Recently I have asked people to share their earliest memories, here are some of their answers. Click here to read more stories! (And of course feel free to submit your own!)
Heidi McDonald, If it’s creative, I probably do it.
My earliest memory is Richard M. Nixon resigning as President of the United States on live television. I was 2. I remember it only because of the fact that I was playing while my parents were watching it, and my father yelled at me to be quiet, and when I wasn’t as quiet as he wanted me to be, he hit me pretty hard and I remember feeling hurt, scared, and incredibly sad. I didn’t understand what was so important about the man talking on TV that made my father get that angry at me.
Jesse Lashley, I talk about stuff on the Interwebs!
I have a couple memories from about 2 or 3, but I’m not sure if they really happened or were just dreams, so I won’t bother with them here. My first solid memory was when I was 4. I had asked my dad what the biggest number in the whole world was, so together we wrote out the biggest numbers we could think of on a roll of paper. We ended up stopping at a centillion, which is 10^303. We hung the paper up in the basement, and the zeroes stretched all across the wall. I was so excited, and told everyone I knew about this crazy number that would take your whole wall to write out. Another time I was curious about what the solar system was like, so again we went back to the paper rolls. After we drew out the sun and moon and all the planets, I wrote at the top “Peoples of the earth, this is your solar system.” Dad told a coworker of his about the picture, and she said to him, “Jim, I think your son is an alien.” So, I guess I was always a bit of a nerd, haha.
Konnor Tighe Crewe, I over share and embarrass myself. Haha.
I can remember putting bobby pins through the furnace grate in the floor when I was just 18 months old.
I also remember my great uncle taking my photo with one of those old fashioned cameras which had the black cloth on the back that the photographer hid under when he took the picture. My mother says this is also when I was about a year and a half.
At two years old, I remember being stung by a wood bee which can remove its stinger and re-sting. The bee stung me all the way around the neck. My mother told me the story that when she found me with a swollen neck and screaming, she picked up our party line and two ladies were gossiping. She told them of the emergency. One suggested applying a tobacco compress and the other a baking soda paste. She combined the two and put it on my neck and it worked to bring down the swelling.
Laury Curran, Company Director
My earliest memory goes back to before I could walk. I was sitting outside on a rug on a beautiful summers day in 1979, surrounded by my toys. I remember crawling over to a piece of glass about 2 inches square that had been embedded flat in the concrete surface I was crawling on. I recall being fascinated by it because it was like a tiny green tinted window.
Your life is only just beginning and the things you see and hear will be forgotten in time to become an abstract concept of ‘way back when’. But you exist and your heart is beating and you are breathing. You eat and you sleep. There is no doubt that you are.
What was that world, your world, like?
I believe it is conversation that triggers the best of stories, whereas isolation is the ultimate killer. One should continue to converse, through words or other means, with people, nature or in general: the world.
A collector of stories is what I am and I want to give everyone a chance to share a piece of themselves with me (and the world) by means of answering to a question, sentence or picture. If you are alive, and I am pretty convinced you are, a small conversation might trigger the best of stories. Do not threat to submit yours.
‘our stories’ is a project that revolves around the collecting of stories. I do not wish to portray many different lives as ‘one story’, as I appreciate individuality endlessly, but I do believe that we share similar experiences and whenever we experience something outside of ‘the ordinary’ people will appreciate your sharing of this experience.
This blog will be guided by moments in life like: birth and childhood, adolescence, adulthood and later on to old age and death. These are mere guidelines, which means you can add every part of your story that you wish to share whenever the appropriate age range comes along.
Remember: a story can be told in words, pictures, films, music, drawings and so much more. Feel free to submit what fits you and your story best.
