Sean has tagged me to play the "Earliest Memory" game.
THE RULES
1. Describe your earliest memory where the memory is clear enough to provide at least 3 details.
2. Give an estimate of your age at the time.
3. Tag some other bloggers with this thread.
Papa Ewok and my uncle worked the family farm together, and we all lived in the big house. Grama Ewok (the only one of my grandparents I can actually remember) lived in the original homestead house down a tiny hill from us. She was almost completely blind as a result of uncontrolled diabetes.
My earliest memory is trudging down that hill to Grama's house with a small black plastic box (probably 6"x5"x2") of playing cards in my hands. I remember the box had a clear plastic square in the lid and a silver button over flap with the type of closure that you inserted horizontally and then twisted vertically to close. I can still see the cards all a jumble in it. I remember sitting on a footstool in front of her with a tv tray between us. (At least that's what I've always called them, most refer to them as tray tables I believe.) The tray was off-cream with gold glitter flecks spangled across and green flowers swirled around the middle.
She had a light that sat on her television. (Remember when tv's came housed in their own wooden boxes and were a piece of furniture as well as a source of entertainment? It was back when they had dials instead of buttons and no input/output jacks.) The light was about as tall as an upright shoe box, oval opening at the top, with gold painted casing around it and when turned on looked like water trickling over stones. I remember she always fed me sesame seed crackers that to this day remind me of her. I was about 2 at the time.
I pick the following people to play the game, and if you don't have a blog, you can e-mail it to me at atheisthomeschooler at yahoo dot com and I'll post it here if you wish.
Johnny (because I want to know)
Richard (who is too dignified to play such a silly game, but might be goaded by this.)
Harry Nads (who seems to have disappeared on us)
T&A (because he's just such a darn nice guy!)
Thump Thump Eyes (because I know almost nothing about her and would love to learn more.)
Crazyman Bob (who's early childhood memory is practically nonexistant and I want to see how young he can get. ;-) )
12 comments:
Thanks for that Fiery.
My pleasure Sean.
Done!
And thanks for calling me a nice guy! :)
T&A~ it's easy to say nice things about people you like. ;-)
FINE Fiery, take a shot to goad me.
I was two and half, living on a small farm in Devonshire, England. I think it was during my second reading of "Capitalism: The Unknown Ideal", that I suddenly realized that chicken eggs came out of the hen's asses.
In horror I refused to eat them.
Early the next morning I went to the chicken coop and gathered up the eggs. The coop was next to the windowless side wall of our farmhouse. I smashed all nine eggs against the wall. To this day I remember my grief when my sitter angrily told me that those eggs might be my father's next baby chicks, and I had killed them.
I relaxed a little when my mother pointed out that a chicken coop is really a lot like a Co-op --a socialist haven where no matter what is produced by which individuals, all its members are treated as equal contributors of wealth (eggs) and are equal recipients of the resulting wealth (it's chicken feed, I tell you). Worse those who fail to produce, or eat more than their fair share are often sacrificed to our roasting pan. "Cool, I get to eat the welfare loafers!", I thought.
Well, all this principled musing reminded me of my recent reading. Mankind, I recalled, has as much right to live and eat animals as an omnivore or carnivore. So what if hens shit eggs, I'm eatin 'em.
My endlessly coddled younger brother, Martin, offered me "The Communist Manifesto" as an antidote to my gleeful attitude towards eating the lazy hens. I threw the book back at him. He told me he hated me and that one day I would exploit third world countries by drinking coffee at Starbucks!
Dad prayed for me, and said he would make me be an altar boy no matter what I thought. Later my Mum quietly suggested I go along with it, as Dad's wrath would do me a lot more harm than God's. That's how I became an altar boy.
Decades later, I realized that the formation of PETA was a dark day for the future of the perfect mushroom omelet. So, now I savor eggs all the more, and am always careful to swipe the last of the egg white from the shell and into the mixing bowl. (Poodles, stop that!!) As long as the eggs keep coming for chicken feed, I'm gonna keep making omelets.
