The Earliest Memory

We don’t remember the moment we came out of the womb.  At that point in our life, our brain hasn’t completely grasped the concept of air and light and time and cold.  All we can grasp is the feeling of existence.

We learn and we grow.  And somewhere, maybe around the age of two or three, we start to develop memory.  Memory of moments in our lives, memory that we can play back in our brain.  Memories of good things.  Memories of bad things.  But mostly – memories of things.

I was talking to someone the other day and I asked about the earliest memory they could recall.  They recalled a trip with their family.

I thought long and hard about this.  The earliest memory I have was possibly as early as the age of two, walking down the curved, carpeted stairway in my grandmother’s house in West Roxbury, Mass.  My Grandma Betty’s house was full of wonderful things – smells of ethnic cooking and sounds of doorbells; the sights of a blueberry garden next to the house, and the taste of ripened blueberries if I could reach under the mosquito netting protecting the plants and grab a few sweet treats.

Then I thought more.  I thought about the first baseball game I ever saw on television – I think it was a Mets  game, because it started out with the Mets theme song, “Meet the  Mets, meet the Mets…”  It might have aired on WTEN on a Sunday afternoon.

I thought about the first motion picture I ever saw in a theater.  It might have been Disney’s The Jungle Book, or A Boy Named Charlie Brown.  My mother once told me she took me to see Mary Poppins, but I would have been too young to remember it.  I do remember that Logan’s Run was the first non-G-rated film I ever saw in a theater (at the old UA Center 1-2 behind Colonie Center).

I remember the first tricycle race I ever had – believe it or not, when I was living in Slingerlands, my neighbor was Michael Eck, and we used to have tricycle races from one end of my yard to the other.  I remember him beating me one day, six races to two.  I see Mike Eck off and on, maybe once a year or two years when our paths cross; I think the last time was at the art auction for Tess’ Lark Tavern last year.

I remember the first time I crossed a time zone.  It may have been 1969, my grandparents put me and my siblings in the station wagon and we rode to Dixon, Illinois.  My maternal grandmother grew up in Dixon, and one of her classmates in high school was some guy named Ronald Reagan.  It took me a while to figure out that we weren’t visiting Nixon, Illinois – couldn’t yet wrap around my mind that there was a difference between “Dixon” and “Nixon.”

I remember the first time I visited Canada – my Grandma Betty and my Aunt Elaine (she owns an antiques store in Center Tuftonboro, N.H.) took me on a four-day trip through Quebec; while Elaine bought antiques and furniture for her store, I was treated to a trip to La Ronde (think “The Great Escape” for Quebecois).

I remember the only time I visited the World Trade Center.  It was 1976, and my mother and two of her friends took me to New York City so that we could see the tall ships arriving in the harbor in time for the Bicentennial.  We watched the ships from a window in one of the towers.  It was also the first time I ever visited New York City.

I remember the first time I ever used a curse word.  I was in seventh grade.  Something terrible had happened to me that day – I was attending Christian Brothers Academy (#8 on the list of twelve schools), and through some breach of protocol that I still don’t understand today, I received a demerit slip for 24,000,000,000,000,000 demerits.  Obviously it was a joke – how in the world could anybody receive 24 quadrillion demerits for anything?  And when a demerit meant 15 minutes of detention … the joke caused me to use one of the words George Carlin says you can’t say on television.  I said it under my breath and hoped no one would hear me.  I’ve gotten more proficient in my vocabulary since then  And I’ve probably earned about 24 gazillion demerits since then.

I remember my first broken bone.  It was my left arm, it was 1973, and I fell out of a bunk bed and landed elbow-first on the floor.  Shattered my elbow in about six or seven places.  Even today, I can easily touch my right shoulder with my right hand; I cannot touch my left shoulder with my left hand.

I remember the first 45 I ever bought – to be specific, a 45 that didn’t have the words “Disney” or “Cricket” or “Peter Pan” on the label.  It was Queen’s Bohemian Rhapsody, it was the winter of 1975/76, and I bought it at Blue Note Record Shop in Albany.

I remember the first time I ever flew in a plane.  It was 1992, and a co-worker of mine had scored tickets to a Pittsburgh Steelers home game against the Cleveland Browns.  We flew on a USAir jet, and we had a good time.  The Steelers won.  Of course they did.  I did say they were playing the Cleveland Clowns.

I remember the  first time I received a birthday cake in a restaurant.  It was maybe 1975, and and my Grandma Betty took me to the Red Coach Grill, where we had a sit-down dinner and it was finished off with a coconut-frosted cake.  They put a candle on the cake – and they even added a maraschino cherry on top.  I asked for a second maraschino cherry, they tasted so good.  The server obliged.

And I remember the first time I felt happy.  Truly happy, not just happy that I heard a funny joke.  March 2, 1981.  30 years ago today.  The buzzer went off.  The scoreboard read 145-105.  We had done the impossible.  We won when nobody else thought we had a chance.

Happy anniversary.