Studio711.com – Ben Martens

Childhood Memories

I’m thankful to have a couple dozen good pictures from most years of my life. Elijah? He’s going to have thousands per year. What will that do to his memory of these early years? Will those pictures trigger memories earlier than what used to be normal?

I don’t remember what my “earliest” memory is, but here are some that I know happened fairly young (around 3-4 years old?). I’ll leave the psychoanalysis about why I remember these specific things up to you.

  • I walked up the stairs of our house in Michigan, and said, “Hi Mom!” Mom turned around and said, “Why Mom and not Mommy?”
  • Dad took me bowling. It was just the two of us. I don’t remember bowling but I remember driving to the bowling alley with him.
  • I pooped or peed in my underwear sufficiently long after I had given up diapers and my parents made me dip it in the toilet and clean it out. It was so gross that I never wanted to do it again.
  • I remember two neighbors from our house in Michigan. The one next door had a pool WITH STEPS IN IT! Wow. And a neighbor down the street bought a Corvette. I remember thinking, “Why did you buy such a cool car and pick a color that looks like poop?” It was that classic brown color from the 70s.

So there we go. Those are my earliest childhood memories. I wonder what Elijah’s will be? Hopefully not the motorcycle race.