Question: Tell us one thing you remember fondly from your childhood – a person, an event, an experience, an object, whatever. Something that makes you smile when you think of it.
Answer: Even though I feel traumatized from my childhood in general without any specific reasons, most of my childhood memories bring a smile to my face. I imagine that time has recorded a fondness to the memory over top of what was originally felt…
That said, I will pick a group of events: Family vacations.
My family are campers. We started with one of those big moldy canvas tents that leaked in the rain if you poked it, which somehow always seems to happen of the area where my sisters slept. (*eg*) Then we moved on to a canvas-sided pop-up camper. Eventually, us kids acquired our own pup tents so we could escape the terror of my dad’s snoring. My parents now have an RV, having recently sold off their fifth wheel.
Growing up, our vacations were epic. We typically only got one a year due to my dad’s vacation time from work. Not necessarily in order: New Jersey/New York, New England (where I still remember crabbing off the docks! In upper state New York, we stayed in a hilly campground. The middle child and I had skateboard – this was pre-safety concerns – and we both wiped out big-time. My sister still has her scars; I haven’t kept too many.); Cape Hateras; The Carolinas; Lake Cumberland, Kentucky (I have told the story about getting the fast wicked surfboat stuck in the current already on LJ.); the Big-Huge-Trip-Out-West in 1975/76 (the was a three week trip instead of the typical two. Wall Drug – such a tacky place! The great Salt lake, although I couldn’t go in since I had a thumbnail removed before the trip and the salt water would have stung… Aspen and the camp site with no running water. Pike’s Peak, The Molly Kathleen Gold Mine. Yellowstone, Mount Rushmore and those razy-ass wild asses that kept biting at my elbow through the window of the family Suburban! Bastard! LOL) In high school, it was a winter trip to Orlando to visit with my mom’s old boss from GE – before I was born – and Disney World and Epcot. (Epcot was only a year or so old, i think. The Land of Imagination kicked ass! Go Figment! The middle child get attacked by fire ants!)
On and on. Every year we had a big old epic travel. In fact, I never even stayed in a hotel or motel until my junior high class trip in eighth grade.
These events come first in my mind for my happiness, I think, because they demonstrate an important thing about the nature of my family. Growing up, we had the incessant impression that we were among the most dysfunction families of the world. That proves to be absolutely not so; we just happen to be a gang of smart-asses, so things can get weird easily at family events. LOL
I love my family. We always had the best times on a short budget. It just took us thirty years to realize what a great time we were having…
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