Tell a tale from your childhood -- happy or sad, doesn't matter.

[bertha katzenengel]

My mother and stepfather left my sisters and me in the station wagon one day while they "ran into" Thrifty. My mother left her purse by the gas pedal. It was hot and the windows were open. I was in the front seat.

A hippy* walked by the car on the passenger's side and stopped and looked in and asked what time it was, then suddenly reached in with his whole body and grabbed my mother's purse by the flap. As it was flying out the window, I reacted, grabbing the strap and holding it tight against the car door. The hippy ran away carrying the flap and I saved the purse.

When they came out of the store my mother had a smiley face pendant for each of us. Mine was blue. I said "Is this a reward because I saved your purse?" She said, "No, everyone got one."

My smiley face was like this only round, just the face:


* "Hippy" -- this happened sometime in 1970-1973. I think the guy got called a hippy in my mind because that must be what my stepfather called him according to the description we gave: jeans, t-shirt, beard, long hair. A tolerant asshole, my stepfather. :eyes:

What's your tale?

[rogerashton]

1. My sister and I

often played with the kids of the farm hands, who were African-American. They lived in shacks provided by my grandparents, not far away, but we played with them at the "Big House," not at their humble homes.

One day we all decided to go down and play at the shacks where the farm hand kids lived. Grandma was so angry with my sister and me, she literally whupped us all the way up the hill. One didn't fraternize that way.

Am I a time traveller or what? That would have been about 1947.

[Melodybe]

2. I used to watch Mr. Body and one day he talked about cells and

how we are not one thing but made up of trillions of little things. I was terrified I thought that my whole body would just fall a part. I was only about 5 years old and it was sooo upsetting to me.

I got over it though.

Just wondering but did Mr. Body have testicles?

[bertha katzenengel]

17. Scary!

I wonder: did you ever see "The Nightmare Before Christmas?" If so, there was a scene in that film that might have made that memory come back to you when you saw it.

[bertha katzenengel]

19. Mr Ashton

Thank you for telling that story. It makes me think of I Know Why The Caged Bird Sings -- I imagine if Maya Angelou had been the kind of kid to seek out friends, and her friends were white (as if that could've happened in Stamps, Arkansas, during the Depression), her grandmother would have done the same thing to her.

[rogerashton]

30. I s'spect so.

My uncle grew up in Stamps about then. WWII time, actually, pretty much.

[oneighty]

3. Spring time 1938 or so

I stand alone in a large pasture next to a giant rock left there by the passing of the great glaciers. At the base of the rock scattered about are red shotgun shells where one of my cousins had been shooting. The shells smelled of gunpowder.

The field is dotted with rocks and stones. Cows graze there too. The odor of their droppings mingles with that of the gunpowder. The grass is dark green covered with morning dew.

I hear the cries of my mother and sisters searching for me.

Eddie Eddie they cry out.

From 'Voyages of the Vicky Mary'

180

[bertha katzenengel]

16. I liked this, 180. Thanks for posting it.

[sam sarrha]

4. I was 7, I decided to committ suicide because i hate to go to the church

so much, it was a fundamentalist extreemist church.. Free holliness penticostal.. out in the sticks..

i went into a closit and and told god i hated him and his goddamned church.. then waited to be struck dead. i waited a long time then realilzed god must not exist.. that made me very happy. so when they tried to make me 'Pray Thru", i just said no and ignored them. once they tried to drag me to the altar to show repentance.. i yelled, "I am NOT repentant, and if you dont let go of me my grandfather will kick your ass!" they feared him more than god. and i just wasnt around when it was time to go to chruch after that and no one ever asked why and they left me alone from then on

[bertha katzenengel]

15. Was your grandfather in that church too?

What is "praying thru?"

Good for you; I never even thought to question the church until I was 23.

[rogerashton]

31. Well, here's another from me --

"Ashton" is actually a middle name, by the way -- my last name is too common to be useful on line.

Dad was an atheist, Mother a deist, so we didn't go to church; but Dad had been an Eagle scout and determined that I would be a boy scount. We were visiting at the Grandparents' Big House -- yes, here comes Grandmother again, and she was really a wonderful person, but a product of her own life history -- very concerned with what she saw as proper.

I was looking at Dad's old scout handbook, and announced that, after all, I could not be a scout -- the book said "A Scout is reverent," and I was not reverent.

It was not long after that that Grandmother started hauling us kids to the Methodist Church for Sunday School and services.

That would be about 1950, I reckon. Didn't do me no harm.

