-Megan G.’s favorite childhood memory.
Your contest entries made me too happy to leave them in comments. A few that stood out:
My dad used to make dandelion butter with me, which involved stirring dandelions in a tin cup until it turned to butter. It wasn’t until I was much older that I realized a distraction and slight of hand were part of the magic. -Liz
My favourite childhood memory is of my father play-massaging my back after bath. He would spray a little fresh kiddie cologne and do light clapping and topping on my back, arms and legs. -Marta
I used to hide in my grandmothers drained pond from my brother and cousins so I could read. -Beks
My favorite memory is hand drawing and coloring paper doll clothes for my little sister. We would spend hours pouring through the JCPenney’s catalog so that she could choose outfits for me to recreate. -Tamra
Having a breakfast of brownies and decaf coffee from a Thermos on the beach with my parents and little sister. -Holly
My favourite memory was thinking Michael Jackson from his thriller video lived in my furnace room. I was always scared to turn off the lights at the bottom of the basement stairs. -Alison Kelly
I remember playing in a room with a brass bed and red curtains, and watching through the window as a train went by. -Amy Jo
The pure magic my dad would create for my sisters and me on the evenings my mom worked. Like blowing out an egg and filling it with Rice Krispies (in advance so we didn’t see) and then cracking it and BLOWING our little minds. -Katherine
My parents were redoing the walls so after the old paper had been stripped, they let us color all over the walls. We kept a bucket of crayons at the top of the stairs and we would draw big lines as we walked downstairs. -Miss K
My mom waking me and my sister in the middle of the night when we had gone to visit PEI and taking us outside, bundled in our coats and Dad’s mittens over our PJs to watch thousands of Canada geese fly across the full moon. -Ellen
My favorite childhood memory is the fishtank next to my crib. My parent used it as a psuedo-nightlight, the gurgling and warmth and buzzing pump and darting fish would lull me to sleep every night. -Daffodil Campbell
My grandmother had no rules: she threw away toothpaste caps and slept in her clothes. My mom was the type that kept the plastic on things. I loved being so free [at my grandmother’s house] because it always felt like I was getting away with something huge. -Martha
When my three sisters and I made a boat out of a kiddie pool and rowed it down the ditch with a broom for a paddle when the creek by our house flooded. -Tiff
I had this older brother type character in my life, a boy four years older than me who was my parents’ best friends’ son. We both went to this private school about 20 miles away and had a long bus ride together every day. When his 8th grade class read The Hobbit, he’d read it to me on the bus every morning and evening. -Robin
My grandmother transformed the empty lot beside our house into some wild forest/garden. Under one of the trees was what I thought to be a carpet of white flowers. Turns out they were all butterflies. -Michelle
My father used to hook up the hose to the top of the house, so that the water would fall into the pool like a waterfall. We would take turns jumping “through” it. -Natasha
My favorite childhood memory: completing a 2,000 piece puzzle with my Dad. We weren’t very close when I was growing up, he much preferred doing “boy” activities with my brother, but one day he brought this huge thing home and announced we would be working on it together. We cleared off the dining room table and the family ate in the kitchen for over two weeks while we worked on it after dinner every night. I remember exactly what it looked like still to this day. -Faetra
I remember being about 3 or 4 and taking a trip to Maine with my dad. One night he woke me up and brought me down to the lake where we laid on our backs in a row boat and watched shooting stars together. -Megan
My mom running from the car, where I was waiting, up through the dandelions in our yard to grab something else from the house. It’s the only memory I have of my mother walking; rheumatoid arthritis permanently bound her to a wheelchair when I was 4. -Guinevere
On warm summer evenings, my parents would sometimes fill the plastic baby pool in the yard with bubbles and my brothers and sister and I would take our baths outside. -Katie
Sitting on my grandfather’s lap, him asking how old i am, and me triumphantly holding up a single finger. -Jill
In the summertime, I would pitch a tent in the backyard and it would be my “room” for about a week. Since I was a scaredy-cat, I would beg my grandpa to sleep in it with me. My grandpa was a big guy, and this was a tiny kids tent. He slept in it with me every night and listened to my kid-talk and still got up in the morning at 5 to go to work. -Rachel
Hanging out in the garage with my dad, who is something like the ultimate handyman. We’d have to take “cat breaks” so I could sit on his lap in the rocking chair by the wood stove and pet kittens. -Lacey
Playing house inside a circle of mammoth sunflowers that my Mother would plant for us every summer. She’d plant them in a horseshoe shape and then tie the tops together. -KellyBrz
We moved cross-country when I was five, and I drove with my dad while my mom flew out w my baby brother… We ate a two-pound bag of Skittles on the trip. I made him eat all the yellow and green ones. -Kate F
During summer vacation, my best neighborhood friend, Marcie, and I would ride our bikes to the nearby feed store which was the best hangout in our rural Iowa neighborhood because they had a pop machine. we’d dig out some coins and buy two Like sodas, then play Family Feud. That is, I would be the host and try to remember the previous day’s categories and answers and she would play every family member on both teams. -Kate
