On the news this morning they were talking about a study on childhood memory. Guess it has been descovered that children remember better if their parents talk about things that happened when they were little. Then the news person said that is not memory but retelling the stories they heard from their parents. I've heard that before. I have memories from when I was very young and I've been told that they were not really memories but things I heard my parents tell and reminded me about. The thing is...parents cannot tell a child what they were thinking or feeling when the memory happened.
My mother mentioned years later when I was about 15 that when I was about three years old I would put big red tomatoes in our freezer. She said she would open the freezer and there was a big red tomato sitting there. Frozen tomatoes turned to mush and she would take it out and throw it away. My mother sold vegtables from our front porch so we often had lots of big red tomatoes. Any way she always wondered why I put them in the freezer. So I told her why. I thought they would turn white like ice cubes. I used to go back and check and they would still be red. Then they would be gone and I would get another one and try again. I never did see a frosty white tomato...
There could be things that I remember only because my mother talked about them but in reality my Mother seldom talked to us children about things that happened in the past until we were in our teens. I remember when she said that she was glad when we got old enough to have conversations with her. Then there were things that I remember that happened when my mother wasn't there. She went to work in an aircraft parts factory when I was still three years old. I know the difference between the things I remember and the stories we heard about our childhood. My father was supposed to stay home and watch my little sister and I but often he would leave us alone. My great grandfather and my great uncle Burt lived accross the road. Mama said later that Grandpa Clark, who was over 90 years old, would sit out side on the porch and watch our house. Mama was still pretty mad about that years later! Uncle Burt would check in on us when he could. One day Uncle Burt came over to find me on top of our electric stove turning on the burners. He got me off the stove before the burners got hot. I totally don't remember that.
When I was about a year and a half years old my Uncle Burt was holding me near our front door and I put my hand in the back of the screen door as it was closing. I can still see the gap in the door. I just reached out and stuck my hand in the gap. I couldn't resist. The screen door closed and pinched my fingers. It hurt and I cried. Uncle Burt said look at the birdy and he pointed toward the yard...to get me to forget about the hurt fingers. This memory is part totally remembering what I was thinking when I put my hand in the door and Uncle Burt telling me about it.
When I was three and my little sister was about a year and a half old, she was kept in a play pen made out of three old crib sides and the wall. Uncle Burt was worried that something would happen and I needed to know how to get my sister out of the play pen. So he showed me how to put one of our little chairs into the play pen and to push the other one up to the outside of of the bars. And he showed my sister how to climb out. So when we were alone my sister wanted me to get her out of the play pen. She would cry until I gave in and got her out. Then we got into even more trouble in the house. One time she pulled all the pots and pans out of the kitchen cuboard. I tried to stop her but she was too much for me. Then I tried to put them back in before my mother saw what we did. I couldn't figure out how to do it. Another time we took all my mother's books out of the bookcase. That was my idea. I thought we could put them on the floor and walk on them like stepping stones. When we tried to step on them the covers would slip and tear so I took them all off. I remember being upset because my sister couldn't walk on the books. Also I found out that books had blank pages in the front. My sister and I drew pictures on these pages with our crayons. I still have couple of the books. I got a good hard spanking for taking down the books.
The worst thing I did was climb that same book case to get the undeveloped film that my mother put at the top. She took our pictures and then took the film out of her camera. We didn't have alot of money so Mama would only take a few photos once in awhile and then when the roll of film was used up she would wait until she could afford to get the film developed. She told us that our pictures were on that roll of film. I wanted to see the pictures. She told us that we would have to wait. I didn't understand. So climbed up and got the box with the rolls of film. I ruined my sister's baby pictures. I got a really hard spanking that time. I had been so happy that day because I was wearing my favorite skirt. It was blue with red and yellow embordered girls around the hem and I had on patent leather shoes that I also loved. When I outgrew those shoes I had to see my little sister wearing them.
The little chairs were oak and came with a small table. Uncle Burt bought them for us when I was still too young to sit in the chairs. I remember sitting in one of the chairs and my feet didn't touch the floor. I had to climb up to get into the chair. One day my mother was sitting in one chair and me in the other and she was feeding me lunch. She went into the kitchen to get some pudding. I was going to surprise her so I got off my chair and ran to hers. Then I changed my mind and got down and ran back to mine. Then I got down again and ran to get in the other chair. I slipped and fell and cut my upper lip on the corner of the chair seat. I cried a lot. Years later my mother told me about this and wondered what I was doing. She didn't know that I had changed chairs more than once. I also remember feeling bad that I didn't get to eat the pudding.
I wasn't supposed to touch the things in the kitchen. My mother worked swing shift and she was tired. One morning when she was still in bed, I pushed a chair up to the sink and I picked up a butcher knife. I knew I was not supposed to touch it. I cut my thumb on the blade. It hurt but if I cried my mother would know so I stuck my thumb in my mouth and never told her what I did. No one could tell me about this memory.