[mopinko]

5. a dog story

since i just got my third boxer-
story
here

i will tell you the family legend about why i was a "spoiled child" according to my siblings. (actually, i kind of was for a poor kid in a big family. my maternal grandmother lived with us for a short while when i was tiny, and i never got to the second whaaa.)
we had a boxer. a huge male, former show dog who came to us at age 4. typical of his breed, it was a superglue bond. he loved us all. he really, really adored my dad, and the feeling was mutual. not too long after the dog came to us, my father was going to spank me for something or other, a fairly common experience in my house. he held me by the arm, and started to swing. the dog gently grabbed his wrist, sat down, and stared him right in the eye. that was the last spanking in that house.
and that is why i am on my third boxer.

[bertha katzenengel]

14. mopinko, you've sold me

If I ever get a dog, it's going to be a boxer. :hi:

BTW I'd read the threads of your recent rescue. :yourock:

[mopinko]

36. fun thread bertha

[bertha katzenengel]

6. interesting tales

:kick: More?

[solinvictus]

7. About 1975..

Good Memory:

My parents had just bought some land in a rural area north of Birmingham and moved our mobile home onto it. They were saving to build a house in the immediate future. Anyway, one day my dad was outside working and I was playing around and a man drove up to the house. He lived about a half mile behind us and had locked his housekeys inside. He asked if I could come over and crawl through a window. My dad drove me over to his house, I crawled inside, and then unlocked the door so he could get in. The man gave me $5, which to a five year old in 1975 was a ton of money. We went to K-Mart and I had my run of the toy department. I bought a MEGO Joker action figure and a Batman and Robin that had parachutes that stuffed into their backs. If I remember right, I still had about a buck left, which was enough for three comics.

Bad Memory:
In August of 1976, we were planning a huge fishing trip with my dad and grandad (Mom's side). All that day, we'd been gathering poles, lures, and an Igloo cooler while I caught earthworms and crickets for bait. We had my dad's pickup packed and everything was on the front porch of my grandparent's house ready to go in the morning.
Later, in the early morning hours (2-3AM), my Granny called and said my granddad was sick. We got into my mom's Nova and started driving. I remember two songs played in the time it took to get there; Leo Sayer's "You Make Me Feel Like Dancin'" and Chicago's "If You Leave Me Now". When we got to their house, he was dead. I went and looked at him a last time and hugged his neck. I was afraid to go to the funeral because when I was young, I believed when you died, you turned into a skeleton. I also believed that the world must have been black and white before I was born because it seemed no one had color pictures. It took me years before I could hear either song without getting sad.

[bertha katzenengel]

13. oh, man

Solin. :hug: thanks. (I think I had a superman like that, or some toy w/ a parachute in its back.)

[sharonking21]

8. Oklahoma City, OK 1951

The Store

Papa runs the store on Bleaker
Street. My grandfather, Papa, is an
important man. He lets me wait on customers
when I come over, just like a big girl. I get to run
the cash register, and tell people where the groceries are,
and straighten up the cans of corn and peas. Sometimes I use the feather
duster on the glass cases that hold the fishhooks, mousetraps, and string. Papa
lets me eat all the Hostess cupcakes I want (except when Gongie makes him stop) and
he gives me free Grapettes. The only thing he never lets me do is slice the lunch meat, 'cause
that's the way he lost his finger, or run the meat grinder to make hamburger that comes out in pretty curlicues. I
can't get behind the window where they sell people stamps because that's
government. Gongie stays in back in the room behind the store. She had a stroke
and can't talk. When I get tired of waiting on customers, I go back there
and ride her wheelchair across the cement floor. The store is at Will
Roger's Field and one time we almost had a tornado. It got black
outside, and we couldn't close the front door, and the rain came
in sideways and stained the tar paper walls near the front.
Gongie keeps pretty handkerchiefs in a shiny wooden
box shaped like a heart beside her bed.
Sometimes I crawl up there on the
bed with her and hug her and
she says "No, No, No"
('cause that's all she
can say now) and
she hugs me with
her good arm.

[bertha katzenengel]

11. oh, my

Sharonking. Thank you. I enjoyed reading this very, very much.

[greatauntoftriplets]

9. On my second birthday....

at my birthday party, my cousin (and godmother) put down her straight-up martini (old kind, this was 1951) after taking one sip. When she went back to drink some more, the glass was empty. And I was sitting next to it. LOL, I was fine. Slept extremely well that night, according to my mother, but ate a good dinner and showed no other affects from what had to have been a strong drink.

