What's your earliest memory?

[stui magpie]

Mine is when i broke my elbow when I was young. I thought I was about 3 but the old girl swears I was barely 2.

I went backwards off something and hit my elbow point first on a concrete slab. The memories from there are a bit sketchy but I remember sitting in the back seat of the car heading home afterwards, it was dark, and I was cradling my arm complaining that it was broken while mum and dad were assuring me everything was OK. (confirmed by the old girl, apparently I had a decent vocabulary and comprehension at 2).

Then I remember being in a hospital bed with my left arm elevated up in some sling thing which meant I couldn't roll over or basically move much and I wasn't happy at all about it. Apparently I was like that for 3-4 days which I don't remember, other than being seriously pissed off.

The detail I don't remember is that there wasn't a phone at the house I was at ( my grandfathers) and him and Dad were at the pub with the car so mum had to go to a neighbours house to call them to come home, which they duly did a few hours later.

I can still recall the feeling of falling backward, not so much the pain, the sitting in the car vocalising and the fkn thing they put on my that made me lay still. I've never been able to sleep on my back, obviously not even when I was 2.

So what's your earliest memory? Is it a goodun or a badun?

[The Prototype]

I remember being either 3 or 4 in the pram we were at my old house before it was finally built. The parents were watching the workmen working on the roof and the outside. My step-sister decided this would be the perfect time to race around with me in the pram up and down the street, I remember mum telling her off for this. It's funny I do not remember moving into this place, I do remember 1989 living there and watching the Grand Final.

I remember however the entire day Collingwood won the 1990 Premiership, what I did, what the family did, what happened after the win, everything. But there are some days I do not even remember.

But that is for some reason my earliest memory. I guess it was a good one because I'd gotten to meet my step-sister, even though back then she was a pain in the ass.

[David]

I saw a couple of films at the cinema at the age of 3, and I still have vivid memories of them. I also remember visiting a motel in Glenrowan with a big Ned Kelly statue nearby. Nothing much else from before the age of 4, or at least nothing that I can clearly identify as being that far back.

What's your earliest football memory? Mine is sitting under cover sheltering from the rain at Waverley when we got beaten by Hawthorn back in 1995, when I was 6.

[The Prototype]

Being around 4 or 5 going to the footy with the parents, wearing a football jumper that had an old logo on it looked like it may have been a Port Adelaide logo, but the jumper had black and white hoops. Every weekend I'd wear that jumper and most would mistake it for Geelong.

One game was at Queenborough I am pretty sure, it was a wet day there were banners there and it was someones milestone game. I do not remember who was playing that day, I just remember playing in the water with a paper boat and seeing the banner go up.

I only remember it was an amateur game around 1988.

[Jezza]

A family trip to Sovereign Hill in early 1998 is my first early memory. I cannot recall anything from before 1998. I started to develop a clear memory of events from 2001 onwards.

My first footy memory was also in 1998 when we played Melbourne in a home and away match at the MCG sitting in the old red seats at the Olympic Stand as we lost by a few points in the end. Here's a link of the final minutes of the match.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Amli2pL_beU

[ronrat]

Watching the Empire games as the marathon went past our house in Perth in 1962. All the relatives invited themselves to our place to watch it and I was in a pusher and my sister in a pram. As I was the only grandson I was part of pass the parcel.

Football was going to my first game around 1967 and Wayne Richardson went berserk in the last 10 minutes and we beat Richscum by a narrow margin. . Des Rowe (ex Richmond) had a pub and invited us all back except me who he called called a "Cheeky little bugger " but he did fill us kids with lemonade and colvan chips.

[5150]

Thanks to alcohol.... this morning.

[Skids]

Christmas 1969. I was 2 and a half and I got one of those little pedal cars.
A blue police car that I pedalled up and down my grandparents gravel driveway all day.

[Wokko]

Walking along the beach at Kempsey with my mum and grandfather. My mum picked up a shell she thought was nice and a crab came out of it, she freaked out and dropped it. I would've been 3 or 4.

[Pies4shaw]

Sitting in what I suppose was the pre-op room at what is now John Fawkner Hospital (then the Sacred Heart Hospital) and being spoken to by the anaesthetist before I had my tonsils out at 2 and a bit. I also remember waking up in the Ward afterwards, being annoyed because the other kids got Cream-Betweens for their dessert but, because I had a sore throat, I got jelly (which I have never liked) instead of the ice-cream. And I remember getting into the back of my Dad's car in my dressing gown to drive home a few days later.

Otherwise, most of my early memories are about not being able to breathe (I had quite severe asthma and there were no useful drugs for it when I was a child - indeed, most people in the early 1960s, including many doctors, didn't know what asthma was, a very strange thing given what a common condition it turns out to be).

My earliest Collingwood memory is Davey Norman kicking 4 goals against Carlton for a win in 1962. I didn't go to the game - but I listened to the radio. Because I was such a sickly child, I wasn't taken regularly to games until 1967 but I went occasionally to games from 62 to 66. The first game I recall vividly, in a blow-by-blow, kick-by-kick sort of fashion is from early 1967 against North. Thommo and Jerka dominated the ruck, McKenna kicked 7 on Peter Steward (probably North's best player of the era) and Colin Tully starred (and kicked the ball extraordinary distances all that day - was he the longest Collingwood kick of a football, ever?). I didn't see Macca kick 12 against Hawthorn the previous season, so this was the first time I saw him totally dominate a game at full-forward - he seemed to be marking everything and when there wasn't a mark, he was getting it at ground level and he was so quick it seemed almost unfair. He instantly became my favourite player and remained so throughout his Collingwood career. I think it's a minor tragedy that McKenna played when Hudson did - imagine kicking 143 goals in a season and getting pipped by a guy who kicked 146!

[David]

What happens to those early experiences that we can't remember? Are they retrievable, do they just get wiped, or is it a bit of both (i.e. some are retrievable, some aren't)?

[Skids]

[5150]

[David]

Thanks Skids!

5150, I was thinking of that too. Great film!

[partypie]

My earliest memory is being about two and a half and reverting to crawling hoping it would make me as cute as my little brother.