What Are the Earliest People and Events You Remember?

Human memory is a fascinating thing to me!

Earlier today, Mrs. Denmarkguy and I we're sitting on our back patio drinking our afternoon coffee when we got on the topic of trying to remember the earliest things from our lives.

It's not the first time we've done this, but the thing I find most interesting about it is it each time we go through this little exercise it's invariably something different that comes to mind.

My earliest memories tend to be rather patchy. That is to say, I don't remember anything long and sequential just a short specific image.

For example, I remember a blue plastic kiddie pool at my auntie's house that she would bring out when we were visiting during the summer when I was maybe three years old. In truth, however, it's not the kiddie pool that I remember but how the three of four inch layer of water would become quite warm in the summer sun. And I would sit there as a little kid, and somehow feel fascinated by the fact that this water was as warm as my bathwater while when it rained the water was cold.

I also remember the texture of some of the large flagstone pavers outside our garage. Most of them were various shades of gray and black and quite smooth, but mixed in with them were some that were a rusty brown color and these felt more like sandpaper and had a ”ripply” surface. I used to run my hand from the smooth to the ripply and back again.

I remember the floor in our kitchen being made of white square of vinyl tiles with an occasional black stripe laid in towards the edges of the room. More specifically, I remember that the base cabinets on one side were ”floating” some 15 inches off the ground so I could slide under them and be hidden down there while my mother was cooking. By this point I was maybe four years old. I'm sure my mother was actually perfectly well aware that I was there but at least I believed that I was hiding!

I have to search my mind fairly extensively before I can find any longer and more cohesive memories. Most things from my childhood are just a series of snapshots.

My first cohesive memory of something that happened over a period of time really doesn't come any sooner than age 15. By then my parents had divorced and we were living in the south of Spain, and "we" had become my mom and the man I came to think of as my stepdad. I was learning to play golf and had been playing for maybe 18 months when it turned out that the Spanish International Junior Championship was going to be played at a nearby course.

Not that I was good enough to be competitive or anything, my stepdad still thought it would be a good idea for me to have the experience a participating in a relatively major tournament. Somehow, I was good enough to qualify to sign up by a whisker. You had to have a *"playing handicap" of 10 or lower, and mine was 10. So I got signed up, and my parents took me over there on Thursday some weeks later for the 1st round of the tournament.

In spite of being nervous, and a little starstruck by the fact that I was surrounded by young players of internationally competitive standard, I held my own pretty well. And much to everybody's surprise, in the second round the following day, I played one of the best rounds of golf I had up to that point in my brief “career.” As a result, I actually ”made the cut,” meaning that I would also get to play on Saturday and Sunday.

Incredibly, on Saturday I played even better than I had on Friday. I even remember but my playing partner for that round was a Belgian kid named Pierre Dufourg and we were both playing far better than our skill levels would suggest. I also remember watching him juggle two empty soda bottles much of the way around.

I don't remember much of the 4th and final round, except that my skill level returned more to its normal and predictable standard. But aside from that it was an experience that imprinted strongly on me, and it was also my first ”real" 72-hole golf tournament. And my playing handicap dropped from 10 to 5 in just four days.

When talking about memories, I have sometimes been asked who is the first person that I remember, aside from my parents and immediate family. Much as I searched my mind, the first person I can come up with was our neighbor's wife Birgitte who was always working at planting Flowers in their garden in the summers and she was also the first adult who permitted me to call her by her first name. Which seemed like a really big deal. I remember that my mom didn't much "like" her... for no reason other than the fact she was maybe in her late 20's and our neighbor was in his 60's.

Now I suppose I should conclude this little walk down memory lane by adding that these are the memories of somebody who just passed 60 years of age. So it's not like any of this stuff happened yesterday! Still, it's fun to think about these things and I suppose it's something people start to do more often as they enter the years where they have more life behind them than to come in front of them. I say that because I have no intention of making it to 120!

Thanks for reading and have a great remainder of your week!

How about YOU? What is the first thing you remember? Who is the first person you remember who was not your parents or a family member? What's the first thing you remember that's something more than just a quick image or snapshot in your head? Leave a comment — share your experiences — be part of the conversation!

(All text and images by the author, unless otherwise credited. This is ORIGINAL CONTENT, created expressly for this platform — NOT A CROSSPOST!!!)
Created at 20210429 01:18 PDT
x163