When I Was Young - Part 2

Here are my answers to Part 2 of Alona Tester's When I Was Young:

13. What childhood injuries do you remember?

Other than scrapes and bruises I was lucky to only have one sprain, but it was memorable to me.  I was about eight and we were waiting to see a show at the Vanderbilt Planetarium.  We were bored waiting on line and started playing tag in the lobby where I twisted my ankle trying to duck a tag.  I heard the ligament tear and it hurt so badly that I knew right away this was more than a simple twisted ankle.  I remember my father had to carry me into the ER that evening because I couldn't walk more than a few steps at a time and it was very swollen.  Even at that young age, I could tell you when it was about to rain for years after.

14. What was your first pet?
Oh, Benjamin, my sweet little shelter kitten.  Unfortunately, he lived only a few years. He was an outdoor cat, enough said.

15. Did your grandparents, or older relatives tell you stories of “when I was young ..?”

Not really. Thankfully my paternal grandfather wrote about his life before he died. This included a lot of information about his childhood. I have been sharing his story in my Amanuensis Monday posts. Also, my father was absolutely fascinated with my mother's father's war stories.  He taped hours of them and it is such a treasure to have now.

16. What was entertainment when you were young?

We didn't go out a whole lot when I was little, but we did see the occasional movie, a Broadway musical was a real treat, and we watched some TV(mostly PBS for me). We went to see Barnum & Bailey a few times at Madison Square Garden and the Nutcracker every Christmas as I have mentioned.  Also, vacationing on Prince Edward Island, we would see Anne of Green Gables - The Musical every year.

Once we had a cassette deck, my dad discovered old radio shows on tape and I was then raised on Mel Brooks (2000 year old Man) and Jack Benny, I loved them, still do.

17. Do you remember what it was it like when your family got a new fangled invention? (ie. telephone, TV, VCR, microwave, computer?) 
We got a VCR when my dad bought a recorder and taped everything in sight. 

Earlier than that, I remember when he bought a new car with a cassette deck and huge earphones that stretched to the back seat. This way I could be entertained on long car trips without annoying them when I wanted to listed to the same thing over and over.

18. Did your family have a TV? Was it b&w or colour? And how many channels did you get?
We had a color TV.  We probably got 6 channels? CBS, NBC, ABC, PBS (Thirteen), PIX and WOR.

19. Did your family move house when you were young? Do you remember it?

Yes, we moved a few blocks to a bigger house when I was about ten.  I couldn't wait.  I had a huge bedroom and the house was on a little river and right across the street from my elementary school

20. Was your family involved in any natural disasters happening during your childhood (ie.fire, flood, cyclone, earthquake etc)?
No, we were not, thankfully.  We're not prone to a lot of that on Long Island.  I do remember that one summer as we were on vacation on Prince Edward Island where the only phone was in the property manager's office, we somehow heard reports of a tornado touching down in the town next to ours here on Long Island.  My parents called the neighbors to check on the house, but everything was fine here.

21. Is there any particular music that when you hear it, sparks a childhood memory?

Vacationing on PEI, they had only one radio station, or one music station and it seems they must have had a very small budget because we heard the same songs over and over and over every summer.  There are a handful of songs like, "Devil Went Down to Georgia", "Hot Stuff", "My Sherona", "Call Me" and "Let 'Em In" that I hear to this day and immediately associate with PEI.

When I Was Young - Part 1

Although I have been keeping up with the Genealogy Do-Over in the past couple of weeks, I have not been keeping up with my blogging about it. Such is life during the NHL playoffs (Go Habs Go!)

In the meantime, here is the beginning of my self-interview using the When I Was Young geneameme from Alona Tester.

1. Do you or your parents have any memorabilia from when you were a baby?

Well, I am an only child and an only grandchild, so, yes, I have tons.

These are the checks to pay the doctor and hospital for my birth, forever enshrined in plastic. The second paperweight contains a lock of my hair from my first haircut. (These were made for my maternal grandfather by a firm that made promotional items for the Bell Mine of which he was President.)