When we were 9 and 8, my sister and I would steal into the den and dig fistfuls of coins out of the giant milk jug where my parents stashed spare change. This technique supplemented our meager allowances for weeks until my parents started to ask questions about all the new little stuffed monkeys and monkey wardrobes we were acquiring. -Margaret
Since My Grandfather passed today I will leave a memory of him. He used to let us chop wood with him as young as 8 or 9 we had our own little ax and everything. -Charlotte Lunsford
My grandparents came to visit us after a stop in Las Vegas. When they arrived my G-pa called me over (I was about 6) and said he had something for me. He said that while he was in Vegas “he took out a Special Quarter just for little Jilly” and played it in a special Slot Machine and whatever came out would be for me… and from behind his back he whipped around a HUGE paper bag full of quarters. And just as he handed the bag to me, the bottom fell out and they went crashing to the ground just like a slot machine spitting them out! After counting them, I had $67.00 even. -Jill
Catching fireflies with my big brother then putting them in jar and filling bottle caps with granola and water for them. -Mosiphine
I remember racing into the dance studio upon seeing it for the first time at age three and asking the instuctor if we were going to do thiiiiiiiiis? (spinning around and around and around on the shiny tile floor). “Of course” she said. -Anngeedee
Grandpa’s pipe smoke “to keep the mosquitos away.” -ErinTine
When I was little I LOVED riding the school bus to my grandparents house. My grandma was the kind that had a 5 gallon can of flour under the kitchen table; she was always baking something. One particular day it was rainy and stormy and when I got off the bus at the end of the driveway I could smell my Grandma’s homemade dinner rolls. I ran all the way up the driveway. My Grandma met me at the door with a towel, helped me dry off and then I parked myself next to the wood stove with an afghan and a nice hot buttery dinner roll to watch Scooby Doo. -Heidi C.
Pretending not to wake up when my mom masqueraded as the tooth fairy. -Mia
Riding my bike to the little corner grocery store to buy bagfuls of candy. I could shove five atomic fireballs in my mouth at once though. -Amanda
If you didn’t add your memories because you weren’t interested in the contest, go ahead and leave yours below. Yeah. Do it.
Mighty Girl 
I remember Saturday trips to the corner store with my Dad, brother and sister. He would always get s bag of Hawkins Cheezies and a Diet Pepsi, and we were allowed to get one treat each. One day, my sister and I happened to find a quarter under the mat at the register, and after that we checked each trip and found money each time. I know my Dad hid it while we weren’t looking. I hope he doesn’t know that I know.
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Mine is watching my Grandpa’s fireworks shows every Victoria Day. My grandparents lived out in the country and he would wait until it was nice and dark out (and past our bedtime) and we would bundle up and sit in the backyard on lawn chairs and watch a private fireworks display just for us.
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When I was about 6, my Dad took me on a “date”. It wwas after my parents’ divorce, and after he started dating my (soon to be) step-mom. We got dressed up in our very best, and he took me to the fanciest restaurant in town. The maitre’d gave me a long-stemmed red rose, pulled out my chair, the works. My Dad gave me a bottle of “First Lady” perfume by Dadi (which he of course told me was French for Daddy). From then on, he always called me his First Lady. What a beautiful way to make a kid feel special during a tough time. God I miss him…thank you for making me remember this!
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My Dad used to get run ragged by both my little sister and I whenever he dared to initiate this bit of magic: he would tell us to go get our fairy wings (those gossamer things to be strapped around the arms; every girl would recognize) then spend literally hours “flying” us around the house in his arms. Every time those evenings he would sneak into our rooms as we slept to wedge our wings in the blinds of our windows so that when we woke up, we would see them hanging there as though they had just been in use. He would say “you faeries must have gone flying when you slept last night! Good thing you practiced yesterday!” What a wonderful memory, cheers to amazing fathers!
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When I was small my grandparents had a trailer on lake ontario. My grandma would go swimming with us several times a day, as much as we wanted really, and while we were all out in the water she would make up rhymes and sing non-sensical, silly songs that she made up. When we went inside she’d make us change into dry clothes and then let us put her “mouse” in our hair (mousse). When I was with her I was never concerned with anything but having fun.
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The close of a day at the beach on a gloriously sunny holiday in Donegal (in the north east of Ireland) when I was about 8. As you probably know the weather’s not that great here in Ireland, but the sun was splitting the stones every day that week, and one long day at the beach, we stayed so late that it finished with us all watching the tide getting closer, closer and closer to our picnic blanket. Instead of being super-sensible and leaving, my parents went with it and let the water get so close that my brother and I built a little wall out of the sand around the blanket to keep the water away, while they lay on the blanket watching our efforts. We were totally surrounded by water in the end and had to paddle to get back to the car, arms loaded with all our stuff. It was so exciting to me and my brother.
