What is your most cherished childhood memory?

Goonie4lifeGoonie4life
edited April 25 in General

Here's a few of mine:

*Staying out until the street lights came on
*The smell of the sidewalk after it rained
* Fireflies
* Swamping a canoe
* Building a line of snowmen across a side street and waiting to see how drivers would respond
* Doorbell ditching

Comments

  • Thewalkingman2Thewalkingman2

    Sitting on my dad's lap while he cut the grass on the riding lawnmower.

  • NatsWarmEmbraceNatsWarmEmbrace

    Italian Sunday dinner at my Lepapa’s. Can we talk about the fresh Italian bread for a second !?! Phone take off the hook. No moms. Dads playing cards and my cousins and I acting like feral kids with 0 supervision.

  • SunsetSnugglesSunsetSnuggles

    Experiencing pure joy when swinging on the swingset in our backyard. I remember knowing that I would think back on that moment as the best time of my life. I was eight years old.

    ~ Sunset Snuggles

    🫂 Enthusiast 🏞 Travel Junkie 📷 Shutter Bug

  • SweetCuddler33SweetCuddler33
    edited April 26

    -dancing with my dad with my feet on his feet ❤️
    -my first kitten 🐈‍⬛ ❤️
    -summers that seemed to go on forever 😃 🌞
    -being 9 👧
    -getting along with my brother and sisters ❤️
    -family vacations
    -roller skates! 🛼
    - jump rope
    - Hop scotch on the sidewalk
    - elementary/grammar school 🏫
    - Candy store 🍭 🍬
    - -running toward the musical 🎶 ice cream truck , screaming “ ice cream!🍦 Ice cream!” Mom!! Hurry! The ice cream truck is here, I want ice cream! 🍨 😂
    - sleep overs
    - grandma and grandpa’s house ❤️ miss them so much!

    Gosh! So many wonderful memories of childhood, too many to post.. good times 😃 . @Goonie4life , thank you for this post!

  • SweetCuddler33SweetCuddler33

    @SunsetSnuggles oh yes, the backyard swing set my father and grandfather put up.. now thinking of it since you mentioned it., 😊 best time !

  • SweetCuddler33SweetCuddler33
    edited April 26

    @NatsWarmEmbrace sounds like my house! Sauce or gravy? Ha! My Italian 🇮🇹 ( maternal ) grandpa and my Danish 🇩🇰 ( paternal) grandma in the kitchen discussing whether it’s called sauce or gravy… each one getting slightly offended .. ha! 😃

  • HuggycatbearHuggycatbear

    Oh my gosh, I love this thread.

    I remember when my father retired from the Navy and we moved from Hawaii after 8 years to Pennsylvania. He said that he fought for this country and now he wanted to see it. So we drove across from Cali to PA.

    One parked we stayed at had a lot of dog poop everywhere. I found a lollipop on the ground and dipped it in and flung it up towards my brother who was a football field away. I couldn't believe it bounced off his head!

    Unfortunately, he chased me down and made me eat it 🤮

  • MorpheusMorpheus

    I have so many from my early childhood. Just spending time with the family. There was a huge shakeup in the family when I was in the 5th grade and things were never quite the same. Many years later, my family is basically all gone. Luckily my wife has a large family and I’ve been around them for so long that they are my family now. I hope you all cherish the good times that you had and continue to have.

  • OhioMikeOhioMike

    Great thread 👍
    Reading back of cereal boxes
    Walking to school
    Getting up super early to deliver newspapers
    Gathering the neighborhood to play ball
    Four Square games
    Oh my gosh so many 🤩

  • SweetCuddler33SweetCuddler33

    @OhioMike nice memories 👍

  • 2peas2peas

    lol collecting box tops for fundraisers!

    Every holiday (Christmas and Thanksgiving) my family and I would serve hot food at Salvation Army!

    Or making cultural foods together as a family.

