Sights. Sounds. Places. People. Moments. Events. Experiences.

[MurphOnMillerAve]

What are some of the especially notable memories you have, to this day, from your childhood, that still give you pause and reflection, or amazement, or even a smile, and perhaps joy, as soon as you are reminded of them, to this day?

What was fun?

What or whom did you know, when experiencing it or them, right away, was something you were going to remember for a very long time?

[HONDO74]

What are some of the especially notable memories you have, to this day, from your childhood, that still give you pause and reflection, or amazement, or even a smile, and perhaps joy, as soon as you are reminded of them, to this day?

What was fun?

What or whom did you know, when experiencing it or them, right away, was something you were going to remember for a very long time?

According to Chuck we are all delusional about our past as we never saw all the bad.

[chuck]

Playing the piano. I used to like playing and I had a decent ear. I could read sheet music well enough and I had a full octave hand span so playing wasn't that difficult. I always liked playing classical pieces and I was pretty good at it. I could pick out almost any melody in about 10 minutes. I kept trying to get my piano teacher to teach me how to work on harmonizing/chords. She was reluctant to do so, I was never sure why. That's when I started to stop. I was transitioning to high school (we started in 8th grade) and there was less and less time for "music". I still look back fondly on the days of playing and wish I could have found a way to keep going. I still love music (mostly classical and of that, mostly baroque).

I also have mostly fond memories of working with my dad on projects around the house. He could take apart anything and then out it back together better than it was before. It took me a long time to get to where I could to that, I was much better at math/science than mechanical things. He taught me how to mix cement at a pretty early age. Use this mix for general repairs, this for mortar/brick work, and this for pavement. Still remember the basic formulas.

Good topic. Takes me back to some interesting times.

re:

According to Chuck we are all delusional about our past as we never saw all the bad.

Only some of us. The good old days were more old than good. I try to see it as it was, ALL OF IT, the good and the bad. Personally I wouldn't mind having a body that's 28-30 years in age but only if i can also take with it ALL of the life experiences that I've had in the roughly 40 years since.

[Rufus T. Firefly]

What or whom did you know, when experiencing it or them, right away, was something you were going to remember for a very long time?

The time spent with my grandfather and all that he taught me much of which I use to this very day. I still have some of his tools in my shop.

The smell of hot asphalt that reminds me of the county facilities that were out the back, down the alley, around the end across from the barn at my grandparents house.

The smell of fresh cut wood......

Music, listening to it and playing it........I sort of still miss the playing part.

[healey36]

Playing baseball, the crack of the bat.

[chuck]

Train related, specifically toy train related. My great grandfather had some Lionel trains, both standard and O. He was dying from emphysema when I was born. When I was about 1 year old, he would sit me in his lap while he ran his O gauge trains on a small layout. I don't explicitly remember that but I do remember the smell of the smoke pellets used in the 2025 locomotive. He passed that engine along to my dad. At some point my dad set up a basic layout in our basement and he would run the 2025 and the original Texas Special set he got me for my second birthday. I remember the bicycle horn from the TS and the smoke from the 2025.

[rogruth]

I'll try to do this without a lot of explaining.
I was in the first grade in school in 1940. These were the old neighborhood school times. Everybody walked to school and many lasting friendships were made. A girl five house up the street would walk with me everyday that year. After the first week of second grade she did not come out to meet us
anymore. We knew something was wrong as our parents were all concerned and went to school with us. We learned she had polioand would not be in
school anymore. We didn't know the words then but we were confused and devastated. We never saw her again. I never forgot her.

[rogruth]

Now another but much happier event (s) I have not forgotten.I had an uncle who worked for the Pennsy. He had already started me on my life-long
love of trains and when I was 4 or 5 he took me to the roundhouse and we got into a cab of a steam loco. WOW ! A couple of months later we did
this again but this time the loco backed onto the turntable and was turned and moved off the turntable. Bigger WOW !. We did this again and
picked up a train and moved out. Not too far and we were @ 150' from my uncles house so we stopped and got off and watched the train back back
to the yard. So that is why I am a train fan.

