit, we are just telling the good stuff, not where we got drug out of the house by the hair on our head!

Bigbull, you remind me of a white cat I had when I was a kid. I thought I had the only white cat within several miles. But one boy on the school bus informed me that he had a white cat too, and he lived about a mile away. Abner, would go catting a lot, so he was AWOL often. When he came home he was still fat and never lost weight.
We figured out that he was going back and forth between us and the neighbors house eating soupy eggs.

 

[Bigfoot]

What are soupy eggs?

 

[Chuckie]

I think he means one of two things. Either they are scrambled and left with the yellows not cooked all the way through, which I like them that way too. Or Sunny Side Up!

 

[herofan]

I'll say that a stand-out of mine was Christmas. Sure, any kid likes to get gifts, but it wasn't just that, it was the magic of the whole season and how those gifts got there. It started for me around the end of November. I would get the Sears and JC Penny Christmas catalogs that we got in the mail, and I stayed glued to them until Christmas day.

I loved Christmas music, and I loved all the tv shows, like the Grinch, Frosty, and Rudolph. We always cut our own tree, a cedar. To this day, I can be cleaning out a fence row and get the scent of a cedar stirred up and it takes me back.

Of course, there were the dinners on Christmas Eve and day. I would turn in an await the magic of Christmas morning. I don't think anything has topped that feeling in my life. It was awesome. Like I said, it wasn't just about getting gifts, but the magic of the whole season.

I guess it's a little warm out to share a Christmas story, but that was the first thing that came to mind when I saw "Childhood Memories."

 

[MO_cows]

When I remember childhood, it always centers around my grandma, my dad's mom, because she raised me from a toddler until about age 10. I remember being sick and what good care she took of me. Orange flavored baby aspirin, chicken noodle soup, and 7-up for the flu. She would rub Vicks on my chest for congestion, etc. It was such a feeling of being loved. I also remember her curling my hair on Saturday nights for church on Sunday morning. First with rags, then later with the pink foam rollers. Again, a feeling of being loved to have her gently work on my hair.

The neighbor lady across the street was a fantastic gardener. Their yard was almost all flowers and vegetables, hardly any grass. She grew flowers I had never seen before, the giant purple alliums for one. I loved to wander around and smell the flowers while she and grandma visited. That is also where I saw my first hummingbird, at first it scared me because I thought it was a giant insect! They had color tv and ours was black n white, so we would go over there to watch the Billy Graham specials.

Thanks for starting this thread, it was a pleasant trip down memory lane.