A Good Memory You Have With Your Folks.

What is a good memory you have with your folks?

Now this may seem silly, but one of my clearest favorite memories was when I was traveling with my daddy and we were in Denmark and I remember this bowling alley. We went there every night for what seemed weeks but we never played bowling. Instead he taught me how to play pinball machines and taught me how to play pool on the pool table. Now since that day, i must have been maybe 7 I'll say.. I've loved pool. And I recently bought myself a pool table. Funny thing is, when I ring my folks now and talk to them (overseas) my daddy also remembers those bowling alley visits because he recently made a comment of like "what have I done! I should never have taken you to that place" and it's funny because I remember it so vividly too. Actually I think it was when I mentioned how I wanted to buy a pinball machine or arcade machine for my garage.

Anyway, they must have been good nights if we can both remember them.

 

None...but I have a good memory of smoking hash with my grandparents....my grandma was a riot when she was high....grandpa preferred whiskey.

 

i don't really have fond memories of them. i don't have very many bad ones either. but then the kinds of things i remember usually aren't that much about being with people at all.
i was able to be around the railroad a lot because my dad worked for it. but that was about the railroad more then about him.
my mom watched tv a lot. that was her escape. my parents had a strong loyalty to each other, but usually didn't enjoy each other very much.
other then my parents, both dead now, i've had very little direct contact with anyone physically related to me.

most of this is due to my not making any particularly great effort to do so. cost and distance have also been factors.
i've just hardly ever found humans more interesting then places or technologies.

so the whole family thing is kind of alien to me. i don't really miss things i've never known. i might be curious about them at times. that passes too.
i worry sometimes that i might be pushing people away, that i might be making them unhappy by doing so,
but for myself, i'm more happy most of the time to be by myself.

i have fond memories of some of the places i lived when i was little, and at other times growing up, and since then.
more then i do of individual people generally.

 

Well this is a bit depressive isn't it. =[

 

skipped this yesterday because there's just too many to pick one

I have no bad memories of them


ill go with most emotionally strong memory instead...with my mother it would be the time i drove her to her sisters funeral..just her and I in the car....for my father it would be when i asked him if he thought mom was just "normal sick or dying sick" and he could not answer..he looked more broken and helpless than i had ever seen ...its a memory ill never forget (she came out of that situation well btw)

 

I say with all honesty I do not have any bad memories from childhood or even adulthood with my family. I feel fortunate to have had all the time with my dad I did have and am still blessed to have my mom and sister in my life.

I think one of the very best times I can remember was when we had been asking for a dog for ages and we lived in an apartment at the time so the answer was always we could not have one. My sister helped the farmer down the road from my grandparents in the country do haying. She was 8 at the time and the farmer gave her a small dog for helping. So here she came up the road with this little terrier and a whole lot of hope in her eyes. We use to camp at my grandparent in a tent trailer so the dog moved into the trailer that night. It had to be the most loving dog we ever owned. Years later I found out that my dad went to the landlord (they were friends) and said if he could not have the dog, he was going to give notice and move. Needless to say, we did not move and the dog lived for 17 years.

 

that's lovely! This is better.

 

I have a memory of my dad pushing me in my stroller and we came upon a what seemed like a huge orange snake (it probably wasn't as big or as vividly colored as I remember) and he pushed it away from us with a stick. And I remember riding on his back like he was a horsy. And he would let me drag him around our house and backyard playing like we were a pioneer family (that was my thing as a kid). And walking up a mountain with him and being king and princess of the mountain. There are a lot of bad memories too, but all my memories with my dad are like a verb, he was always in motion.

Whereas for some reason my memories with my mom aren't as specific but are more emotional and all encompassing. I have vague memories like her rubbing my stomach or my leg when I would get aches, or running to her after school and feeling so happy. I don't exactly remember what we did together but I remember always sensing her presence and feeling loved and safe when she was nearby. As a kid I never felt happy and complete unless I was with my mom.

 

did i have folks? i think i did. or parents anyway. once upon a time, a long long time ago.
we were a 'nuclear' family, but not a conventional one.
not according to the myths and legends they sound like to me, that other people tell about theirs.

i neither loved nor hated my parents. i certainly never entirely trusted them however either.
are there people who actually do? really?

my parents were co-dependent. the didn't hate each other, though they frequently slept in seperate rooms.
my mother at least, never had anyone else on the side, and my dad, may have once or twice, but didn't make a habit of it.
they remained together till death did them part, to prove to both of their families that they could.

we didn't always eat together. we did for whatever holidays my dad didn't have to work.
he got paid double time and a half for those he did, and we just celibrated them on his nearest day off instead.

christmas, new year, easter, veterans, presidents, mothers, fathers, yom kippur, hannacha, whatever.
they never had a car until the year i graduated high school.
everyone else's parents did. in the little town of less then a thousand people i lived the greatest number of my growing up years.

we'd go to the city on the train, for free, on his pass. it was usually just me and him.
mom had this thing about she didn't want to be anywhere she couldn't get to a clean bathroom in a hurry.

we weren't the adams family, but we sure weren't leave it to beaver either.

my father's relatives i never met any of them.
my mom's mother was the only grandparent i had who was still alive, and she died when i was eleven, which was the only time i ever got to meet her, when she was in the hospital dying.

i did meet several of my mothers sisters and their kids. mostly just once or twice.
so really, that's all i know of family. all of it.

when my dad finally did get a car, a little red many years old datsun pickup, we'd go every back road we could find every time he had a day off.
for reasons already mentioned, mom was almost never with us.

so those are the memories i have of family. all of them. good, bad or otherwise.

 

I think all my memories with mine were good. I'm sorry, I just can't pick one off the top off my head.

 

Well you're going to have to.

 

My dad was a hoot. I miss him sooo much. I'd skip school and he'd take me to get an ice cream sundae. When I got a bit older, he'd take me for a ride in his dunebuggy and we'd drink Boone's Farm Wine. Me 'Da would throw the empty bottles in the preacher's yard and dare him to come out and fight. He never did come out and fight... coward!

When I first started dating, my Dad was a terror. He'd be dressed in perfectly acceptable clothes and once he knew a young man was arriving, he'd go change into this awful old torn T-shirt and filthy old overalls. He'd stand on the front porch and yell.. 'what the hell do you want?" at any teenage boy that showed up.

He was my best friend and always my cheerleader... and a wonderful guy.

 

This one leapt to mind -

Daddy didn't care for the beach...maybe because he was in the Navy in WWII; but he took us to the beach for vacation every year. He'd go to Daytona Beach, FL where they had Greyhound Racing. That's all he would do for the whole trip.

Mom would walk on the beach in the morning and in the evening when the sun wasn't too hot.

One year, on the Fourth Of July, when I was a young mother, we set up 2 umbrella's, spread blankets, ate hot dogs, etc. with both my Mom and Dad sitting on their butts in the sand, during mid-day in the middle of Summer.

It was awesome!

I'm tearing up remembering how astounding that picnic was, lol

 

Now I have a good idea where your love of trains came from.

 

There was an old canal ! not been in use for perhaps 70 years and had all gone back to nature , My mum and dad used to walk us along it on a Sunday afternoon seemed like miles and miles
I took my Granddaughter there last week and it was just how I remember it
Hope she Thinks about it when she grows up and takes her kids / grandkids for a walk

 

Watching my parents dance together in the kitchen because a song came on the radio they liked.

 

This past July 18 it rained hard. My family and I were at a family reunion and it was really memorable because it rained in California in the middle of July.