My next memory is of these kids in my neighborhood convincing me to distract a rattlesnake while they captured it. I was three and they were about seven or eight when we were lifting cinder blocks to look for slugs to squish. Underneath one block was a baby rattlesnake and it immediately began striking at each of us. My friends needed to run home to get something to trap the snake with so it was up to me to make sure it didn't get away. They handed me a stick and I stood there dutifully stabbing and swaying while this snake struck randomly about. After they got back I had to keep the snakes attention some more while they positioned themselves behind it and pinned its head to the ground with a stick. They placed it into a glass terrarium and brought it over a couple times. I was never allowed to tell my parents that I had helped catch it. After about two weeks they killed it because it wouldn't stop trying to bite people.
These next memories feel earlier than the last two but I cannot be sure. I must have been two or three and I was sitting on our couch with my little brother James. He would have been one or two. We were watching Sesame street and I remember it suddenly cut off and one of those old rainbow error technical difficulties messages came on. I assured my brother that it would come back on eventually and then I was suddenly hit with a wave of vertigo. I was too little for my feet to touch the ground while sitting on the couch and I remember having to assure myself that the ground was nearby or I would feel dizzy. Then I remember imagining the couch being hundreds of feet in the air and the corresponding dizziness that came along with it. At that point I think I began to realize, even if it wasn't consciously, how my thoughts shaped my reality. I don't remember if Sesame Street ever came back on or not.
These are the most distinct memories of my early childhood. The next few are just glimpses. My mom asked me to get the garden hose and I picked up a green snake instead thinking it was the hose. I freaked out and my dog came running and chased the snake away and saved me.
I hit a full fish tank with a hammer and had to help my mom put the fish into bowls of water.
Playing in puddles and the awful case of ringworm that followed.
A random lunch at TGIF's with an Aunt.
Finding bowls and pots to place under the leaks in our trailer's roof and hoping fish would hatch from the tiny eggs that might have been picked up when the water evaporated.
Being up early on a Saturday morning to watch Double Dragon. Wiggling through the couch cushions and finding a penny to suck on while I watched.
Sneaking up to my parent's partly open door to watch Tale's from the Crypt on their TV while they thought I slept.
The hot shaky feeling I got the first time I stuck a spoon into the electric socket and it melted. The scream my dad let out when it shut off the hot water heater and his warm shower suddenly went cold. And then his concern when he found out why.
All of these memories are between the ages of two and five and are only a fraction of what I actually remember. After writing all of this out I realize I don't have enough time to go any further. I will however leave one final memory. I guess it is the first instance I have of actually experiencing memory. The first day I woke up and realized that there had been day before and that I had lived in it. I had watched an episode of Mr. Roger's neighborhood and it had taught me how to build a kite. I asked my mom if it was us that had built the kite and she told me no that it was Mr. Rogers. I remember thinking it was strange phenomenon. A weird experience. That all the days before yesterday were blank.
