Some of my Childhood Memories

Lunch with Grandmother Louise

I was standing in the back yard of our house in Cleveland at the age of two. My Grandmother Louise was standing in the yard too, and I was holding a handful of sand.

I looked at the sand and said "Yum yum!" and motioned as if to put it in my mouth. Grandmother Louise looked at me and said "No, no!" and shook her head. I looked back and nodded "yes, yes!" and put the sand in my mouth.

Then I chewed. It was really crunchy, but it didn't have much taste to it and I didn't want to swallow it. This explains why sand isn't one of my favorite foods today.

The Bee on the Deck

I was five or so, in summer camp at Camp Mohawk, a daytime summer camp that took place at the same private school that I attended during the regular school year. We went swimming every day in the pool.

One day I was walking along behind everyone else carrying my towel, and I noticed some kind of insect on the deck. I decided to step on it, placing my big toe squarely on top of it.

This was not a good idea, because it was a dead bumblebee that had crashed in a nose-down attitude, with its stinger fully extended upwards. It hurt a lot, and they pulled the stinger out with tweezers, ripping an even bigger hole in my toe than had been there before. Then they got out the gauze pads and rolled bandages and the adhesive tape, and this was when I knew I must have some kind of Serious Injury, because the only medical technology I had encountered up to that point was Band-Aids and A&D ointment. It must be really serious, I figured, if they were going to use all this weird stuff that I'd never seen before to fix my toe.

I had to sit out from swimming the next day so I wouldn't get my bandaged toe wet. That was weird too, sitting around fully clothed while all the other kids were splashing around in their swimsuits.

Tyke Bike

At around the same time of my life, I had a toy called a ``Tyke Bike''. Imagine a skateboard with Fisher-Price plastic wheels and apehanger handlebars with tassels on the end. You sit on the banana-colored seat and pull yourself along with your legs, steering with the handlebars. Probably the simplest vehicle ever devised excepting possibly the sledge. ("Hey Ma! We're going for a drag!")

My family would go camping, and we'd bring along the Tyke Bike to keep me occupied while my dad set up the tent. We'd pull up to the campsite in our car, and then they'd get the Tyke Bike out of the trunk for me when I became too much of a pest. I'd go drive around the picnic table for a bit and then drive over by the tent and then go up and down the camping driveway. Standard aimless patrol pattern.

Later, the sun would begin to go down, and I'd get to enjoy the best part of camping: running around waving a flashlight.

So, one particular time, I got out of the car and toddled around for a while, and then I went over to my dad who was setting up the tent and said, "Tyke Bike?" in my squeaky little three-year-old's voice.

"I'm sorry. We forgot to bring it."

"Damn."

 

Daniel F. Boyd / boyd@csgeeks.org
Last modified: Tue Aug 27 11:18:11 2002