Firsts...

The laptop is thrust into my hands...My darling Valentine smiles at me and commands me to DO IT!

I answer the following questions to create The Kraut's Memory of Firsts!

Your Earliest Memories in Life.

What is your very first memory of:

1. Mother

Apple Cake in the oven. Being told to shhhhh! or the cake would fall and I wouldn't get any. Lies all lies. It wasn't that kind of cake.

2. Father

Always building things in the basement. I remember sitting in a half-finished sailing dinghy and Dad going upstairs to answer the phone leaving his hammer within reach...BANG BANG BANG! Dad running downstairs, murder in his eyes, then laughter..."Help build DADA!" says I.

3. Siblings

My brother is 16 years older than me...At dinner when I'm three years old he leans over and whispers: "How do you like your BLOOD SOUP, Raymond? You know Mom and Dad are lying when they say it's tomato soup..."

4. Friends

Lewis and Raphael, who eventually proved false. Rot in hell.

5. Pets

"Can I have a dog?"
"No, your Dad's allergic."
"What about my brother's dog?"
"He didn't have a dog."
"What about the dog in the pictures?"
"Oh. That dog...Well your Dad have to have shots every day so we could keep that dog. It made him very sick..."
"Can Dad have shots so I can have a dog?"
"No."

The allergy story was a lie. I proved it later. They just shrugged.

6. Food

Apple cake. Steak, potatoes, lotsa garlic. Fresh salad from the garden.

7. Toy

Lego, Lego, LEGO!

8. Bathtime

Scalding hot water turning my skin bright pink; the only way to take a bath. Regular burning shampoo in the eyes. No more tears, my ass!

9. Bedtime story

"Go to sleep or the evil clown in your closet will deal with you!"

-kidding

I usually put myself to bed and listened to the clock radio. Crying myself to sleep when the Maple Leafs lost (which was always. It was the 1970s!)

10. Music/song

Constant German music taped off the multicultural radio stations. Lotsa marches... The Germans do love their marching tunes.

11. TV

That magic moment when the old black and white TV was unplugged and taken away- while I was watching!...starting to cry...then a new, BIGGER, TV was wheeled in by my father and brother...plugged in...turned on...AND THEN THE WORLD TURNED COLOUR!

12. Movie

"The Sound of Music" - parents of a friend of mine offered to take several of us to a matinee. I'd never seen an image so big! I sat through the three hours speechless.

13. Christmas

Pocket Fisherman, the most useless gift a five year old who doesn't fish could get.

14. Neighbours

Mr. Mann next door would tarzan-yell every time he saw me. I'd answer with the same yell. His evil white and black cat Herbie would hunt birds in our yard. I'd hunt him. His daughter Nancy, who was 18 had a thing for my brother. They both worked at the Toronto Zoo. I had a thing for her, but I didn't yet understand what it was...

15. Play

All the lego piled together into one grand lego fortress. World domination... Muwahahahah! Snow fortresses outside on winter days.

16. Smells

Did I mention I liked apple cake? The smell of cake baking in the oven.

17. Clothes

Ugly corduroy, ugly polyester, really ill-fitting crap. Everyday running shoes in the days before the Nike swoosh ruled the school yard. Cool Addidas kids looking down on the rest of us...

18. Travel

Four days trapped in a van with my parents travelling to Vancouver from Toronto and then another four days travelling back. Standing back from the rail of a car ferry in fear of it collapsing and me being thrown into the churning ocean where the sharks would get me...

19. Notice of opposite (or same) sex

Michelle Baker, cute little blonde girl with straight hair who had no idea I was alive.
Finally noticing that our buddy Clarissa was a girl (and a pretty one too!) a couple of days before I moved away to British Columbia for fourteen years...

20. Early memories that don't fit any of the above categories.

My first ever memory is of stepping on a bee and having it sting me in the foot. The blinding pain! Not being able to stand after that. The agony of waiting for my mother to cross the yard and get to me while writhing on the floor...



via Rue from Abraca-Pocus!, my Valentine and originator of this meme.