write down as many of my earliest memories from childhood as I can remember

Kindergarten, 1974. I wore an orange-brown sweater that could have been mohair but was probably made from some synthetic fiber.

The sweater looked hairy. Someone commented on it so I made up a big lie about my grandfather going on an animal safari in Africa, shooting a big orangutan, skinning it and saving the hair to make into this sweater.

I was likely watching a lot of “Wild Kingdom” on TV back then. Clearly, I hadn’t yet learned much about animal conservation or the nature of man’s close ties to other animals, specifically other primates. But I guess that’s what kindergarten is all about, learning about other primates.

I don’t remember if my Mom or Dad read to me at bedtime, but I do remember this particular ritual. After getting ready for bed, I would make a mad dash for my room, hurry under the covers and either bury my head under my pillow or reverse myself and stick my feet up where my head would normally be. Then my Dad would come in and act confused about where my head was and where my feet were. As he would feel around the covers trying to guess, I would giggle and he would giggle and it was all really great fun.

July 4th, 1976. I was six years old and the good ole U.S. of A. was turning 200. The kids on my street in Omaha gathered in Kara’s backyard to watch the fireworks. Her backyard fell sharply down like a ski slope. There were no trees to block our view of the spectacle.

I met Kevin for the first time that night. His family had just moved in across the street. He was a year older than I. We were good buddies all through elementary school. That night we rolled down the grassy hill over and over. The fireflies glowed in the hazy, humid air. The fireworks bursted in air.

It was like the beginning of something big. I was six, almost seven, and felt something click inside me. There was a new feeling of independence. It seems corny, the coincidence of Independence Day and my own discovery of personal independence, but there it was. On that day, at that moment, I felt like a fully conscious independent person capable of doing anything.

I remember that moment every Fourth of July.

I never have liked cutting my toenails. When I was four I couldn’t do it myself, obviously, and it took both my parents, my sister, and Ted the teddy bear to get the job done.

I remember laying back in a recliner chair with my feet on the stool, my dad and sister holding down my upper body and legs while my mom got busy with the clippers. I squeezed Ted like a hungry python and screamed bloody murder.

The scene was played out too many times to count and the story has become legend in my immediate family. I’m occasionally reminded of this particular trauma by one of my parents whenever I complain about my own children’s behavior, as if to say, “What comes around, goes around.”

This place was supposedly a preschool, but in my memory it was more like a house of horrors.

The first thing that would happen upon my arrival was Ted going into a locked drawer. Ted was my teddy bear. We were inseparable. In all of my earliest childhood memories, Ted was there with me. Ted was like part of the family. In fact, I still have Ted. He lives in the closet now. Poor Ted.

So Ted would go into lock up and I would cry. I remember being scared of the place and the teachers. I cried a lot. The place was mostly an open room divided into smaller areas by low shelves. There was a great big snake, like a constrictor, in a glass case in the center of the room. I remember thinking that if I wasn’t a good little boy, they would put me in the case with the constrictor and it would squeeze me to death while everyone watched. A nice feeling when you’re four years old and without your Ted.

The only time I had any peace was during nap because my mom was a nap time volunteer. Looking back on things, she probably didn’t want to be a nap time volunteer. She probably had to be there to keep me under control (I’ll have to ask her about that). I’m sure she had better things to do.

They had a swimming pool. It was outdoors since this was Ohio. They never once got me into that pool. I screamed bloody murder until they just gave up. My older sister was not so lucky. They threw her into the water. I guess the fear of lawsuits wasn’t so present back in 1974. It’s a good thing my sister didn’t drown. Of course, she didn’t learn to swim until years later. Neither did I.

Things that happened at Towl Park, 1975-1987:

• Tee ball
• Riding bikes
• Soccer
• Exploring the woods and creek
• Insect bites
• Nettle stings
• Patrice and her babysitter getting stabbed by a stranger
• Making out
• Drinking
• Loitering

I was four years old and a babysitter watched me and my sister while my parents were out for the evening. I slept in a trundle bed which put me high off the ground. There must have been a rail or something to keep me from falling but, in any case, fall I did onto the floor face first. What I actually remember is not the falling or the hitting the floor or the blood spewing from my nose but the feeling of horror coming from the babysitter. It totally panicked me that she was freaking out.

The next thing I remember is being in a hospital bed. My nose wouldn’t stop bleeding. For some reason I have this vision of a clear plastic tube full of blood running from my nose to the foot of bed but that can’t be right.

It was April of 1974. We lived in a suburban ranch house in Centerville, Ohio. I remember looking out the living room picture window and seeing a tornado fly over our house. We headed for the basement for an extended stay.

That was one of the tornados sighted during the super outbreak that killed 33 people in nearby Xenia, Ohio.