Top Ten: Childhood Memories

This week, I have decided to do a Top Ten based on a suggestion I recieved, and what a good time to do it, too. My brother graduated from high school this week, and it has gotten me thinking about what it was like being a child. I probably have a top twenty childhood memories, but lets start with these for today. :)

1. Books. I have always loved reading. When I was in Elementary school, I'm pretty sure I read half the library! That may be an exaggeration, but the truth is that I always had a book I was reading, and week to week, it was almost always a new book. In 5th grade alone, I managed to read almost the entire Nancy Drew series (at that time, there were something like 134 books). Each book was an adventure, and one of my favorite memories as a child was taking all these different adventures and meeting so many new people.

2. The Sewers. When I was 6 years old, we lived in an apartment complex that ran right next to a ditch. The sewer pipes from under the apartments ran out into this ditch. My friends and I used to climb down to the pipes and play in the sewers. It sounds gross, but boy was it fun!!! I remember we would take turns, one of us would stand in the parking lot and look down the sewer grate and the rest of us would run through the pipes till we got to that grate and we would wave up at our friend. We had quite the imagination. After a while, we began imagining that the sewers were filled with rats and alligators. And if you saw one, you had to lay flat, because he wouldn't be able to attack you, only walk over you (glad we never ran into a gator to test that theory, because we would have been quite wrong). We became paranoid at a certain point though, just before we stopped playing there. Have you ever noticed that some pipes end with bars, so you cannot go into them? We began to believe that the government was watching us from invisible helicopters, and once we ran into the pipes, they would repel down ropes in black ninja outfits and bolt bars over the ends so we would be trapped in the sewers forever, with the rats and alligators! We always had a friend stand at the end of the pipe to scream at us at the first sight of a ninja. Oh, the things kids think up sometimes!

3. Mom and the Maintenance Man. When we lived in those same apartments, after my parents' divorce, my mom had the BIGGEST crush on our apartment maintenance guy. She used to sit on our back porch and watch him drive by in his golf cart. Occasionally he would come over and they would talk for a while. I remember one time, I was sitting on the porch with her, and he was driving by. She leaned in close to me, and she said "Oh, Crystal! Isn't he handsome?!?" And as the faithful best friend I answered, "Yes mommy!" Well, that maintenance man is now my step dad. This little mother-daughter moment is special to me, because it was one of those "dreams come true" moments.


4. Music. I LOVED to sing. Still do, as a matter of fact. I sang anything on the radio, but mostly songs my mom played often. I usually got most of the words right (even if I was off on the notes) but some of the words I missed still make me laugh today. I'm not sure why I thought Ace of Base would sing "I am puppy dog living without you" or why Counting Crows would sing about a "flamingo dancer." I remember I even had a dance routine that went with "The Sign" (that Ace of Base song I mentioned) and it even ended with a cartwheel. (By the way, the correct lines are "I am happy now living without you" and "flamenco dancer").


5. Babysitting the Cousins. My aunt used to ask me to babysit her kids some weekends. I would come over in the evening, and stay all night. They would usually get home sometime in the early hours of the morning, so I was really only watching them till bedtime, then we would wake up in the morning and the parents would be home. And we had so much fun! It didn't even seem like a babysitting job, because my cousins listened to me (I was only about 5-6 years older than one, and like 8 years older than the other). We watched movies, had popcorn, played video games, played board games... it was like an unsupervised sleepover. I always looked forward to babysitting, because I knew we would have lots of fun!


