What are some of your favorite memories as a child?

Mine are my dad singing nonsense songs and us just laughing. I remember running around in the backyard chasing lightning bugs and playing freeze tag. I also remember camping out in the backyard and then getting to cold and then having to go inside in the middle of the night.

So those are a few of my memories what are yours?

My favorite memories entail a great deal of imagination in my pretend play. Birch trees could be climbed in order to be turned into homes with different levels, dishes gotten at a nearby shallow ravine that ran behind the homes in a middle class neighborhood. Bushes could be crawled into and swept with broken branches and large leaves could be filled with peas and pods, leaves and lavender. During school recess I loved galloping around my pretend horse with my best friend as we reenacted scenes from a cowboy series that was popular in the early 60's.

My favourite childhood memories are of being at the cottage in the summer with my Mom. I'd be in and out of the water all day - the only time I had to be home except for meals was when she and I would read together every day after lunch for an hour.

And we went berry picking and made jams every summer - that was fun.

There were 3 other kids my age that had cottages on the same lake and we'd play all day - swimming, tag, bike racing, canoeing, and board games when it rained, we basically just did what we wanted all summer.

Then at the end of the day if it was cool enough for a fire, which it usually was, my Mom would give me hot chocolate with marshmallows on top.

I had a lot of fun and freedom during those summers.

--splitimage

Out on the lake all day swimming,with not a care in the world. Going barefoot all summer long then an hot summer nights playing "kick the can" with the kids around the block. Sitting down on the dock behind our house and fishing with my dad but really watching him be happy.

playing games on Christmas morning with my family

Visiting my Auntie

All of my "imaginary friends whom I would describe to my mum....then we would hear of a cave in at the mine and those who had died turned out to be my imaginary friends (they would give me their names and I knew first who had been killed in the cave ins)

When my baby sister was born

Going to the zoo

playing chase with dad

and so many other things

makign choclate chip cookeis with her gradnma.

Playing barbies with my best friend well into high school. spending wntire weekends at grandma's house playing board games, card games, coloring, playing pretend, dressing up and taking pictures, and drinking water, orange juice and strawberry milk all at breakfast!!! and the summer parks program I went to every year.

When I awoke today I was in my childhood yard only I thought I was watching someone show me a picture of it. It was calm there and I had bare feet. We rarely wore shoes all summer long. My feet were tough. I loved the feel of the green and dry grass and the prairie dirt puffing between my toes. Eventually, I began to see it wasn’t anyone showing me a picture but it was a ‘good memory’ of my very own. The feeling, pleasant and calm surrounds me. It is quiet outside but for a few cars going by. It is early. My window is open and it is letting in the cool morning air. Is someone praying for me? I found Rex my little stuffed dog amongst the sheets and blankets. It was always quiet in the yard and except for CBC on the radio it was quiet inside too. No TV then, not even invented.

There was a wooden teeder, todder at a house down the back alley. The school had one or two too. In my yard we had a garden with carrots and I liked to eat the carrot fresh from the dirt, wiped on my pants. You could still taste a little of the dirt around the carrot and it was good, the way new tender carrots taste best.

the best memories, when we were in the same house with my parents .

I just had to add another. When I was little, my dad would make up and tell me stories about Buster Bear and his friends in the forest. Whenever my Dad went away for work, he'd send me letters and postcards with Buster Bear stories in them, saying he'd seen Buster Bear in whatever city he happenned to be in. But because my Dad was a socialist and a human rights activist these stories always had a bit of a political spin on them, like I remember the time my Dad went to New York and sent me a letter in which Buster Bear got arrested for being homeless and sleeping in central park. It was a little twisted but it was good.

My best childhood memory, was when me and my whole family went camping together. Me and my friend I met at camp found a frog, took it to my dad, and my dad was holding it and I guess the frog got scared and peed on him it was hillarious, even my dad was laughing.

Most of my memories have my cat involved.

I remember being really sick a couple of times and lying on the bed with my cat napping on my chest. That made me nervous, because I already had a scar on my nose from where she scratched me when I was 2 or so, and didn't want to accidentally piss her off and have her take an eye out or something.

And I remember when we brought the turtle home, I let him down on the livingroom floor for a couple hours. The first thing he did was crawl over her belly and she was just staring at him like "wtf?" XD I thought she would attack him. I was afraid to get him, because I thought she might attack me instead.

And sometimes when I was sitting back on the couch she'd curl up next to me so that I'd put an arm around her. Then she'd rest her chin on it and sleep. She was so sweet...

Well, let's see. At dusk, before Christmas, waiting at the corner of Fifth Avenue and 49th Street (the southwest corner of Saks), and buying and eating roasted chestnuts for twenty-five cents a bag from a street vendor, while watching the Christmas lights and the Christmas tree in Rockefeller Center across Fifth.

