Not that there was anything else interesting on the FM side... I mostly preferred to listen to songs on tape (recordings of The Music Man, Brigadoon, The Little Mermaid and VeggieTales) and sing along, although, my mother will point out that I went through a very blatant "must listen to country music all the time" phase in middle school. Sorry mom.
The best thing about AM radio was that on some nights, at 9:00 PM, they would air old radio shows from the 1930s and 40s. I loooooved listening to Edgar Bergan & Charlie McCarthy, Abbott and Costello, The Life of Riley, and Fibber McGee and Molly.
Now, that I am an adult, I have come to love talk radio. More specifically, NPR. I still listen and sing along to my Broadway tunes, but do I listen to NPR news and classical quite a bit.
Saturdays are my favorite - with CarTalk and Wait-Wait, Don't Tell Me. I also like the Metropolitan Opera broadcasts on NPR classical on Saturday afternoons. I always learn a lot from all of those shows! (I wish I had known about the Met broadcast when I was in college. It would have helped a lot with my music history classes!)
Simply put, childhood amnesia is not being able to recall memories from when you are very young. It doesn't mean that you can't recall early memories, or that you don't have them, but you probably don't have an exact memory recall of the daily minutia you experienced when you were two-years-old.
It was previously thought that childhood amnesia was a result of younger children just not being able to create lasting memories. However, from various studies, it's now looking like early memories just aren't being retained as a side effect of the brain still making its own connections and learning how to wire itself. Early childhood memories seem to just get lost in the transfer as children grow.
That statement really stuck with me. Because, even if you can't speak, you can communicate. You can feel. A young child might not be able to express their exact emotion, but that doesn't diminish what he might be experiencing.
Some of the early childhood memories I've retained are these:
- I remember bits of when my sister was born in 1990. I stayed at the house of a family friend. I was 3 1/2. I remember being confused at the bigness of the hospital. I remember getting in trouble for pulling the call-strings in the bathroom in my mom's hospital room.
- In October of 1991 there was a pretty bad ice storm in Northern Iowa. It also happened right after my brother was born. I was 5. He was 3 days old. After the ice storm we had no power - no heat, no electricity. I remember that we stayed at the same family friend's house and they had a big, black dog with curly hair. I remember that they had a fire going in their fireplace, and there were lots of adults that I didn't know. We stayed there the first night and the second night we stayed in a hotel.
- I remember getting chicken pox in kindergarten - I was almost six. I remember having to wear my clothes inside-out because they were itchy. I remember taking baking soda baths.
- I remember getting in trouble in kindergarten for calling my teacher "Mrs. Poop-head" in front of the class. She wasn't in the room when I said it, but another classmate told on me. I actually really liked my kindergarten teacher - I remember just wanting to say something "shocking" to my classmates, since I had their attention at that time.
The earliest movie I remember seeing in the movie theatre was Rescuers Down Under. The internet tells me this movie came out in November of 1990, so I would have been 4.
I remember tiny bits of the O.J. Simpson trial from 1994, more so from the fact that it seemed to interrupt any other TV that I wanted to watch. I was about 8 at the time, and more interested in my newest baby brother and The Lion King.
The first "breaking news" story that does really stick in my memory is when TV anchor Jodi Huisentruit disappeared, back in June 1995. I remember getting up and turning on the early morning news and wondering why she wasn't there on TV. It's been over 20 years and her body still hasn't been found. Several places in the Clear Lake/Mason City area still have her MISSING flyers up.
All of these memories have various emotions and events associated with them. Pain, happiness, frustration. Sometimes its kind of weird to think of the kind of memories that I've kept. I'm sure I'm not the only one who has sat back and thought "why do I remember that detail???"
The article it also stated that some of these research findings are changing the way courts are viewing child witnesses - proving that children can be capable of providing accurate eye-witness accounts if asked neutral questions.
I can tell my niece is going to be active, bright and fabulous. It's clear there are things she wants to do and places she wants to go, but her little body is trying to catch up with her desire to explore. She's definitely one of those babies who, as soon as they learn how to move, they're gone. They are off exploring! Whether it be crawling, rolling, scooting, wiggling, or standing up while still strapped in a baby stroller and walking away, once that darling baby gains a greater mobility, there's a whole new world to see!
- What's your earliest childhood memory?
- What's the first movie you remember seeing in the movie theatre?
- What's the first major news story that you remember?