 
And here are a few things from what we call my Baby Box.  I had taken these pictures a few years ago for my old crafting blog when I participated in Vintage Thingy Thursdays.

 

2. Do you know if you were named after anyone?

Anna is for my father's aunt Anna Peterson Anderson

and my mother's great-aunt Anna Mina Dean Pergau (first on the right).

My middle name was Catherine because they liked it and it went with Anna and they originally intended to call me by both names.

But, as the story goes, it was the 60s so it also had to mean something. So, according to my baby book, I am named for Anna the Prophetess (Luke 2:36-38) and Catherine of Aragon, the first female lawyer.

3. And do you know of any other names your parents might have named you?

Oh, yes. Thank goodness I was a girl! My father's middle name was David, his father's middle name was Bierly. If I had been a boy, it was to be David Bierly Matthews.

4. What is your earliest memory?

I have a vague memory of playing at a park in Chicago.  I had found a hopping ball that another child left behind. When they came back for it, I was not a happy camper. I'm not 100% sure that is my earliest memory, but if we were still in Chicago, its very early.

 

5. Did your parents read, sing or tell stories to you? Do you remember any of these?

My parents are both voracious readers and read to me as soon as I was born. As a result, I was reading real books in kindergarten.  My favorite reading memory is sitting with my father in his armchair next to the fireplace reading E.B. White. He would do voices of a many of the characters from Charlotte's Webb and Stuart Little and The Trumpet of the Swan and I loved every minute.

6. When you were young, do you remember what it was you wanted to grow up to be?

Gloria Steinem. No joke.

7. Did you have a favorite teacher at school?

Not really. In kindergarten we all loved our teacher, Miss Kempton. I remember that I was very excited when she was having a baby a few years later that my mother was giving her a Fisher Price Roly Poly Chime Ball. For some reason I thought it was very cool that her baby would be playing with the same toy I once played with.

8. How did you get to school?

We lived about a block and a half from my elementary school. I always walked. I'm still bowled over by the fact that none of the kids going to that school today seem to walk.  The traffic there in the mornings and afternoons is unbelievable!

Later I walked to middle school and took a bus to high school. When I moved to another high school, I had to walk again.

9. What games did playtime involve?

I remember playing jump rope, hopscotch, tag, red light-green light and Mother may I. Of course, as girls in the 70s we played with baby dolls and Barbie dolls. I don't think I ever got over not getting a Barbie Town House. I did have a few Fisher-Price play sets.  And of course board games like Candy Land, Chutes & Ladders, Ker-plunk, Trouble, Operation, Clue, Monopoly, etc.. Oh, and Colorforms, I loved my Barbie Colorform set!

And my next door neighbor and best friend had a Pachinko machine.

I just came across this photo from Christmas of '73. I loved this Supermarket set that I got that year!  It also came with a shopping cart that is not pictured.

10. Did you have a cubby house?

No, but when we played outside with the kids from next door they had a honeysuckle bush that was open in the back and we would occasionally play in there, but we never had a real cubby house.  I did always want a tree house as a kid.

11. What was something you remember from an early childhood holiday?

For some reason, my childhood holiday memories have always run together.  I remember decorating Easter eggs, I remember my paternal grandmother always bringing her very rich cheesecake. Mostly I remember Christmases, my favorite holiday when my parents were still married.  I loved our tree ornaments, making popcorn and cranberry garland, decorating the house, having grandparents visit, going to see the Nutcracker in NYC and going to Midnight Mass at Grace Episcopal Church, where my father was an assistant.

12. What is a memory from one of your childhood birthdays or Christmas?

Children's birthdays were so much simpler then! Mostly I remember just having an afternoon with friends, eating Pepperidge Farm cake with some added decorative frosting and I vividly remember playing "Pin the Tail on the Donkey", though that could be because we have pictures (and I still have this scarf.)

I'll finish the questions in my next post!