Memory Lane – Show and Tell Tuesday
It’s been awhile since I’ve joined Andrea at Momfessionals for Show and Tell Tuesday but I’m always a sucker for a trip down memory lane! Join the fun and share some of your favorite memories.
Just as this picture is a little foggy, I often question some of the memories from my childhood. Do I really remember them as clearly as I think I do? Or has a picture or story told from another’s perspective clouded my view and caused me to see the memory a little differently? I’m not for certain the answer but I do know some of my first memories stretch back to when I was only 3 1/2 and they seem so clear I’m unsure how they could not be real. Let’s take a little walk shall we?
- 1972 we road a little train while visiting my dad at a job in Colorado. I sat on the edge of a cliff with my dad for a picture and then we went to see Santa at the mall. The stomach bug hit the day we headed home and I remember vomiting in a coffee can the entire way back to our hometown while the blizzard followed us the entire way.
- My baby brother was also born this year and at 6 weeks old he had to have a lobe of his lung removed. While I don’t remember specifically all that surrounded the surgery, I do remember my dad coming to my grandparents house to tell me about it. I remember I was wearing my favorite nightgown with animals on it and in my mind when he explained they had to cut my brother open I pictured them using the butcher knife. Weird.
- My parents took me to the Houston zoo while my brother was still at Texas Childrens and a camel totally drank out of my moms soft drink.
- When I was 5 ish I remember my mom cooking bacon one morning and she had the grease too hot and it popped up and got her right in the eye.
- I remember receiving baby tender love for my birthday and loving the heck out of the doll. Baby this and that came later and she actually crawled!
- When I was in the 3rd grade I contracted the flu and that is probably the sickest I’ve ever been in my life. My parents even built a tent over my bed one night to keep the vaporizer under. My mom moved a TV in my room so I could watch One Day at a Time and my grandparents actually sent me flowers (I still have the vase they came in) while all my class at school wrote me get well cards.
- Pear salad! Have you ever had it? Evidently it is a southern thing but I remember my mom making it when we would have sit down lunch or dinner on the weekends. Basically it is a canned pear halve on a bed of lettuce with a dollup of mayo and grated cheese on top. I seriously think I might need to make this soon as it has probably been 30 years since I’ve enjoyed it.
- My mom ordered me the exact same windbreaker from the Sears catalog every single year. It was light blue and I remember losing it one year right after it arrived. To our surprise the next time we ate at our favorite Mexican food restaurant they brought it right out. We obviously ate there a ton!
- Speaking of the Sears catalog, was there anything better than circling everything you wanted for Christmas in that sucker?!
- Mmmm….my Meme made the best chocolate cake for my birthday pretty much every year and it was so good. One year she messed something up and it didn’t rise the same. She was beside herself but I swear it was even better than the original but she never could repeat it.
- I packed my backpack to run away so many times! I always packed myself some saltines with peanut butter in between and I always made it back home by dark thirty.
- Lighting bugs were the best summer fun.
- I loved frogs y’all. Every day I would head out to the water meter in the front yard to check to see if there were any hiding there. I don’t know what my deal was but I thought they were awesome!
- Once I dreamed there were big huge grass snakes dancing all around our backyard and as I tried to get in the house the glass storm door was locked. My mom and dad were both sitting on the couch just laughing at me. #issues
- My favorite shows included Family Feud, The Love Boat, Fantasy Island (especially the creepy ventriloquist episode), One day at a Time and Facts of Life.
- We rented a VCR on Friday night. That’s right, not just rent the movie but we were renting the entire VCR!! The first time my mom rented one we were so excited and stayed up all night watching Endless Love and Cujo. I do not think my momma even checked the ratings.
- The term grocery store feet was not foreign to me as we always went to the store bare footed. What the actual heck?! We almost always robbed the pantry bare and then filled up two full grocery carts at the store. As a mom now I totally get this! Oh, and I totally remember the toy aisle being roped off on Sundays. That’s right, you could not buy toys on Sundays and some of you guys thought no alcohol before noon was a deal breaker!
- My most prized position for years was probably my stereo with the dual cassette decks. I can remember sitting for hours listening to the top 40 countdown and recording my favorite songs or pilfering through all my cassettes to create just the perfect mix tape!
- Summer ruled……just to prove some things never change!
