1. What is your earliest memory?

Early memories?  It's hard to know what to include.  Are they actual memories or stories I've heard so often that I've created a visual interpretation of them?

One scene that comes to mind is in Georgia, seeing my brother come home with a bloody nose.  Since I was two when we moved from Georgia, I feel fairly certain this is a constructed memory.  I also remember being in our house on Pleasure Street and running down the hall yelling, "Mary Jane!  Mary Jane!"  Someone had come to the door and asked for "Mary Jane."  Not realizing that was the same person as "Mama," I called for who was being requested.

Other Pleasure Street memories include being stuck in a tree in the back yard and having to wait for my dad to get home from work to climb up and rescue me.  He was my hero.  I also remember waking up and finding our neighbors in our house instead of my parents.  My mom had gone to the hospital to have a baby and came home later with Alan.  Our neighbors were the Walls and they treated us like their own grandchildren.  I remember loving them dearly and feeling safe in their home.  I have one very focused memory of drinking 7-Up and eating Fritos and seeing little pieces of Frito float in the bottle.  For a brief time, my mom had someone who would come and help do the housework.  I don't remember her name (maybe Margaret?) but I remember that she reminded me of Miss Edna who had helped Grandmother for so many years.

And I remember moving away from Pleasure Street to a smaller home on Center Street.  I felt it was a new adventure, but looking back, it must have been from financial difficulties during the recession of the 70s.

To be honest, I don't have a lot of specific memories from many of the following years.  I don't know if it's because I'm more of a live-in-the-moment person or if it's because there were several years of difficulty that came soon after we moved from Pleasure Street.

But the early years?  Good memories.  A lot of unstructured time and playing and music and singing.  I would consider myself to be a happy child.