Favorite memory?
Okay, this idea came up from another post I just did. Fishing is one of my favorite memories, more because it was peaceful time my grandpa and I had together outside in nature, not really because we caught fish. I loved my grandpa!
But I have other ones too. Just about every weekend my mom, stepdad and I would go out to the river and float on inner tubes for the day on the river. On the way there was a cave and we always stopped at that cave (more of a muddy indention in the cliff wall that was half submerged with water). You could take a canoe or a tube into the cave, unless the river was running high, then you had to swim. One year it was submerged totally! But anyway, it had a mudslide inside it. There was a pile of mud and people had made indentions in the mud for feet, then there was a "slide" made from countless peoples butts sliding down it. My butt was on that slide more then a few tiems! You would slide down it and into the deep water of the river. So much fun!
There was a park along the trip too, sometimes we would stop off and hike a path to the top of the cliffs and look at the view of the woods and river from high above.
There was the rope swing hanging from a tree, you could climb up on the tree, grabe the rope really tight and swing out and splash into the water. So fun!
Then there was the time when I was in Alaska, I had my dog with me, we were going back to Fairbanks from Valdez, and he needed a potty break so I stopped not really paying attention (there was hardly any traffic on that highway). I got the dog out with the leash and turned around and my breath was taken away at the view. Huge soaring mountain peaks with puffy white clouds around them and for the first time I felt like a flea, I realized how tiny I was. My dog and I stayed there for awhile, I took some pictures, and walked around for a bit.
so so so many wonderful things I have done, I could write a book!
What about you?
it's funny that you post this because last night, my best friend and i stayed up til 2 in the morning talking about all our high school years and looking through my 9th grade yearbook and talking about how eveyone had turned out.
i really can't choose just one memory, but high school (no matter how much i deny it) was one of the greatest times of my life. i loved walking through the halls and saying hi to everyone and becoming friends with the teachers rather than just being their student. and getting nervous about talking to boys. and going to football games. and school dances (even though they were kinda lame sometimes). i loved feeling like such a badass everytime i skipped a class. ugh it went by wayyyyyy too fast.
k, im done reminiscing...no i'm not
Sitting in the local library, either in town or at school. The one place where people had to be quiet, and where I was surrounded by books I hadn't read yet. Our school had the only school-library (the rest depended on the BookMobile) and the library had carpet on the floor. And we were allowed to sit on it!
I hear libraries aren't quiet places anymore. I'm glad I'm not there to see it.
It was a hard transition for me when people started talking on their cell phones in the library.
It was a hard transition for me when people started talking on their cell phones in the library.
WHAT. I am so glad I have not seen this, even if it is at the cost of not having been to many libraries recently.
Where I live, public libraries are treated like bookstores now. People talk at regular levels to each other and on their phones. There's even a coffee stand in the library by where I work.
Here the adult section of the library is quiet, but the children's section isn't quite that way, although people are encouraged to keep their voices down. I kind of like that, because my daugter doesn't know what quiet means. Lol. I try to keep her quiet, but she has so many questions. I usually go there first, and then go upstairs and let her look at her books quietly while I browse. This usually works. As far as cell phones, there are no cell phone signs all over the place, and I've seen them escort people outside to finish their phone calls. They did put in 2 Wiis downstairs in the children's section. That kind of upset me. How many books could they have purchased with that money? I guess they are just doing whatever they can to get people to come in.
Eating snow peas off the vine in my grandmothers garden as a young boy.
Walking outside early in the morning to pick the sweetest plums and a bowl full of currants to add to my oatmeal on my friend farmhouse in sweden, I hope to relocate there permanently in the foreseeable future.
Running through the sprinkler my parents set up for me and my friends in the yard in the middle of a hot humid summer.
Taking my shoes off at the beginning of summer and being barefoot until school started again.
My best friend and I sitting in my Radio Flyer and rolling ourselves down what seemed like giant piles of chicken manure (dried, FYI). ;D
Getting a job on our farm with my best friend and going to the river everyday on our lunch break to swim.
Spending a month in Holland with my grandparents the summer I was 12 and riding my bike around all day and learning how to order french fries in Dutch.
