I walked into the courtyard of the National Portrait Gallery recently and was struck by a very subtle smell, it reminded me of spring in the front house of the on the farm in Michigan. I looked around and it occurred to me that what I was smelling was Tulips blooming. Tulips are not grown for their fragrance, and yet there it was a scent from my early childhood, flooding back memories of sunny spring days, when the ground is still cool underfoot.
Hence a few questions about early memories:
1: What is your earliest memory?
2: What is your most vivid early memory of travel?
3: Do smells bring back memories for you?
4: What music brings back early memories?
5: Describe a poem from childhood, that you remember?
My answers:
1: What is your earliest memory?
When I was three or four, we "built" a new house - I remember the foundation going in.
2: What is your most vivid early memory of travel?
Peering over the edge of the Grand Canyon on my sister's birthday when I was 5 years old. March 18th, the air was crisp and cold, and the spectacular chasm, the vivid gold and purple colors of the rock in the late winter sun.
3: Do smells bring back memories for you?
This is an early memory, I was about 4 years old, and the trigger is the smell of lacquer thinner. It is my father and a friend of his recovering the wings of an airplane in the garage of the house on the farm.
4: What music brings back early memories?
This would have to be classic rock of the 1960's, there was a great AM station out of Windsor Ontario that rocked the thumb area of Michigan.
5: Describe a poem from childhood, that you remember?
Way down south where the grasshoppers roam,
A grasshopper on an elephants' toe,
The elephant said with tears in it's eye,
Pick on someone your own size.
ReplyDelete1: What is your earliest memory?
Sitting on the side verandah and examining my wee slippers, which were bright red and maybe had some sort of animals on them. I was wearing said slippers and had my little legs straight out in front while I played witn my toes.
2: What is your most vivid early memory of travel?
Probably just driving to the beach (Gold Coast, but called the south coast then) with my family. About an hour's drive away. Ahem, my dad was driving of course!
3: Do smells bring back memories for you?
None that I can think of off the top of my head.
4: What music brings back early memories?
I suppose nursery rhymes and hymns. I was brought up in a VERY religious house, with Sunday School and church twice on Sundays. Is it any wonder i am now an atheist?
5: Describe a poem from childhood, that you remember?
I wonder, I wonder if anyone knows
Who lives in the heart of a velvety rose.
Is it a goblin, or is it an elf,
Or is it the queen of the fairies herself?
I love your early memories!
ReplyDeleteBoy, these were actually tough And not a answer for all but....
ReplyDelete1- earliest memory would be something in pre school, like being dropped off.
2- My travel memory would hands down, be the always disastrous camping trips. And as a kid I was scared to death to use the comfort houses, so I would " hold" from going. I would always end up having to get an Fleet. My sure the campground though I was being murdered.
3- The smell is definitely Thanksgiving dinner. Can still smell my dada cooking waking up. A mix of turkey, gravey with the notes of sage onion and thyme.
4 My earliest music memory is being at my grandmothers house and hearing the legendary Yma Sumac on the turntable.
5- poem I can't remember. But my money is on my dad's cousin probably reciting a dirty limerick.
1: sunday dinners at grandmom's house
ReplyDelete2: going to sea isle city NJ to my great aunt's beach house
3: bakery and hardware store; both have distinctive smells I recognize anywhere
4: my grandmom's fave song "theme from a summer place"
5: tiger tiger burning bright, in the forests of the night
1: Being at a picnic, an Air Force picnic, with my family, and the long white fences separating us from a group of horses. I remember watching them run and being mesmerized.
ReplyDelete2: Being crowded into a car in the very early morning and heading from Northern California to Southern California in the dark. My parents thought it best if the kids slept through most of the trip. I remember waking up as we headed up the Grapevine highway.
3: My mother cooking; the kitchen always smelled the best.
4: I remember a lot of music my parents listened to: Vicki Carr was one that sticks with me, "It Must Be Him." My first gay crush song?
5: I know this one because I wrote it in first grade and got an 'A':
"Snow makes whiteness where it falls,
The bushes look like popcorn balls.
And everywhere I used to play,
Looks like somewhere else today."
1. Opening a Christmas present.
ReplyDelete2. Going to the Isle of Wight.
3. The scent of honeysuckle.
4. Elton John
5. There is no man on my ottoman, there hasn't been for weeks, there is no man on my ottoman he's gone to fight the Greeks. (Personally I blame my mother).
1: What is your earliest memory? My father telling me something at the end of his work day.
ReplyDelete2: What is your most vivid early memory of travel? going to the grandparents
3: Do smells bring back memories for you? yes, especially freshly cut pumpkin and old books.
4: What music brings back early memories? so many do.
5: Describe a poem from childhood, that you remember? I am proud to say I can recite many of them still.
1) This one is, unfortunately, being molested. Horrible memory actually.
ReplyDelete2) Crossing the Mississippi on a ferry boat.
3) Yes flowers, especially grandma's sweetbud bush.
4) Neil Diamond
5) I can't seem to recall anything special in the poetry department.
i really likes your blog and You have shared the whole concept really well. and Very beautifully soulful read! thanks for sharing.
ReplyDeleteตารางคะแนน