Three questions (if I can remember them):
1 - What is your earliest memory?
2 - If you were allowed to pick one memory that you would never forget, what would it be? (I laughed a bit as I typed this one because at my age I may have already forgotten my best memory!) Why?
3 - If you could buy a memory eraser that would only remove one memory, which one would you pick? Why?
Monday, March 31, 2008
Memories
Posted by Mr. Z at 8:40 PM
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My earliest memory is driving with my Dad, by myself in a car full of clothes and things because we were moving to a new duplex in St. Paul.
For my earliest memory, it is putting the decorations on a small box I got in preschool. It was a small, round black box with a white top. I used pink instead of purple paint (only colors), and put on the miscellaneous decorations, ending with a small, sewn rose on top.
That would also have to be the memory I would remember forever. I love thinking about making it, and it reminds me I’ve always thought the way in patterns. I also remember running up to the desk, beginning the process.
I have one thought I have wanted erased. When I was younger, I always fussed about going to church, and I picked the wrong day not to pay attention. It was on Mother’s Day, and the preacher asked for all mothers at that mass to stand. I wasn’t listening, but I saw mom standing, so I stood up.
Ben and I needed a day to think about these questions and we discussed them a number of times yesterday.
My early memories are mostly vague – driving in the car on a stormy night for example. One clearer early memory is going with the son of a friend of my mother’s (he was not really a friend of mine) for a visit to his kindergarten classroom. It was not at the school I would eventually go to. I must have been four. I remember that after the visit we went to McDonalds for lunch. I was afraid to tell the boy’s mom that I did not want tartar sauce on my fish sandwich. Eating the sandwich with the sauce was a revelation – and I have been hooked on tartar sauce ever since.
Picking a memory to hold onto or one to let go of is a difficult task. I remember soon after Mary Lynne was born I could not see any reason to mark the dates that photos were taken because it was impossible to conceive of not remembering each moment when those photos were taken. Thank god Susan wrote the dates on the envelopes!
Instead of picking one memory not to forget, I will pick two – because they both happened about the same time. When I was young, ‘vacation’ meant two weeks at a cabin in Eagle River, WI. I remember one year that we took a ride on a pontoon plane that offered site seeing rides. (They would drive right up to the beach and pick you up.) When we went on that ride I sat on my dad’s lap. The window was open and was afraid I would fall out. I honestly do not remember the view. I would also like to hold onto the memory of my father, sister, and I fishing in a row boat in a small cove not far from where we were staying. It was nearly dusk. I recall that Lynne and I were using bamboo poles. (I am reasonably confident that my father did nothing but untangle lines.) That night either Lynne or I snagged a hat off the others head when throwing out the line. I remember watching the hat sink. In both of these memories the details are not clear but the feelings are.
As for the memory to wipe out….Ben and I agreed that the best kind to get rid of would be embarrassing ones rather than bad or painful moments. (The bad or painful ones often contain important lessons.) Given the choice, I would take back a speech I gave about ‘affirmative action’ in a college class. Suffice to say that I did not know nearly as much as I was convinced that I did, and I every time I hear that term used I wish I had been smarter that day.
I thought about these questions a lot over the last day. I decided when thinking about the memories to erase that I had I seemed to have more than I thought I should. I decided that instead of actually wanting to erase a memory, what I realy wanted was for the event never to have taken place, whether due to my embarassment or disbelief that I could have been so stupid or whatever the emotion attached.
I find that of the memories that I enjoy most they seem to be related to some accomplishment. I'll never forget seeing the American flag turn the corner for the opening ceremonies of the Olympic Games in Sarajevo in 1984. The entire stadium roared when the US delegation entered the venue. With that positive reception, it was hard to reconcile the helicopters overhead protecting the games from attack. Good memories revolve around my kids too. I cannot clearly remember my earliest memory- but it had something to do with my sister giving me a haircut on one side of my head just in time for the Duffy Fair.
My eariest memory is getting lost going home for lunch on my first day of school. I had to go back to school, and Sister Mary Alicia took my hand and walked me home...
That clearly should have been a sign, since to this day I still have no sense of direction.
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