I could seriously go at this all night! Isn’t it fun sometimes just to jot all these memories down? So for all you moms out there, just know we spend so much time trying to create special memories with our kids and truth be told it is often the oddest things they are going to remember!
Hope you all have a memorable Tuesday!
Oh the Sears catalog! Yes, I circled everything I wanted, maybe that was a sign we’d eventually have blogs! Sweet memories Shelly!
xoxo,
Kellyann
http://www.thisblondesshoppingbag.com
Haha…maybe so! The world has definitely changed a ton hasn’t it?
Yes it has! I remember trying to imagine what it would be like someday if you could see the person you were talking to on the phone. I actually never thought it would happen in my lifetime!
It really is true that we remember the strangest little tidbits from our childhoods. The memories you wrote about that struck a chord with me were the Sears catalog, the favorite tv shows, and the dual cassette player. I was just trying to explain to the kids how I used to make mix tapes from songs on the radio and try not to get the dj talking in the intro recorded on the tape. Have a good one.
I’m not sure our kids will ever be able to really appreciate music the way we did. Gosh I remember listening to a song and stopping and starting it so I could write down the lyrics!
Great memories, Shelly!
My brother and I did the same thing to that Sears Christmas catalog. I wish they would put those out again. They still had them when my oldest was little, but my younger kids don’t remember them:)
It was the best! I remember sitting down for hours with that thing!
HaHa! We always had pear salad as a ‘fancy’ dessert – with a cherry on top! I. loved. it! I can’t make it for my family because, apparently, mayo is gross when used like that! 🙂 Thanks for the memories Shelly!
We don’t even have a jar of mayo at our house so I can relate…but I totally crave a little pear salad now and then!
The Sears Catalogue, the place dreams lived! I remember loving circling all the toys at Christmas time and all the clothes and shoes for school clothes. I loved that thing!
Oh how I loved when the Christmas catalog came!
Love this- I don’t know if I could come up with such a big list. We also had to rent a VCR to watch a movie. It was such a luxury!
Isn’t it crazy Deena? And now we don’t even have to have a VCR. I would have never imagined!
Good grief…YOU have a GREAT memory!!! I’m impressed! I can barely remember yesterday😜
Lol….Lisa that is why I have been trying to record all this goodness! Seems my memory is slipping at a rapid pace.
The toy aisle was roped off on Sunday?! That’s the funniest thing I’ve ever heard. And, girl! How in the heck do you have this many memories?! I swear mine are all in some dark hole somewhere! Loved the trip down memory lane!
I guarantee it was the same in Henderson on Sundays lol. It was a state law at the time…crazy right?!! Can you imagine how us last minute moms would ever make it to a bday party on Sunday if we couldn’t stop for a last minute gift?!!
Probably so – I can vividly remember the stores not being open on Sunday and how people were appalled when they changed and started opening. Thought for sure we were in the last days! hahaha!
I always loved catching lightning bugs at my grandparents’ house in St. Louis- a scientist there paid us to bring in our bugs to be used in research. LOVED the Facts of Life- I wanted to be Jo so badly! And I definitely sat around and recorded songs when they’d play on the radio to make tapes. I have a ton of Led Zeppelin on cassette somewhere in my house!
Catching lightning bugs was just so summer to me! Its crazy that we don’t see them at all anymore. And yes, Jo was definitely the one I wanted to be too.
You couldn’t buy toys on Sundays?! Baha ha! Oh my goodness that is hilarious and awesome. It is so funny the things people remember.
Isn’t that crazy?!! It was a law…..there were certain things that couldn’t be purchased on Sundays and toys were on the list!
I loved reading all of your memories! We used to catch lightning bugs when we were little, too! And I love that you call them that instead of fire flies. :o)
We haven’t had them here in years. Three summers ago we were in Omaha and you would have thought I won the lottery by how excited I got when the yard filled with them!
my kids love pear salad….my MIL makes it all the time! 🙂
-good memories!!
Susan I seriously need to make it….what kind of mom am I that my kids have never even tried it?!!
Hahaha love that you rented a VCR! And yes to the Sear’s catalog. I LOVED when that would come around the holidays. I would study that thing like a textbook and circle/fold down the pages of my wish list! 🙂
It was the Sears Wishbook. Wonderful!