A word of warning to any who find themselves here out of curiosity: I am not sure about that motivation and to be honest all that follows is spontaneous and (for the most part) unedited [and I am typing this now before any editing has a chance of occurring and for that very matter, this sentence may disappear before you have chance of reading it.]
).
SO, to start with, I am feeling a trifle giddy on a combination of medication and a bit of alcohol. I always get a bit chatty when that happens (I am ashamed to say that in my latter years this happens more often than it should *blushing*). I become rather more confessional and in a more open way than most of those so called reality shows on television (but do not get me started about those). I am not sure any more than you are at this moment in time but you can follow me down my own personal rabbit hole if you dare.
Wow! If you are still here I am both flattered and amazed! I have never considered myself all that creative over the course of my life, but in retrospect I have convinced myself than I am more creative and far ranging in my thinking than most of the people of my acquaintance. I recognize and acknowledge the arrogance of that statement, but I am who I am and I no longer make apologies for that but rather, long winded semi-lectures. Fortunately, those happen rarely because I am such a private person. I have always chosen when, where and how often I interact with the world at large. That said, what follows is mostly out of my control and may be subject to that previous comment about mostly no edits. That will not be decided until right before I hit the post button. Until then...
The earliest surviving memories of my childhood center around two different incidents. However, before I get to those some ancillary memories around those episodes because I must.
I was first born and doted over by my grandparents, especially my paternal grandmother. She was mother to a large brood four sons and three daughters (two of her daughters passed away before I was old enough to be aware of relationships.) Every adult member I was exposed to in my early years smoked with the exception of my mother and grandmother. Other factors in the as yet unmentioned incidents were the fact that I was clearly an inquisitive child. I found adult conversation, even at that early age, much more intriguing and of greater interest to me. They spoke of things that I had no reference for and a deep need to explore. I was left to my own devices on many occasions which puzzles me to this day. Without that lack of direct supervision of one barely out of infancy, the following would never have occurred:
There is no way for me to discern, at this great remove, what the correct order of the following might be but I am going to go with the more preeminent in my mind. That would be purposefully setting fire to some tall very dry grass against the side of the garage next to our house. I might add that this was a small bungalow behind and to the side of my grandparents place which was a rather grand and expansive two-story pace in a suburb of Los Angeles. I have no recollection of what went through my mind that urged me to do this. Perhaps it was nothing more than inquisitiveness!? I do remember watching it burn for a moment or two, fascinated by the way it spread. Realizing how dangerous it was, I calmly walked over to the outdoor faucet where a hose was connected, turned on the water, picked up the hose and put it out before it had a chance to spread ay further.
Some might suggest that his a remembered later dream, but the problem with that is that I can follow back the chain of that memory to the actual time it happened and if it was a dream then, it would have been quite remarkable for someone so young. If there was a potential firebug hiding inside me, that occurrence stamped it out. Even at such a young age I was able to see connections and sort them in my head. I must have been a mystification to both my parents. My mom tried, god bless her, and my father left me alone unless my mother asked for his involvement. On to incident two, which as I have already mentioned may have actually occurred before the incident with my brief flirting with pyromania.
From my own point of view, I may have had the usual childhood traumas, but then the following is only usual in a very tangential manner. Many kids, for some reason, when they are living closer to the ground, find things having to do with electrical outlets and the things plugged into those mystifying and appealing (I have a nephew who stuck his tongue in an electrical outlet and learned to never do that again. Life is like that, and my brush with AC came from my early need to know how those things that plugged into the outlets worked. I took apart a record player and was exploring its innards when I gave myself a frightful shock. That was a very early and permanently ingrained lesson in making sure that any device requiring AC current to operate is unplugged before investigating what goes on inside. It was a decade more before I learned the same lesson about DC (as in making sure large capacitors are discharged before you touch them
)
I could go on, I suppose, but I have written more than enough at this point. Just writing this has dredged up other memories form my early childhood, but maybe at a later time if I am motivated.
TO BE CONTINUED:?????
).SO, to start with, I am feeling a trifle giddy on a combination of medication and a bit of alcohol. I always get a bit chatty when that happens (I am ashamed to say that in my latter years this happens more often than it should *blushing*). I become rather more confessional and in a more open way than most of those so called reality shows on television (but do not get me started about those). I am not sure any more than you are at this moment in time but you can follow me down my own personal rabbit hole if you dare.
Wow! If you are still here I am both flattered and amazed! I have never considered myself all that creative over the course of my life, but in retrospect I have convinced myself than I am more creative and far ranging in my thinking than most of the people of my acquaintance. I recognize and acknowledge the arrogance of that statement, but I am who I am and I no longer make apologies for that but rather, long winded semi-lectures. Fortunately, those happen rarely because I am such a private person. I have always chosen when, where and how often I interact with the world at large. That said, what follows is mostly out of my control and may be subject to that previous comment about mostly no edits. That will not be decided until right before I hit the post button. Until then...
The earliest surviving memories of my childhood center around two different incidents. However, before I get to those some ancillary memories around those episodes because I must.
I was first born and doted over by my grandparents, especially my paternal grandmother. She was mother to a large brood four sons and three daughters (two of her daughters passed away before I was old enough to be aware of relationships.) Every adult member I was exposed to in my early years smoked with the exception of my mother and grandmother. Other factors in the as yet unmentioned incidents were the fact that I was clearly an inquisitive child. I found adult conversation, even at that early age, much more intriguing and of greater interest to me. They spoke of things that I had no reference for and a deep need to explore. I was left to my own devices on many occasions which puzzles me to this day. Without that lack of direct supervision of one barely out of infancy, the following would never have occurred:
There is no way for me to discern, at this great remove, what the correct order of the following might be but I am going to go with the more preeminent in my mind. That would be purposefully setting fire to some tall very dry grass against the side of the garage next to our house. I might add that this was a small bungalow behind and to the side of my grandparents place which was a rather grand and expansive two-story pace in a suburb of Los Angeles. I have no recollection of what went through my mind that urged me to do this. Perhaps it was nothing more than inquisitiveness!? I do remember watching it burn for a moment or two, fascinated by the way it spread. Realizing how dangerous it was, I calmly walked over to the outdoor faucet where a hose was connected, turned on the water, picked up the hose and put it out before it had a chance to spread ay further.
Some might suggest that his a remembered later dream, but the problem with that is that I can follow back the chain of that memory to the actual time it happened and if it was a dream then, it would have been quite remarkable for someone so young. If there was a potential firebug hiding inside me, that occurrence stamped it out. Even at such a young age I was able to see connections and sort them in my head. I must have been a mystification to both my parents. My mom tried, god bless her, and my father left me alone unless my mother asked for his involvement. On to incident two, which as I have already mentioned may have actually occurred before the incident with my brief flirting with pyromania.
From my own point of view, I may have had the usual childhood traumas, but then the following is only usual in a very tangential manner. Many kids, for some reason, when they are living closer to the ground, find things having to do with electrical outlets and the things plugged into those mystifying and appealing (I have a nephew who stuck his tongue in an electrical outlet and learned to never do that again. Life is like that, and my brush with AC came from my early need to know how those things that plugged into the outlets worked. I took apart a record player and was exploring its innards when I gave myself a frightful shock. That was a very early and permanently ingrained lesson in making sure that any device requiring AC current to operate is unplugged before investigating what goes on inside. It was a decade more before I learned the same lesson about DC (as in making sure large capacitors are discharged before you touch them
)I could go on, I suppose, but I have written more than enough at this point. Just writing this has dredged up other memories form my early childhood, but maybe at a later time if I am motivated.
TO BE CONTINUED:?????