[bertha katzenengel]

10. Well, I'd heard little children were supposed to sleep tight . . .

Joni Mitchell, is that you? ;)

[greatauntoftriplets]

12. Not Joni....

Just a "normal" little girl in the Chicago area....

:D

:toast:

[bertha katzenengel]

20. Heh heh.

:toast: (and I guess martinis aren't vodka.)

[greatauntoftriplets]

22. Definitely gin....

Later my parents started drinking their martinis on the rocks, though. We used to play wine glasses with their old straight-up martini glasses after they had been retired.

[StaggerLee]

18. when I was about 5 or 6 we were migrant workers

This would have been 1972 or '73. One day I accompanied the family into the fields. It may have been lettuce or onions I don't remember but I was too young to really help out so I found a place to sit and play in the dirt as the rest of the family worked. As sit playing a field mouse decided to run up my pantleg and I let out a shriek that you could hear for miles. I quickly realized that the little bugger was going directly for my junk and I shrieked even louder than the first time. I immediately grasped the top of my thigh with both hands and pressed down on my pants so that the mouse could go no further and it was just in the nick of time. The animal quickly u-turned and dashed out of my pants. During this time my family had come running thinking something horrible had happened to me. My grandfather was one of the first to reach me and he had the biggest laugh over my whole ordeal.


I miss my grandfather.

[bertha katzenengel]

21. Stagger -- LOL great story!

How long has it been since your grandfather left the earth? :(

[StaggerLee]

25. He passed in 1987

Thanks bertha. My nieces and nephews always get a kick out of that story as well.

:hi:

[sharonking21]

29. Your story glancingly reminded me

of a dark episode when I was four. I was visiting my grandmother in her white wooden house not too far in Oklahoma City from where the later Murrah Federal Building was. We were sitting in the living room listening to the radio at night. I didn't know it, but she had had to put mouse traps out in the kitchen. I heard a snap then a horrible small shrieking scream that still runs chills down my spine. Up until that time, I didn't know about real pain and I certainly didn't know that mice could scream. I'm sitting here 58 years later with chill bumps on my arms.

[Southsideirish]

23. My mom glued a thumbtack to the doorbell to stop neighborhood bullies

from tormenting me.
I got on the wrong side of a group of nasty girls from my parochial grammar school in 8th grade. They used to like to walk past my house on Friday night and and call me names. Their final coup d'etat was to ring the doorbell (it would be about midnight)and wake up everybody in the house.
Seeing I was on the verge of a nervous breakdown over this weekly or semi weekly debacle, mom got the idea to glue a tack on the doorbell. The next morning the tack was on the mat and it never happened again. Just one of the things I loved my mom for so much.

[bertha katzenengel]

24. Your mom rocks.

Thanks, SSIrish! :bounce:

[Southsideirish]

28. She was my best friend. I'll never have another like her.

[Misunderestimator]

38. What a great story!

Your mom DOES rock!

[johnnie]

26. !975... I was left alone in Canada while my family headed home to Ohio

I was 11 years old and my family was heading from Ohio to Toronto, Canada on a vacation. We were traveling with three other families and going there was fine. On the way home our car started overheating so we pulled off the highway and the other cars followed. Giving the car a chance to cool down we all went to a McDonald's for a break. They were giving away some stickers or something and I went up to the counter to get some. When I went back to the tables, they were all gone. I looked around the McDonald's and I didn't see them anywhere.
I walked down to where the cars were all parked and the car wasn't there. I then started walking around because I had no idea where I was. It was quite a while before I found a Canadian trooper and I flagged him down. I told him I was lost and he asked me where I was from. You should have seen the look on his face when I told him I was from Cleveland, Ohio...USA..LOL
I told him what happened and he took me back to the McDonald's. As soon as I walked in with the trooper they knew right away who I was. They called my parents back, who had made it all the way to Niagara Falls, and told them I was there.
It turned out they thought I was in another care and they only realized I was gone when they were about ready to go across the border and had to get me back in the car.
While waiting for my father to drive back, I got to make burgers, I got a hat and name pin, and they put a manager's tie on me..lol.
That was the second time my parent's left me behind...LOL. I bring it up all the time.
This is the condensed version of the story:)

[AlCzervik]

27. I remember this like it was yesterday and it's a happy one

On my 5th birthday i was watching Romper Room and Ms. Jean looked through her magic mirror and said "Happy birthday to Kim" and i almost passed out, Ms. Jean knew it was my birthday and goddamn that mirror is really magic! Now on reflection i realize that Ms. Jean was given a random list of names to read on any given day but when your 5 and you don't how the world works yet that pretty frigging special.