Going to Jones Beach on Long Island at the age of five or six with absolutely ALL of our huge family, aunts, uncles, cousins, grandparents, etc., and sitting with them on blankets and rolling in the huge surf and eating Horton's ice cream cones from the shops on the boardwalk.

Being put to bed at 7:30 P.M. and before drifting off to sleep listening to my Father downstairs playing classical music on the piano, a Steinway spinet.

My new school when we moved (I was 7, in second grade), surrounded by grass lawns and huge overhanging trees, with high, high ceilings inside and a wonderful library. I went there from second through sixth grade. Absolutely the happiest time of my life. It was so beautiful, and just a block and a half from our new house.

And there may be more, but that's all I can think of now.

Being able to 'escape' to either the riding school or to older friends who let me help out with their horses and let me have lots of horse hugs.
Splitz

My best memories are playing in the snow. We had this cool hill in front of our house. I loved sliding down the hill on either the lid to mother's wringer washing machine or a red plastic flying saucer. I also spent many hours with my brother and his friends sled riding down the biggest hill ever. I remembe mother turning on the porch light so I could play in the snow at night. I remember her pulling my frozen snow covered coat and boots and snowpants off and standing me in front of the warmed oven to get warm. I was never indoors during the winter months. Always outside playing in the snow alone or with my friends. Had the best winters any kid could ever have.

And I remember every so often on Saturdays we'd go to town and "pop" my dad, and I would get coney island hot dogs while mother got her hair done. Hot dogs and chocolate milk.. yummmm

I also remember collecting pop bottles to get money to go swimming. Two cents a bottle and it cost 35 cents to go swimming. My cousin and I would walk almost two miles to the swimming pool. I loved going swimming yet I never learned to swim. shrugs shoulders... Could swim underwater, but never above...Have wonderful summer memories.. Again, was never indoors, as I was always outside playing, climbing trees, making mud pies, jumping rope, playing hopscotch, picking flowers in the woods.. Gosh it goes on and on. Lots of great memories indeed.

I thought of a few more fond memories..skating in our basement around and around the middle. Our basement wasn't finished until I was in 4-5 grade and in the winter my sister and I would roller skate in the basement.

I can also remember in the winter when it would snow the street cleaners would come and scrape the streets and make big piles of snow at the end of the streets and we lived at the corners of 2 streets so we had great hills to slide down. My sister and her friends made a unicorn in our front yard made out of snow. I made an alligator once out of snow. I grew up in Nebraska where it snowed a lot in the winter so we got to play outside all the time.

I remember running through the corn field behind our house to the big tree that had fallen over and we made it our fort. We weren't supposed to play in the cornfield but we did anyway.

Jan

My most cherished childhood memories all involve playing with my brother and my cousin. My cousin would spend almost every weekend with us during the summer. We would often at night go down to the lake beach and go night swimming. There was a dock that we would jump off of and the water was almost always warm. In the winter when it snowed my brother and I would go walking at night down to a nearby hill and go sledding. We loved going outdoors at night because no one is around so it is so quite and peaceful. All three of us are still night owls lol.

Another great memory is spending time at the shore house my family and my aunt and uncle's family have been renting for a week every summer since I was about 9 or 10. It is ocean front! There was four of us kids and we had so much fun swimming, playing on the beach in the evenings, playing board games and watching movies when it rained. Playing hide and seek was always a favorite. When I got a little older my favorite thing to do was at night go down to the beach and sit in the lifeguard stand and listen to music on my discman staring out at the ocean.

Some times on Saturday night, we'd all watch Lawrence Welk. My dad would either bake a cake or make fudge. He made the best fudge. Mother would be so mad at him because he would not share his peanut butter fudge recipe with her..

I remember staying at my cousin's house for weeks on end in the summer. My aunt had the most wonderful laugh in the world. She always tried to hug me but I would shy away. I loved it at my cousin's house. I wanted to live with them and never go home. But then I wanted to live with the old man, Mr. Penrod, that lived across the road from us. I even packed my clothes and took them to his house. I'd sit on the front porch swing with him and eat popsicles.

Odd thing is I don't remember going to grade school. I did go because Mother said I did not want to go and she carried me to the bus and she said she threw me on the bus. Sounds cold but a kid has to go to school. I do remember 5th and sixth grade, as we moved to a new town then. 5th and 6th grade were great years. Lots of fond memories and I also made lots of new friends. I even "loved" Mr. Grimes, 5th grade teacher, and Mr. Dunkle, the 6th grade teacher. They were soooo cooooool..

I remember my 5th Grade teacher also Mr. Swanson he had this huge old time bathtub in his classroom with tons of pillows in it. You could take a book and jump in the bathtub and do reading time in the bathtub. I had actually forgotten about that for a little bit thanks for reminding me about 5th grade.

Jan