Day 2 - Your earliest memory

Day 2 - Your earliest memory

My mother was always amazed at the things that I remembered. I would bring things up in conversation that she had forgotten but that she could then confirm. I'm not sure of the exact age of my earliest memories, but as I was still in the wooden playpen that we had and my sister was still in the bouncy chair (metal frame, cloth seat) as she couldn't sit up by herself yet. That means that I was probably a little less than two years old. I have a number of related memories from this time frame and I'm not sure which is the earliest.

Our playpen was a heavy wooden one. It was painted (probably with lead-based paint!) a light blue-green color and folded up with a plywood base. I didn't have a lot of toys, but there were two that were favorites. One was my stuffed giraffe. Most kids had teddy bears, but I had a giraffe. He was probably 15-16" in height. The second was my "bus book". I was a very early reader and the bus book was cut in the shape of a bus with wheels fastened to the front cover so you could roll it along - making it both a book and a toy.

Speaking of books, my mother often related the story of how people would come over and I would be sitting in the corner with a book - not the little kids books, but something like one of the childcraft series that had been given to us when I was born. I was sitting very quietly and they would comment on how nicely I was playing with the book. My mother would respond, "Oh, he's  not playing with the book, he's reading it!" and the people would be astounded that I was actually reading at such a young age.