What childhood memory do you laugh about to this day. When I was about

[applegrove]

8 a girl moved in next door. She was originally from a rough neighbourhood and a gang of her male friends stopped by our suburban house & backyard to threaten to beat up my oldest brother and his best friend (both on the debating team in the private school across the road). My twin brother and I hid in the branches of a tree. We had a bird's eye view of my brother and his friend debating with these tough kids as to why they should not get into a fight..... and it actually worked. They kept the kids talking long enough that they lost interest in taking my brother and his friend on. Nobody threw a punch. (my brother and his friend both one debating contests provincially in the years to come but I bet no win was as sweet as the one I describe) LOL!

[The Genealogist]

1. I have lots of them, one example

When I was a small child, I loved the Mountain Climber game on the Price is Right. This little figure climbed a mountain, propelled upward by mechanics. The more off the bidder on a product was from the actual price, the higher the little guy climbed. When it got to the top, it would crash and the game was over. I thought it crashed through the back of the TV set and down the heater vent behind the TV.

[applegrove]

2. My cats did that with a critter cat video I showed them. They kept looking behind the tv

for the mice and birds. Like they say... cats are only as smart as small children LOL!

[LibDemAlways]

3. This one is a memory from my daughter's childhood. When she was 3 we

took her on a road trip. As we passed a large reservoir, my husband called out to her, "Look at the big dam!" Her innocent little reply from her carseat in back: "The big damn what, daddy?"

Still smile about that one.

[applegrove]

6. That is cute.

[Behind the Aegis]

4. I used to take nap in trees. I also sleep with my eyes open on occasion.

The "open eyes while sleeping" has scared the shit out of a number of people over the years. Still makes me laugh. It's heel on my eyes the next days, especially now that I wear contacts. Oh, and I would shimmy up walls and suspend myself in hallways and drop on people as they came thru the doorway.

[Arkansas Granny]

14. I sleep with my eyes open, too, as do all 4 of my children and

about half of my grandkids. My daughter was remarking yesterday that my great granddaughter also sleeps with her eyes open. She figures that I must have marked them all. It really freaks some people out.

[Neoma]

5. My first memory...

Getting my head stuck in the zoo bars, over a tiger pit.

[RZM]

7. This is a little strange, but when I was about 5 or 6

I thought that 'nun' and 'prostitute' were synonyms. I wasn't entirely sure what they did, but I knew it had something to do with a strange black and white uniform.

[marzipanni]

9. LOL-It's funny how things get muddled in kids' minds

Speaking of nuns, my older cousin took her 3-year-old son to a shoe store. He was trying on shoes when a nun came into the store. He asked, in a loud voice, "What is it, Mommy?"

[mreilly]

8. When I was 12

I was climbing onto the roof of a one-story detached garage with some friends, Ron and Mark. Ron had a quart container of milk he was drinking, and put it on the roof in preparation to then boost himself up on a ladder lying next to the garage.

Mark, who always was a clumsy, accident-prone goofball, started climbing up to the roof - right below the container of milk, which he hadn't seen up there. So it tipped over just perfectly, with the opening of the container directly over him. And the entire container of milk then emptied itself onto Mark's head. I can still see it running down through his hair and him dumbfoundedly closing his eyes as he stood there in shock. Naturally Ron and I collapsed in laughter - fortunately nobody was on the roof yet or we'd have fallen off.

This was in 1983 and when I think about it I still laugh just as hard.

[woodsprite]

10. My dad wasn't very fond of my Mom's aunt.

She had never married, spoiled me rotten, and frequented our place because my grandmother (her sister) lived with us. She lived around the corner from us and would always come for Sunday dinner. I loved her!

One day she stopped by around lunch time for something. I ran to the door to meet her. I gave her a great big hug and told her "I knew it was you, Aunt Alma". She said "How did you know that, sweetie?" I said "My dad said, 'Awwww shit. Here she comes again.' So I knew it was you!"

Edited to add: When my aunt was very sick and in the hospital, the person she wanted with her most was my Dad. She was afraid that something would go wrong and Mom wouldn't know to call the doctor. My Dad had been an on the ambulance and rescue squad. She trusted him to know what was normal and what wasn't.

[kaitcat]

11. I think I was about 5.

We lived in the middle of the San Joaquin Valley in California and it was summertime, hot. We had stopped at a gas station and me and my brother were begging for ice cream. My parents were like they don't sell ice cream here. I said "Oh yes they do, there's the sign." Oh, no, she can read.

The other story I like that my parents tell is my mom's dad was an appliance repairman, washers and stuff, and one time he was working on something, straining and groaning and frustrated, but trying not to verbalize it. I'm about 3 here. I'm watching him and they all say I said "dod dam sumbitch" for him and everybody just died.

[UnrepentantLiberal]

12. I hope you escaped from that horrible valley.

[kaitcat]

13. Oh yeah. When I was 10 we moved someplace worse -- Oklahoma.

Since early adulthood I've been in Oregon, though, and washed all of those memories away. Lol.

[UnrepentantLiberal]

16. No! But how could you tell the difference?

My family moved from Orange County to Bakersfield when I started high school. I still haven't forgiven them for that.

You're in the right place now. Oregon is beautiful.

[kaitcat]

17. It's so green here. I love the mountains and trees. I even love the rain.

The difference? Tornadoes. Lots and lots of tornadoes. And no fruit trees and canals.

I spent two weeks in Bakersfield a couple of years ago when me and Mom took a road trip in her fifth wheel, did a loop south, then east to Texas, up through the plains to South Dakota, then back to Oregon. We had a great time. I actually liked Bakersfield because of all of the orange trees we had at the RV park, but then I don't have the Orange County reference. It had to have been hard to go to kind of a rural, redneck place, especially when starting high school. Yeah, I was a fish out of water, too, in Oklahoma, but backwards, went from rural to urban in 5th grade with no idea what I was in for.

[Arkansas Granny]

15. My sister and I were talking yesterday about when I used to make mud pies for her.

We were pretty young, maybe 4 & 6 at the time and I would put dry grass on top for coconut or gravel for nuts. They must have been tasty because she would eat them, which drove our mom to distraction.