What was your first childhood memory?

Shutting my eyes trying to recall my earliest memory, I was transported back to my very earliest memory. . .

I had a sleepless night, and I played a game racking the old brain for my earliest memory. My mother’s laughter about spilled cream of wheat on the stove? It wasn’t until years later I heard the full story which I can see in my mind now. I don’t have a clue why the memory stuck.

We were poor, and the house was so small there were no secrets. So, it was easy to hear kitchen talk from my crib. I had no clue what was happening except I liked all the laughing and “Sssshh don’t wake the baby!”

My father was a WWII Navy vet who enjoyed hunting squirrels and deer, my mother told be when I was old enough to understand. When he went hunting, he got up at 3:30a.m., ate breakfast, bundled up and left quietly. Apparently on this particular morning, my father was trying to make his own cream of wheat. A lot of it! Way too much! Enough for a team!

The crème of wheat boiled and began to spill on the entire stove top, then the floor—before my mother walked in, “horrified” she said.

However, when she saw the panic on my father’s face, she started laughing and he did too. Thru The clean-up must have been awful! They still laughed as he ate breakfast fast, and she started the cleanup process probably thankful I wasn’t crawling around in the mess!

My father died first early at 32, followed by my mother who died at 48. I am alone with my images, a few old photos and stories my mother told me along the way. This particular story of the creamed wheat mess few will appreciate, but I still treasure it.

If your parents or grandparents are still alive, question them about every aspect of their lives before it’s too late. You know far less about your family than you think I suspect. Pull stories out of them now before it’s too late, friends.