Childhood Memories, Part One

I love hearing stories from my parents and relatives about my childhood. Some of the stories I've heard so often I'm almost convinced I remember them myself.

My Daddy always told me when I was first born I was so tiny that he just balanced me on the inside of his forearm, lengthwise, and carried me around like that with my head resting in the palm of his hand.

My Mom said the day I was born and the nurse brought me to her, she thought they'd brought her the wrong baby. She said I had a chubby round face and the thickest coal black hair and I looked just like an eskimo baby. The black hair soon turned to tow-head blonde and that's what I had all throughout my childhood, but I've always retained the chubby round face.

My Mom said I started to walk and talk at an earlier than usual age and talk-talk-talk is all I ever did. I talked so much that when my baby sister came along, my Mom was scared she'd never learn to talk herself because I did all her talking for her.

Apparently, I never knew a stranger and I'd talk anyone's leg off if they'd put up with me. Mom said she was mortified the first time I caught a glimpse of a black man in person. We were at the airport and a porter was helping people with their luggage and Mom said I walked right up to him and tugged on his coat and said, "Mister, do you live on Sesame Street?" That was the only place I'd ever seen a black person before. Mom said the porter chuckled and reached down to shake my hand and said, "No, little lady, I don't live on Sesame Street." She was mortally embarrassed as she dragged me off.

Supposedly I was a fearless toddler as well. One time when I was about two, we went to Oklahoma to visit my grandparents and I was playing in the backyard. Mom said I came running into the house jabbering something about a "cute squirrel" and tugging on Grandma's skirt to come see it. They both followed me outside to the flowerbed where I'd been digging and I showed them the fuzzy squirrel, which wasn't a squirrel at all but a big, hairy tarantula! Mom and Grandma shrieked and screamed and dragged me back into the house. Lord knows I've grown out of that fearless stage by leaps and bounds. Anyone that knows me now, knows I'm scared to death of my own shadow and if I ever saw a tarantula within 30 feet of me, I'd faint dead away!

Oh to be a kid again with all the childhood innocence and wide-eyed curiosity about life!