  • wanacuddle85wanacuddle85
    edited April 29

    Staying at the cottage with my grandma is definitely one of them, my other would be driving to Flordia late one night only my dad and I where awake, and I was counting street lights I’m sure driving him crazy. I asked what came after billions and he told me a godzillion with a smile, my dad worked a lot and this was our last trip to Flordia, prior to him getting sick so I’ve always cherished it. We also decided to collect claims this trip.. and keep them alive on the balcony.. man did we get in trouble for that one.. the room smelled awful! My parents where ready to kill us by the end of this trip I’m sure 😂😂

    Another was fist fighting one day with my sister. My mom comes in the room and yells “ girls what will the neighbour's think.. clearly their thoughts where more important then us killing each other 😂😂🤦‍♀️ I still bug my mom about that line.

  • RolandTaurusRolandTaurus

    For me was going out as a whole family unit and going to Thompson park in Amarillo or dad treating us and going to the mall or sending us off to the movies while grown folks did what they do. But first and foremost church was a priority since me and my twin were attending Sunday school to complete our first communion

  • BrandiBrandi
    edited May 1

    Awee this is a cute thread :,)

    *mother daughter days: tanning in our backyard in matching matching suits while reading. I can still smell the sun tan oil.

    *blockbuster rental days and going to 99 cent
    store to get snacks for the movies

    *making soap potions in the bath when I was young.

    *playing with Polly pockets

    *walking to my best friends house down the street and asking if she could play 😭 way before cellphones were taking over the world

    *climbing trees

    *slip n slide days

    *riding electric razor scooters. Would put those big paint buckets on them and use it as a seat (not safe by any means) and went to an apt complex that was near by that had sooo many speed bumps that was so fun to ride over.

    *took a hose, few huge buckets and a big bottle of dish soap to the school behind my house in the summer with my brothers, we made the fastest water slides 😂

    *got every single bottle of soap we had in the house, body wash, shampoo, dish soap, laundry soap… poured everything out on the concrete outside and made a “ice rink” lmao! My mom was not happy about this one… 😝😝

  • SqueezeBuddySqueezeBuddy

    Having all my family members that already passed away

  • AMFAMF

    I loved eating watermelon in the back yard and spitting out the seeds.
    4th of July at my cousin's house watching the men in the neighborhood set off fireworks.
    Sleeping outside in the summer under the stars.
    Big family gatherings with everyone having fun.

  • BlueIrisBlueIris Mod

    Hugging the family's Jersey cow as a 4 year old.

  • SelfMadeJaySelfMadeJay

    I have a couple of treasured memories with my childhood but there is one in particular which is very significant to me and would be the last of it's kind in my life.

    Thanksgiving 1999:
    It was being held at my grandmother's (My mom's mother) house and almost the entire extension of the family tree came. Many members from my mom's side of the family and even some of my Dad's as well. My Dad is from Dayton, Ohio so for his fam to come from SW Ohio to NYC was a pretty big deal. Me being a 13 year old at the time, games and sports was my full focus. The adults watched football while me and my cousins played Pokémon non-stop on our Game Boys, the first time I've ever battled anyone proper via game link. Me and the cousins also had the basement to ourselves so after playing Pokémon, I'd hook up my newly bought Sega Dreamcast along with the Playstation and Nintendo 64 that my uncle already had set up and we'd go through many hours just gaming, which is a core memory that I as an adult do miss in this online centric world of today.

    Aside from gaming and football, the thanksgiving feast commenced and it was the first and only time that the dining room table as big as it was, was fully occupied by the adults so the fam members under the age of 16 were relegated to the hastily set up kid's table, which was a bit on the raggedy side but we didn't care. Food was so absolutely delicious, we didn't focus too much on clowning on the table we had to eat on. Other notable things during Thanksgiving weekend was going to see Toy Story 2 which was a hassle because thousands of families with their kids went to see that movie as well and there was more traffic congestion in that theater than the RFK Bridge during rush hour. Still had a fun time all in the same. Wish I could say the same about the Ohio State vs. Michigan game in which Tom Brady even before his New England days very much had that clutch gene as the Wolverines stole that game from us late in the 4th and my dad's younger brother (Uncle Marvin) had the crashout of all crashouts following the game. A hilarious compensation for having to witness that rough loss for my Buckeyes.

