What Is One Memory From<br /> Childhood That Always Makes You Smile?

Growing up as the youngest of 6 children on a farm was a labor intensive upbringing. But it taught me SOOO much about life and I think I had the greatest childhood EVER. My FAVORITE memory is of our annual family rodeos. Mom and Dad and Mam-ma and Papa-pa and my great grandps would sit in lawn chairs while all of us kids would rope calfs, tie goats, do wild cow milking, ride steers (instead of bulls), tie a strap on our horses and ride bareback, ride barrels, do polebending....and any other creative entertainment we could think of...including dressing up like rodeo clowns! Our folks were so patient. And they clapped like crazy for everything we did and whistled and took pictures! I was SOOOO blessed!

My dad's car and music palying on his radio. My mom playing with my sister and me.

When I was 3. In Wichita, Kansas, we had a 'milkman.' Dairies don't do that milk, eggs, cheese door-to-door delivery any more.

We had this huge insulated delivery box by the front door. I climbed in the thing one Saturday morning. Early. Waited for the 'milkman.' When he arrived and opened the thing, I jumped out--'HI!!!.'

'Milkman' nearly had a stroke.

When I was a kid I will always remember the 24th of May. Here in Canada we celebrate different holidays than some other countries, but the 24th of May was the first day it was warm enough to go swimming in the river just down from my house.

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Everybody in the surrounding neighbourhood, from Lock Street to McKellarSt. to Park street to Braidwood Avenue all congregated at the wharf at the end of King George Street. Usually the first one in won a dime or a quarter, whatever we could muster as kids. I only collected once but it was not so much the prize, as the experience. It was a carefree time.



Not a lot of them around anymore.

My Pawpaw watching cartoons with me when I'de stay over and pretending to sneak coke floats past Mawmaw for us, who would playful scold him about to much sweets. <3 I would sit on his lap and follow him around like a puppy when he went anywhere outside, he'd always find something shiny to amuse me as he went about his metal detecting.

Climbing the tree in my front yard and carving who I (thought I) loved in to the trunk. I wonder if it's still there.

what is up........................

what is up........................

when i was bad in school........................

beating up the neighbors boy who was about 6 and I was 5 he was so afraid to come out of his house lol

Sitting in my grandmother's lap. Her arms around me and her sweet smell of windsong perfum and cookies.

sleeping on the trampoline with friends in the summer doing flips in our sleeping bags....

Making peanut butter balls in first grade with Mrs. Baker my first grade teacher. it always makes me smile.

Bugs Bunny Elmer Fudd

When I was very young the family would go down to grandfathers orchard for the 4th of July. There I would walk around the orchard, in the barn (where all the antiques were) and generally have a lot of fun.

In the evening we ate outside. You see, there was a place several blocks away that had the best fireworks...Disneyland.

The smell of the gifts on Christmas morning. I still know the smell of the plastic things.

Christmas morning.

Standing in what I thought was the most beautiful dress in the world and taking photos with my dad. :)

I asked my best friend if he'd noticed my hair. He said he had but it didnt matter, I was the same no matter how I looked



:)

Spending every weekend with my paternal grandparents! I can see my grandfather standing in front of me, in my mind, like it was yesterday! Unfortunately, he passed away when I was 5!

Playing in the wide open country with my friends and family and just being myself without worrying about what other people thought of me.

I loved eating my younger sister's baby food when my mom was out. I used to finish boxes and boxes.

watching my mother and father dancing together.

Being taken from park to park by my dad to go on all the swings in town.

ONE MEMORY FROM WHEN I WAS A TEENAGER AT A STRICT CATHOLIC SCHOOL . V ERY STRICT NUNS THAT USED A CANE ACROSS MY BARE BOTTOM IF I DESERVED IT . AND THE HEADMASTER WAS . A VERY STRICT PRIEST . HE OFTEN CANED ME FOR BEING LATE FOR SCHOOL . THIS WAS IN THE 1950s AND 1960s . ABOUT WHAT ALLWAYS IS MAKING ME SMILE . IT WAS WHEN ONE OF THE NUNS WAS SPANKING MY BARE BOTTOM AFTER SCHOOL WHEN EVERYONE HAD GON HOME . SISTER PENNY SAID DAVID MARR YOU NEED DISCIPLINE ***** NAKED I AM GOING TO PUNISH YOU . I DID AS I WAS TOLD . THEN AS I STRIPED WITH HER LOOKING AT ME I COULD SEE HER GOING RED IN THE FACE . I WAS THINKING IT WAS HARDER FOR HER TO LOOK AT ME NAKED . THAN IT WAS FOR ME TO BE NAKED . THAT MADE ME SMILE . I STILL GOT A SPANKING ON MY BARE BOTTOM . AND SISTER PENNY CANED ME AFTER THE SPANKING. I DONT YHINK SHE WAS MUCH OLDER THAN ME AT THE TIME . I WAS AGE13 IT WAS IN 1961 . I AM NOW AGE61YEARS YOUNG . david.marr1948@hotmail.co.uk

The week I got to dance with a professional ballet company. The one and only time I had a dream come true.

Rollering skating on my rusty skates down the hill with the wind at my back beating my brothers on thier bikes.

my grandfathers garage. it always smelled like pipe tobacco, and i liked going in there to get potatoes or cans of stuff for my grandmother.

every summer going to the sea side with salvation army auntie jane, the best bit was the madeira cake, the worse bit was the egg and mayonnaise sandwiches yuck and when I buried my sixpence in the sand, I dug all day trying to find it. makes me giggle when I think about the latter.

What is your fondest memory of someone your life?