[Dan-W]

32. Romper bomper stomper boo

Tell me, tell me, tell me, do
Magic mirror, tell me today
Did all my friends have fun at play?

[kodi]

33. i was kidnapped.at age 7

it was not funny, at all.

[Heidi]

34. I'm glad you lived to tell us about it, kodi.

I was adopted at age 7 and feel awfully fortunate that I survived those first seven years.

[Misunderestimator]

35. One day, my mom got so angry with me...

I was about 11 or 12, and she had totally flipped out and was chasing me around the house in her electric wheelchair. I ran into a bathroom that had two doors, so that I could close one and escape out the other. Well, she rammed into the door I had closed so hard that her feet extensions stuck in the wood of the door (it was one of those hollow doors).

I felt guilty as she sat there crying, so I went behind her and pulled her out of the door. She immediately turned herself around and started after me again.

This time, I ran for the stairs. As I was sitting at the top of the staircase, she got herself out of the chair and onto the "chair-glide" (an electric powered mechanism installed on a track on the side of the staircase that glides a seat up and down the stairs), and began her ascent.

The plug powering the glide was upstairs, so I unplugged it when she was halfway up. She sat there stuck in the middle of the staircase crying, I sat there at the top of the staircase crying, until we both started laughing. I don't recall what happened after that. :shrug:

[katinmn]

37. LOL!

At least it ended in laughter. I love when that happens.:)

[bertha katzenengel]

46. Dang, Mis.

My mom was only impaired by alcohol. She was easier to outrun. Sounds downright terrifying. I'm glad you are here. :hug:

[katinmn]

39. I was about two or three when I first experienced embarrassment

My dad was the youngest son of a very large German family with 12 children.

Once at a family gathering five or six brothers were all standing together talking and I ran up to my dad and hugged his legs. After a few moments, something didn't seem quite right.

I looked up, and there was a stranger looking down and smiling at me. Agghhh! Not my dad!

:blush:

[sharonking21]

40. Similar story

When I was about 5, we lived in Brownsville Texas. Often my parents, their friends, and my aunts and uncles would go across the border to the Matamoros Cafe, which had a large patio and a band. They often took me.

My Uncle Ed, my favorite, would always dance La Raspa with me and with no one else. I was wandering around the patio when the band struck up La Raspa. I ran over to Uncle Ed and pulled him out onto the dance floor and started dancing.

About a third of the way through, I looked up only to realize that it was not Uncle Ed--it was a bemused Mexican man who had a mustache like my uncle and who was someone I did not know. In great embarrassment and shame, I dropped the man's hands and ran off back to my family's table.

They thought it was cute and were laughing at me. Severely embarrassed, I didn't think it was cute at all, so I sank my teeth into Aunt Wilda's bare shoulder (the nearest tormentor to me)and chomped down hard and then started squalling. They had to take me home.

Aunt Wilda still speaks to me. She is 92 now. I go to see her in the nursing home about every 2-3 days. Uncle Ed died back in the 70s.

[katinmn]

41. Great story :-) I've been to the Matamoros Cafe

My aunt and uncle live near Brownsville and used to take us across the border for shopping. Had no idea it was the scene of such an emotional ordeal.

Isn't it something how we remember those feelings from so long ago?

I also remember like yesterday the first time I experienced loneliness. It was intense because it was new.

[sharonking21]

42. Yes, these "first time" things

really do stick. When did you first experience loneliness?

[katinmn]

43. when I was about 9 or 10

Everyone was gone from the house.

Dad was working and my brothers were off somewhere. My mom had run an errand and it was the first time I was ever left alone. It was overwhelming. I just wandered the house. Our normally noisy and busy home was just so quiet. I remember thinking: "So this is loneliness."

I know in hindsight I was lucky because a lot of kids spend a lot of time alone.

[sharonking21]

45. Is the Matamoros cafe still there?

It has been so many years since I've been to the Valley--everyone I knew moved away.

[HEyHEY]

44. I was on the monkey bars

And I decided to jump off them. I sort of swung as I did so, and landed stomach first on a part of the monkey bars, winding myself and scraping my entire stomach. It was one big scab for weeks. The playground supervisor took me up to the medical room screaming and asked if I wanted my sister, I said yes. But she came back and said my sister was writing a test and couldn't come, effectively robbing me of what would have been a nice childhood memory of when my big sister came to the medical room to comfort me.