    It was a very enjoyable weekend just being around with that large extension of the family. Many years later I treasure it even more so now because there never was another one like it. That was the last time my grandmother cooked for thanksgiving. She would have reoccurring health issues, one of which led to the lower half of her left leg being amputated in 2006. She passed away in 2011, 4 years after my grandfather (mom's side) did in 2007. (Brief context: Grandma from my mom's side of the family was the only grandmother I knew. My dad's mom passed in 1984 at the age of 51 from breast cancer, 2 years before I was born so she was gone before I was alive) My mom would try her best replicating that same experience from 1999, with the closest one being 2008. I was fresh out of Ohio State University as a bachelor's graduate and I invited 4 of my campus friends and managed to bring 3 of my Ohio cousins with me but for the rest of the extension of that family, none of the others came back to New York.

    I hope we all have treasured and lived the youth we had because we all only get it once.

  • TheDave90TheDave90

    My first family trip to Chessington (mainly for Beanoland lol)
    Getting my first games console. Loved my n64

    Possibly my whole pre-double digit years since it all went downhill from secondary school.

  • SideonSideon

    Finding and picking the "apple" in the backyard, which was actually the watermelon my sister was growing. We lived in Arizona. I was three.

    My mom playing records in the living room and singing along to Elvis Presley and Connie Francis.

    Rollerskates. Foursquare. Hopscotch. Jacks. Dodgeball. I was King, I was the Speedster, I was Champion.

    Camping. River rafting. "Commotion fishing," where my brother and I threw mud and played at the river's edge while my dad fished, and caught three rainbow trout 10 feet away.

    My dad teaching me the constellations and Milky Way above the desert skies.

    Comic books. 8 track tapes. Star Wars. Saturday morning cartoons. Kick the Can. Hide and Seek. Our curfew was sundown.

    The "haunted house", an abandoned farm house at the edge of town. It was drizzling rain and my friend Adam and I stored our bikes in the old barn, where we startled a white barn owl with huge golden eyes, a wingspan of at least 4 feet, that flew over our heads and into nearby trees. This is where I began a complicated relationship with the dark, because we explored the upper floor and main floor of the farmhouse, but I was horrified of the bathroom that had a bottomless/broken tub that descended into pure black, and in the hallway was a door behind which were broken stairs leading down into more black. The hair on the back of my head stood out and I remember both of tearing out of the house as fast as we could, some nameless dread behind us. Years later, as an adult, the farmhouse and farm were gone, leveled, replaced by townhouses that abutted the nearby trees.

  • consciousseekerconsciousseeker

    I was so fascinated by bicycles and how fast one can travel from one place to the other.
    Grew up in slums, had to ask/beg my friends to teach me how to ride.

    one of my friend's dad owned a bike rental/repair shop. I couldn't afford to rent. It was I think probably a slow day and most bikes were not rented.
    He said
    ..take any of your choice, rest of the day it's yours.

    I replied..I do not know how to ride.

    He smiled and asked his assistant to teach me.

    Initially no balance, frustrated, felt like rocket science. Slowly have gotten better, fell a bunch of times, did not feel pain at all. This went on for many hours.

    By EOD, I learnt, confident enough to bike through most of the streets in my town. So fast, I felt like I have wings, like a bird, so free, so happy, on cloud 9.

    That was the best memory. Nothing so far is closer to that experience. Pure joy, the proudness ...

    that was all good but the after effects - I started begging my parents initially, throwing tantrums and then stubborn that I want a bicycle at any cost and they must get me one.. haha. Very little understanding of what they were going through and no idea of adult/parenthood.

    Wonderful thread btw @Goonie4life

  • Goonie4lifeGoonie4life

    @Brandi @consciousseeker Thank you!!!!!

  • Goonie4lifeGoonie4life

    Learning how to canoe in the Brandywine river with my Grandpa and Uncles

    Making homemade root beer every summer in Wilmington, Delaware

    Collecting locust skins from trees

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