Childhood Memories

As a child growing up on the out skirts of a capital city, I still remember my childhood memories.  I can remember thinking that before the age of 6 that I didn't really live in Brisbane but more so on its northern outskirts in Albany Creek which back then was like stepping out of the city to beyond the city limits.  My earliest recollection was the cupboard in the bathroom which seemed to be the passage to the roof and water below the house after a large deluge of rain. I also distinctly remember falling down the stairs while trying to open a door which was a childhood obsession with one of the legs of the chairs giving way to the opening created by the door and finding myself going down the 12 or so stairs one after the other like a rum barrel being rolled off an old cargo ship.

I knew at the age of 2 or so that something was different about me but I just put up with it as there didn't seem to be any answers to explain my often withdrawn behaviour and childhood obsessions which were to crystallize later.  Although I only attended Albany Creek Pre School and Primary School for 3/4 of Grade 1 in 1978, I do remember walking to school with my brother and a kid running me over with a bicycle. I also remember fearing the school yard and my first day of school to where all the children were given a balloon and basic directions to the school room.  I remember my first teacher as her name was Miss Muir and I remember associating her name with the Ghost and Mrs Muir the television series where the ghost of a Sea Captain dragged his chains in a deserted sea side town.  Also school was the first time that I was around other children and unlike the school children learning word meanings, associations and phonics, I found myself drawing pictures, placing stickers into magazines with coloured balls and other things.  I wondered why I was doing this but just went a long with what was expected of me.  As a child I also feared the school lavatory often holding back to when school was finished with my parents never really knowing why or what I was afraid of.  The big kids scared me but more so the toilet block as I could never understand what the hell a urinal was for and why those things you dried your hands with made so a loud and horrible noise. I also found school sport overwhelming and would not wear shorts and rather long pants as I knew the teachers would cave into the fact that sport could not be participated in with trousers instead of shorts. Furthermore I knew that finding shorts was impossible so my early attempts at manipulating events around me seemed to work.

As a kid I can remember watching black and white television and seeing small news clips of events in the Vietnam War.  I wondered what was meant by Guerrilla Warfare as I thought it either had to be the primate that ate bananas or the thing below the stove you toasted your cheese toast sandwich in.  One particular scene I remember distinctly was "Life Be In It" with this cartoon character called norm who encouraged everyone to contemplate exercise while he sat back on a cheer with a beer in his hand.  In one commercial in the mid 70's, Norm the cartoon character said turn off your television sets and get out and exercise and the television turned off of it's own accord.  Childhood curiosity also was overcome to some extent as to how sugarcane grew and as a 4 year old kid I went outside with a cup of sugar and sprinkled sugar crystals thinking that they would grow, knowing all to well that crystals are unlikely to grow into vegetation. 

My memories of preschool were washing dishes up in coloured water and blowing paint on a hung up piece of butcher's paper to create streaks and patterns etc.  I can remember riding a bicycle and realising that peddle power was required so that the bike would move forward as well as balance.  I never really knew what I wanted to be when I grew up but I do remember small things like seeing the Doctor and having a liking to milk medicine and hearing the horrible sound of the butcher's saw as he grinded through tough meat and bone with his white coat on.  Also my childhood fear was Taylor Mannequins as they had no heads and the way their arms stood out just sent shivers up my spine.  How a mannequin of this description got the name of a tickley bear I do not know.  I think it came from the memory I had of driving in the family car and seeing the Prickley Pair that grew a long the road side and the shape of it was similar to the mannequin and thus the childhood fear grew.

Those of us with good memories still probably remember the one car per family ratio.  My first memory was of an old Falcon with the Ivory looking steering wheel and the extended mileage dashboard.  Bicycles also back then had no hand brakes and you had to reverse the pedals on the bicycle to lock the brakes.  Furthermore I remember climbing tall trees until I could go no further and I remember when I was catching a lift as a kid of how a lift worked as somehow I looked through a crack in the door to see a rope that had to lead to something which after some investigation was a counterweight.  I was often classified as a freak or an outcast in the school system and more often than none was seen as an academic write off.  While kids were playing in the school yard I used to go to the library and read books or look up facts and figures.  I was never really understood as a child but back then nobody knew about Autism so no explanation was apparent.  It was like jumping through hoops but ending up in another obstacle or difficult situation.  My imagination got me through a lot of my childhood as well as living inside my head.  Such are childhood memories.