[rogruth]

What is with the crazy sentence division in my two above posts? I didn't type them like that.

[chuck]

What is with the crazy sentence division in my two above posts? I didn't type them like that.

Those breaks were created by hard carriage returns. The browser may have forced them, aka it set an absolute line length of x characters and when you hit x, it broke the line.

Most web based text is "unformatted", the lines automatically wrap to fit the space allocated for the text box. Acrobat can go one farther, it will start shrinking the fonts to "make sure" everything fits.

[up148]

Staying with my grandparents for a week each summer. Grandpa would always take me down to St. Louis Union Station on my last Saturday to watch trains come and go. Learned a lot from Grandfather and he helped me learn enough Latin to be an alter boy at 8 or 9. He was instrumental in me getting my 1st train (American Flyer) at age 5, which only came out for Christmas under the tree, until I was 8 or 9.

1st "English Racer" just a 3 speed bike with handbrakes at age 8. Was too short to get on or off unless I found a curb, until I learned I could lean it over to get off when I stopped, but only if the pedal was up on the side I got off and I could mount it on the run.

Watching diesel Frisco locos come and go at the Lindenwood Yard, while on the Fyler Bridge (2 lane wooden deck) in St. Louis. Many through freights and even some passenger trains. We were only 10-12 feet above the top of the loco and the heat from the exhaust was a gas (literally). Diesel facility was only a hundred+ feet north of the bridge and at night you could see in. When city buses rolled over the bridge you felt the vibration and sway.

[rogruth]

Murph,
Your turn.

[MurphOnMillerAve]

Everybody remembers where they were and what they were doing on 9/11 and the day President Kennedy was shot.

[chuck]

I was in school the day JFK was assassinated. We were at afternoon "recess". The township school board was transitioning from a traditional grade school, jr. high, high school to a "new" K-5 grade school to a 6-8 middle school to a 9-12 high school. They had run out of grade school space and moved grades 5-8 into the old central high school while the new "middle school" was being built. We wound up at the high school one year early (eigth grade). It was a warm November day and the teachers monitoring the "play ground" (old football field) started gathering and talking. Within minutes we were summoned back to the class rooms. We were instructed to gather our personal belongings and were to be dismissed early. Busses were on the way for the kids that needed them. I lived 10 minutes away and walked home. That's when my mom and grandmother (both visibly upset and both had been crying) told me what had happened in Dallas about 20-30 minutes earlier. I think this is where I first heard Albioni's Adagio as it was frequently used as background during the period of mourning.

I was at work on the day of the 9-11 attacks. My mom called me at work. She was extremely upset. She kept saying "they're gone" and it took me a while to get her to tell me what was gone. She couldn't believe that anyone could be that callous and cowardly. I remember watching the twin towers being built (I grew up in New York City and the NY Metro area). One of my favorite pictures of my two very young children is from the top of the original Trade Center, a very small statue of liberty in the background. I have a hard time fully enjoying that picture now. I knew someone that worked in one of the towers (a former student employee) that managed to get out before the collapse and I knew of a second person (one of our faculties kids) that normally worked there but was not at work that day. I will never forgive the people responsible for that attack. If it were in my power that entire worthless country would have been reduced to glowing lava fields that no one could set foot on for centuries to come. I guess it's a good thing that I am not in power.

[up148]

Sure on both.

Freshman civics class 11-22-63. Mrs. Tate left the room and came back crying and told us what happened and school was dismissed for the day.

At a conference in New Orleans 9-11-2001. In my room getting ready to go down to some meetings and had the TV on. Couldn't believe what I was seeing as it was just surreal.

No rental cars available, airlines shut down, everyone in a panic and not many choices to get home. I had flown down with another guy, but luckily another couple from our company had driven as they planned on staying for a vacation. Husband had hurt his back and couldn't drive, so I volunteered to drive ( I like to drive rather than be a passenger) and we left NOLA about 10 AM and arrived in KCMO late that evening. Very eerie day, as until late afternoon the roads were pretty empty and you could see many contrails of fighter jets all over the sky. Gas stations either out of gas or gouging in AR and southern MO. Just glad to get home.