Next week, it's ham and chopped green pepper omelets! The more equal pigs go first... they taste richer. Those pigs truly are political bastards, hogging the feed as they try to dictate the lives of us --I mean "the"-- lesser pigs.
Epilogue (This really is true).
Martin has co-written a computerized business receipt management system all Ecuadorean businessmen and their suppliers are required to submit to the government. Apparently this has increased government 'revenues' by some 60%, supposedly freeing Ecuadorean citizens of America's globalized pilfering of third world economies. It seems he could careless for what it does to the productive individuals of Ecuador.
November 18, 2007 8:42 PM
Fiery
"Innuendo" only has three n's. Must be the Tequila. Whew, don't strike a match!
As long as you are in the sauce (now who's tippling), there is a new Italian Gay bar here.
Its name is "Inna U Endo".
Fiery licks base of thumb, sprinkles on a bit of salt, empties shot glass, bites lemon, says, *GACK* "Tequila sucks!"
And how does that goad Richard again????
So.... Richard.... You participated in chicken abortions?
Note to self- keep Richard out of the hen house.
Oh Wow!! The tequila is hitting hard. Shouldn't have drank *hic* on an empty stomach... This next bit doesn't make sense to me....
So, now I savor eggs all the more, and am always careful to swipe the last of the egg white from the shell and into the mixing bowl. (Poodles, stop that!!) As long as the eggs keep coming for chicken feed, I'm gonna keep making omelets.
I thought "coming" was the sexual innuenndo, but you're smacking Poodles before that and I can't tell why. And i don't know why eggs are coming for chicken feed.
And now that I'm tipsy, I want to smooch somebody. T&A you're a handsome dude, come over here and give us a pash! ;-)
whoooooaaaaa Trippy Mind Games. This is like that scene in the Matrix where the Oracle told Keanu not to worry about breaking her pot BEFORE he broke it.
Now what really bakes my noodle is.... did Richard TELLING me I was going to spell innuendo wrong cause me to type 4 n's instead of 3? Or did he just know???
I want some of whatever you guys are having :)
Hey...I want some too:)
Fiery that two year old memory is a beautiful one, so much detail!! I know those TV tables, my Grandma had one of those too! And one of those big old tv's!!
Brilliant bit of writing Richard, although I'm as puzzled as Fiery about the "Innuendo" how did you do that?
Your chicken story did bring back a childhood memory of my first glimpse of an egg being laid. My cousin and I were pretty young, she was about 7 and I was about 5, and we were city kids off on a holiday in the country somewhere with her family. When we got there we were given the job of feeding the chickens. We skipped down to the chook house, all excited, squeezed in the door quietly like we'd been told, and the chooks just stared at us making their chook chook sounds. We squatted down amongst them and as we were admiring the colour of them one of them let out a loud bkark and a big egg squeezed out from underneath it. We looked at each other in shock, then we waited dumbfounded until another chicken did the same thing, and then we both flew out the door and went screaming to her mother babbling something about chickens and bums....aarrghh....but I cant remember the response from the old auntie....bummer, that could explain a lot about my early misconceptions on certain things ....:)
As for being tagged, I'll have to go off and think about my earliest memory, interesting idea....and I dont think I have enough people to tag back, they've all been tagged already....
I think it would be cool to see a chicken lay an egg. Don't think I ever have before, not up close and personal like that.
As for tagging other people, notice that Richard didn't tag anybody. :-)
So... what's good for the goose... er.. Richard.... is good for TTEyes!!! ;-)
:-D
I wouldnt mind taking a gander at another one, but there's no one here but us big eggless chickens:)
That memory has stayed quite clear for me, must have been deeply traumatic...
Yes I did notice Richard wasnt tagging back, possibly too busy, or gone down to Inna U Endo for a late nite snack...snerk!
Post a Comment