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Love these all.
When I was 5 or 6, my father brought home a couple of refrigerator boxes, taped them all together and cut out “windows” and “doors”, gave me a bucket of crayons and some stickers and told me to go to town. I just remember the feeling of awe that ten whole feet of cardboard was mine to decorate as I pleased. The “playhouse” stayed in our living room all summer long.
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When I was little I would dip my ripple chips in the dill pickle dip and lick it off…
Than make my Dad eat the soggy, unsalty leftovers. he never complained.
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I do not have a very strong memory, but I am amazed at how effective reading other people’s memories is at bringing up the best memories from my childhood. Thank you, Maggie. Thank you.
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When I was small, probably around 4 years old, and we were at church and bored with the talks, my 6 year old sister would pull out a hymnal, open it to the table of contents, and “read” off to me the different stories in there (they were all about a cow named Mookie): “do you want to hear ‘Mookie Goes to the Farm,’ or ‘Mookie Goes Swimming,’ or ‘Mookie Eats a Lot of Ice Cream’? The stories were different every Sunday, and I would pick the one that sounded most interesting. She’d flip to some song halfway through the book, and quietly “read” me the story I’d asked for.
I don’t remember if I realized back then that she was just making them up, or if I didn’t find out till later, but it sure was more fun than paying attention to church.
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My favorite childhood memory is when my dad used to play guitar and sing to me. It was just after my parents’ divorce, and this was our time together – our weekends. I loved all those songs and learned all the words, and I still love them… After a while, he stopped playing guitar, and I begged him to play to me again, but he won’t now… and now that I am grown, I realize all the songs were love songs to my mom. So now the memory is a little bittersweet, and I wonder if he had ever sung “Every time I tried to tell you, the words just came out wrong… so I have to say I love you in a song” to my mom, maybe she would have understood, and stayed.
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my mom picking my brother and me up ‘early’ after school, stopping by a food cart/stand to get freshly made curly fries, having those along with boiled eggs and fresh cuts veggies for a country picnic.
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Every summer during tourist season, some old double-decker buses ran in a loop around our small town. When my brother and I were 8 and 10 or so, we thought it was the height of adventure to be allowed to ride BY OURSELVES from the museum where our mother worked, over the river, to the ice cream parlour (coincidentally, across the street from our father’s office — didn’t occur to us at the time that parental help, should we need it, wasn’t far away). We would get ice cream cones and climb back on the next bus. The key was to sit up top, up front, with ice cream as the bus lumbered back across the river. Heaven.
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One of my favorite memories is playing Barbies with my sisters (and brother) in the creek near our house. It was moss covered, and in the spring, daffodil covered. I remember thinking that if fairies were real they would be living at this creek. We used to have our Barbies go swimming in the creek and later they stayed in a tent we created out of an old bath towel. We also used to walk in the creek and pick blackberries and raspberries, which my mom made into cobblers. The silt swirling around our ankles were “dust angels”. Because of the mica in the silt the dust angels glittered. Now, everytime I see a good creek I want to get my feet wet and find wild raspberries. The storebought kind don’t compare.
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Eating a spoonful of chocolate syrup topped with whipped cream with my mom (her favorite sneaky afternoon dessert)
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My family would go to the beach on the weekends, and my dad would fill a huge 5 gallon bucket with water. It would sit in the back of the truck and warm in the sun all day. When the day was done, we would scamper back to the truck where he would rinse me and my brother in warm fresh water while we stood in the bucket. Then it was dipped cones at Foster’s Freeze.
The best.
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Well. Now I’m crying.
Here’s to memory, and to life well lived because of those who make them with us.
I remember my grandmother giving me a mug half-full of brown sugar for a snack.
And my grandfather carrying me out of bed in the morning and sitting me down in front of the fire before school.
And my dad telling me “Always do more than you’re asked.”
And my mom telling me “Why buy the cow when you’re getting free milk?”
And my brother, who’s 7 years older, just letting me be around him although I talked non-stop and had buck teeth and I’m sure was supremely annoying.
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These are fabulous – thank you. All of your special moments have launched a dozen memories of my own.
One of the first that came to mind is from when I was 5 or 6. My parents got my brother and I out of bed – it probably wasn’t very late, but it felt like the middle of the night – so we could watch the Ewok movie together. We all love Star Wars!
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My cousin, sister and I used to spend a week in summer at our grandparents’ house. During one sunny summer rain, our grandmother put us in our bathing suits and sent us out to the patio to take ‘rain showers’, complete with shampoo and soap. My cousin just had a baby this week, and I can’t wait to meet him. I think there needs to be a rain shower in his future.
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