Climbing barefoot and dirty onto the bookmobile that stopped at our house every week. The cool air-conditioned interior a stark difference from the heat and humidity outside, where I would grab as many books at one time as possible and return the large pile of books from the week before. Grabbing my favorite books for the 5th or 6th time or discovering a new book that the librarians had set aside for me.
Going to the beach every weekend with my best friends in the summer and going out to eat and to a movie afterwords.
Walking down the street on a sunny day from my apartment to the mostly vegetarian breakfast place down the road and just enjoying eating at a table outside all by myself.
Hanging out in the city garden of a small city in Germany with my BF, just enjoying the sunshine, relaxing on a blanket, grilling out and drinking beer for hours.
(It must be Spring, because almost all of my favorite memories that I can think of right now involve summer! ::) )
My family and I were on a hike in the desert. I was maybe 6 years old and my brother was 4. We ran across a large California King Snake and my brother and I were scared (even though they are non-venomous). My dad helped us walk a huge circle around it and bought us these badges that said "you are brave!" I was sooooo proud. For some reason I always think of that when people ask about good memories.
Of course I have lots more, but that one from my childhood sticks out.
College silliness: Driving 2 hours each way to see a movie that wasn't playing anywhere else and to grab a pizza. Turning up on a friend's doorstep on the way back just to say "hi". An 8 hour roadtrip for a 90 min film! Why not!
Also driving through said college town on a Saturday night in summer with the windows down and the music blaring as 3 crazy girls sang/yelled along. I could never have gotten away with that in my hometown. Someone would have called my parents before we had made the second circuit.
That reminds me of some high school silliness. Some friends and I went into San Fransisco for a beach clean up. I'd never driven in that city before, and I got directions on how to get there but now how to get home, and we were amoung the last to leave. San Fransisco is mostly one-way streets, and this was before everyone had cellphones. We got totally lost. Anyways, it was really hot, my AC wasn't working at the time, and there were 5 of us in my compact car. I have to idea why, but we were blaring the Muppets Rainbow Connection and driving around lost singing at the top of our lungs with the windows wide open. We got a lot of strange looks that day. Lol. We eventually made it home. I miss the ocean so much now, but I don't even remember it that day.
Eating snow peas off the vine in my grandmothers garden as a young boy.
Walking outside early in the morning to pick the sweetest plums and a bowl full of currants to add to my oatmeal on my friend farmhouse in sweden, I hope to relocate there permanently in the foreseeable future.
Oh this brought up more.
My grandpa (on mom's side, not the one who taught me to fish) had a huge tomato garden. Didn't know it at the time, but I realize now that he must have purposly not picked tomatos from the garden for days before I arrived so that the garden was full of ripe tomatos. He used to ask me to go pick some tomatos knowing that I would be there for like HOURS and then return with my face full of tomato seeds and maybe one or two tomatos in my hands. Oh they were so sweeeeet and juicy and goooood.
I had some great grandpa's. I miss them both a whole lot. :'(
Then there were the wild blackberries that grew everywhere where I grew up. I would get covered with ticks but it was worth it, those were so good, I always thought that they tasted like sunshine. To this day I think Mother Nature is the worlds best chef!
Then in the fall I would eat persimmons off the ground and gorge on them, they taste amazingly like pumpkin pie. I used to eat them whole, seeds and all, just swallow. Oh how I want to go back to illinois and pick some persimmons this fall!
The first day of no school in the summer. Before I realised that Mom had a list of chores as long as her very long arms (both together) for us to do instead.
First day going barefoot in summer.
Going into a library and getting that smell of books and ink from the stamp pad and "teacher's chewing gum" (the white form of BluTack).
One of my favorite memories is summer. Everyday for the majority of my childhood summers my friends and I would walk to the beach. Swim in the ocean or lay on the beach until the pool opened at 11:00 and then swim in the pool for the rest of the day. I don't even remember eating although I am sure we must have. :o Then we would make the trek home at 5:00 when the pool closed. Exhausted.
We had no beach, THHF, and living on the most dangerous river in the world didn't help (the Des Moines, the bottom shifts). But I remember going to the city pool or the reservoir and coming home starvinghungry. Nothing ever made me as hungry as being in the water...and I can't even swim beyond the crawl. Hungry, and totally relaxed.