Random Childhood Memories

I have really random memories. I am amazed at the truly quirky events, conversations, and meetings that are burned into my memory. Some, with great significance, others with no relevance to why I would remember such a event.

One night, several years ago while my mom was here visiting, we sat up till the wee hours remembering together. She was so surprised at the randomness of things I remembered. Like little vignettes of our life strewn together, she held some memories, I held others.

I have a handful of memories from before the age of 5 or 6, but the majority of my memories are after that. I have often joked, that the Lord gives the first few years to figure out how to parent, and hence the first few years of life our kids thankfully will not remember!!! Being a mom now, I wonder what crazy things my kids will remember.

Here are a few of my random memories:

• Going to Cuba(yes, the communist country) when my Dad was stationed there. I was about 4years old. I remember a lot about that trip. I ate mushrooms for the first time. They were on the pizza we ordered, and my Dad told me that if I was hungry enough I would eat them, and I was/did. My Dad and I would sneak into the base pool after hours, he taught me how to swim there, under the cover of darkness.
• Still in Cuba, I remember seeing the HUGEST frogs ever!! Seriously, the size of dinner plates just roaming on the road.
• I remember going to visit my Aunt Sippy at some country club were she was a lifeguard. I think there was a pool and a lake with a pier.
• I remember we use to get dairy product delivered to our house. My mom would order this super yummy stuff called "keifer". My favorite was raspberry. It was like a smoothie. So yummy.
• I remember going camping and playing poker with wooden matches as chips.
• I remember being in the 2nd grade and watching a video at school that showed the lungs of someone who was a smoker. They showed them next to a pair of healthy lungs. I remember vowing, right there and then to never smoke. Here was my reasoning...if I smoked even one cigarette, my lungs would turn black as night, then I would die in a tragic car accident, and my parents would be sad until the doctor showed them a picture of my lungs, and then they would be mad instead of sad, since I was a smoker.
• I remember watching Land of the Lost...thinking it was the coolest thing around. And also Sigmund the Sea Monster...I loved that show.
• My very first cassette was Olivia Newton John's "Lets get Physical" I would carry my tape player to school(the classic style, shaped like a shoe box, with the flip top to open it. It weighed a ton!!!) and we would all go out in the field and turn it up as loud as possible and sing at the top of our lungs.

I wonder what some of your random memories are?