6. Self Esteem in 5th Grade. I'm not sure when I started getting low self esteem, probably right around the time that I began to like boys. Mostly because it's at that time that a girl starts to notice that other girls are way prettier, and that can get you down. In 5th grade, however, I had a few notable achievements that have taught me I can be better than I think. One such achievement was winning an essay contest. The entire 5th grade had to write an essay on why we would never do drugs (part of the Drug Abuse Resistance Education program, a.k.a. DARE). Two winning essays were chosen to be read aloud to the entire grade, and mine was one of them. To top it off, after they were read, many people congratulated me and commented on how I was a terrific public speaker. Another achievement was during a game of capture the flag. I have never been a "sports" person, but during this game, I was trying to stop the fastest kid in class from getting near my teams flag. He was running at full speed, and gaining ground. I knew I had to stop him soon; once he had that flag, the game would be over in a matter of minutes. So I gave it all I had, and I CAUGHT HIM! I outran the fastest kid in class! I was very proud of myself for that one. :)

7. Easy Bake Oven. What little girl didn't have an Easy Bake Oven? I used to love baking cakes, cookies, brownies... just about anything you can put in a tiny little pan. I loved using the tiny spatula and the tiny spoon, and my favorite part was frosting the little cakes, then cutting tiny slices off and setting them on plates to serve to the family. These fond baking memories have led me to love baking as much as I do today. And you know what? My favorite part is still the decorating.


8. Summer with MomMom. Every few years, I got to travel. I got to fly to Maryland and stay 2 weeks with my mom's mom, whom all us grandkids refer to as "MomMom". We always had so much fun! She had a pool in her back yard, which I spent every waking moment swimming in. In the evenings, we would eat Maryland Steamed Crabs with Old Bay seasoning, and steamed shrimp with melted butter... she even had a pool table in the basement! I went on their computer and beat my grandfather's score at golf, I discovered the game "Chip's Challenge" (and to this day haven't beat it), and occasionally she would take me for a drive to see the sights. We went to Ocean City, we drove across Chesapeake Bay, we saw wild pony poop (not sure if we ever actually saw the wild ponies, lol) and I got to see a lot of historical sites. It's too bad I wasnt interested in much history back then, because I would love to see those sites again. Summers at MomMom's house were always much to look forward to. Except for one tiny little thing: she always had to get out the camera when we were eating. [enter loving laughter over fond memory here]


9. Gifted with Mrs. Yocum. I was tested for and approved for gifted classes at a very young age. However, I never went to the school that actually hosted the gifted class, so once a week I would hop on a bus and travel to a different school to attend that class. It was a small class, but it was my favorite part of the week. I always looked forward to gifted, because we did such fun things. I remember for a large part of one year, we imagined that we were aliens. We each had to create an alien world that we came from, a background story for our heritage, and an alien name. Though I don't remember my "alien" name, I remember I was from Saturn. We were constantly being tested academically and our mental limits stretched to the extreme, being asked questions no one would normally ask and being required to come up with different answers each time. I loved and thoroughly enjoyed the creativity. One of my favorite questions: How do you make a peanut butter and jelly sandwich? Really think about it! :)

10. Tales of the Crystals. My mom bought me a game when I was a kid, called Tales of the Crystals. It was a game based entirely upon imagination. It turned your entire house or yard into another world entirely. I remember playing the game, and I remember the basic layout of our apartment and where I had labeled each different section of this imaginary world, but when I look back at my times playing the game, I actually remember seeing things that could not have been there, and being places that did not exist. I remember there was an evil witch who lived in a castle built on a cliff, and there was a secret entrance into her evil lair (but it was hard to get to). I remember a huge field of gold, wheat almost waist high. I remember a beautiful green forest, with tree sprites and wild animals. There was even a waterfall. I remember a time when the evil witch had poisoned the water at the waterfall, and the deer and other animals were drinking the corrupt water at the lake that formed at the bottom of the falls, and it was turning them to stone. I had to gather the ingredients for the antidote, and heal the poisoned creatures. This game was probably my favorite memory of all, simply because my imagination was so strong that I actual remember seeing the imagined world, as if I was really there. It's one of the highlights of being a child; being able to use your imagination and do things that as you grow up you realize that you could never do. Before hard reality sets in, and the sky isn't even the limit. ♥