Earliest memory meme

My Sabu memories in the previous entry lead, almost like The Chaser’s prize segue segments, to the meme Arthur has sent me.

I have to:

• Describe my earliest memory where the memory is clear, and where “clear” means I can depict at least three details.
• Give an estimate of my age at the time.
• Tag five other bloggers with this meme.

Easy, Arthur, as I have the relevant story on a page already, but here it is again.

At the bottom of the backyard was a line of gum trees, a paling fence with allegedly poisonous gourds growing on it, and in front of that the chook yard. The story goes, as I can’t remember this, that my grandmother (whose nerves were not good as she had two sons and one son-in-law away in the War) was coming back one day from feeding the chooks when an American in a Kittyhawk or a Mustang appeared at treetop level and chased her up the yard. Convinced it was a Zero and she was about to die, my grandmother dropped everything, screamed, and ran for the house.

I do remember sitting on my dinkie on the gravel drive, near the Dorothy Perkins climbing rose which I called Mrs Perkins and confused with the lady next door who I thought was also Mrs Perkins. A yellow biplane flew over very low and the pilot leaned out and waved to me. My mother later told me that must have been the end of World War II.

Tiger Moth

My father was a worried man. His youngest son had blond curly hair, a lisp, a certain sickliness, a teddy bear named Sookle, and too many years during the War of “petticoat government”. His older son was dark and lean, good with his hands, fond of horse riding and sports, and a good shot. His daughter–well, she was a girl, and none the worse for that–of a sweet nature, but a promising runner. The youngest son, though, needed to be taken in hand, and had a tendency to ask too many questions, give cheek, and not eat his vegetables.

“Listen son, if you have the Devil on your back, get him off or I will knock him off.”
“Don’t worry, Daddy; I have the Devil in my heart as well as Jesus.”

Two memories for the price of one, the first being the earliest. When the Tiger Moth event occurred I would have been just over two years old. The three details are the rose bush, the tricycle, and the yellow plane. The second memory is age perhaps three or four. That one is different, because I actually do not recall that myself. My parents used to tell that story. The first I recall very strongly though, and I only raised it with my mother some forty years later.

OK, I nominate Denys , Jim Belshaw — you said you wanted variety on your blog, Jim , Lisa , Kanani Fong , and Thomas .

Update

Kanani and Thomas have both promised to do something later. Kanani is writing a book right now and Thomas is working hard. Jim hasn’t yet responded, but on the other hand he has had a couple of posts lately that are giving me future post ideas…

Monday

All done!