Here it is Guys and Gals. Have fun!

[Clipper]

I think that this should be open to ANY and ALL musings, when and as they cross our minds. No order, no specific topic, just wonderful memories that we want to dwell on for a few minutes and share with others.

Hopefully it will generate both comments on the memories posted, expounded on by those reading, and no restrictions if one wants to abandon the current topic and post a memory of their own.

I can't speak for the rest of you, but as I age, I find my oldest memories to be my fondest, and I find myself wandering back to those times as I relax or as I go about my daily routine.

I will start with a favorite memory that comes back to me every time I visit the Barneveld area.

[Clipper]

My earliest memories of substance begin in around 1951, in Barneveld NY. I was enrolled in the one room school in Barneveld, and my best friend was a kid named Ian Adams, who still lives there. My earliest memories of having fun, are of riding my first bicycle around the village, and stopping at the village tub for a drink. We played on a playground near Unity Hall, walked out the Trenton Falls Road and fed Dr. Redmond's horses, and played under the bridge where Parker Hollow Rd crosses the Steuben Creek near Van's Tavern, catching crawfish and wading in the shallow cool waters.

We lived in a house at the time that was behind AN ICE CREAM FACTORY. Hmmm. That was a great place. I used to visit often and get free sample, haha. It then became a bakery, and my favorite thing became taking a nickel there and getting a large sugar cookie.

I hope that this portion of the forum will simply become a place for totally unorganized, and off the cuff musing from you past. Put anything and everything you wish up here, and share your memories with us.

Can't wait to see where this goes. Enjoy. We now have a history site, a memory site, a music history site, and it seems that the forum is developing into where it will have something for everyone as we evolve. Opinions and criticism is solicited. Tell me what you think.

[concerned]

Sitting in my closet listenning to my parents argue. I was 4 years old.

[lucy]

My first childhood memory would be living in New York Mills walking with my grandma to the Candy store I would pick out what I would want and she would always buy herself a kit-kat bar. The candy store is now the pizzeria in town.

Oh and the time that my aunt drove me out to Old Forge she stopped right in front of the Enchanted Forest and said oh doesn't that look nice, we turned around and drove back home! How could you do that to a little kid???

[frankcor]

My earliest memory is from when I was 5 (1954) and we lived on Washington St. in Oneida. I was playing in the dirt with the little girl who was my age and lived next door (Rhonda?). I really had a big crush on her. Then my mom called through the back door to tell me the Mickey Mouse Club was starting on TV. I dashed inside and all thoughts of my friend were gone as Annette Funicello in that sweater that showed her boobs came on the screen.

Did I say that outloud?

[lucy]

Frank! lol... you are killing me here.

[Clipper]

LOL. Good one Frank. I always had a crush on Annette Funicello too. Her cousin went to school with us in N Utica in 7th grade. Annette was a bombshell when she got to be a teen, and was in the beach movies. Yep, Mickey Mouse Club, Spin and Marty adventures, and all the rest. Then was the 3 stooges after MM club was over.

[WestmoGuy]

Gee, my earliest memory has to be around 1966 in beautiful Chadwicks, NY.

I remember being in my dads 1960 Galaxie playing around and I put it in neutral and it started rolling down the driveway till dad hung on the window and pupped it into park.

[dgriffin]

I guess I wrote the post that I should put here a over a year ago.
Click:
www.windsweptpress.com/remember.htm

[Clipper]

Very touching Dave. I can hear the leaves rustling and smell the hotdogs. Kids now don't seem to care anything about going for a picnic with Mom and Dad, and simply roasting a few hot dogs and taking a swim. WE are lucky to have grown up in the times we did. For better or for worse, the memories are golden.

I also remember my first wedding, and the tears that rolled down my face because I was so awestruck by her beauty as her brother brought her down the aisle and gave her over to me.

When I look at all three of my boys, and think of them as infants, I am amazed to see them all many inches taller than I, and two of them just huge men, with huge shoulders, and size 15 and 16 shoes. NFL material. They sure didn't get that from me, haha.

With all the problems we have lived through, I too look back see the bumps that I crawled over in the road to who I am today, and in my older years, I am proud of, and happy with the man that I see in the mirror.

I still have the "cookie jar" in the woodshop, where I store some of those memories, and I still go there to contemplate, reflect, meditate, and sometimes to just "chill out".

Thanks for another story. You are a really great writer, and your writing is easy to read, and warms one's heart.

[jon hynes]

Mar 23, 2009 22:24:18 GMT -5 @dgriffin said:

www.windsweptpress.com/remember.htm

I enjoyed this very much.

[Ralph]

Yes......Thank You Dave. Sometimes we hurry too much through life and forget to look to the memories of the past to remember "who" we are and whence we have come from.

I know that I am thankful that I have pictures of my mom and I on the rocky banks of the West Canada up in the town of Gray to remind me of the small joys of childhood that we all too quickly forget.

[dgriffin]

Thanks, guys. So, a graphic, early this morning .....

[concerned]

Spending part of the summer in Old Forge. Three of my Aunts and Uncles owned camps up there. I really enjoyed hiking in the woods. For some reason we used to name large rock formations and etch them in the stone. I loved the wild flowers and all the streams we would come across while hiking through the woods. If there was a golf course in the area I was on it( not because I liked golf, but because half the family golfed). And I remember fishing in just about any body of water.

When I was 10 through 18 I remember delivering my grandmothers home made Italian bread to many families in the James St area, it was a lot of fun and the smell of bread baking brings back wonderful memories.My Italian grandparents house was just so beautiful, I loved that place, especially the large marble fireplace in the living room. My German-English grandparents house in South Utica was also a large house. I liked sliding down the large stairwell from the second floor to the foyer. I also enjoyed playing with my great-grandfathers stein collection--there must have been 50 of those things in all shapes and sizes--it was a great collection. My great grandfather didn't like me touching them so he would drag us off to hike in the woods behind the house. I also remember having lunch at the Fort Skyler(sp) Club on Genesee St near the Stanley, he was a member--his business background.

[dgriffin]

Nice memories, Concerned. Seems many of us here somehow lived some bits of our lives on and around James St. Our favorite place to take a picnic for a day of swimming was Moffit's Beach, up Route 8 south of Speculator. We called the lake the little Sacandaga, distinguishing it from the Great S near Amsterdam. Sometimes Golden Beach, too, above Blue Mountain.

We often went to Sylvan Beach, where relatives had a camp (actually a standard well built house that my great aunt had lived in full time) on Lakehurst, just before it turned into Vienna Road and headed for out for Rome. Flying over that route today via Google Earth, still looks like all the farm land I used to see on our drive, but I'll bet all the open land is no longer farmed like it once was.