Continuing with the August blogging challenge. I’m doing Sunday’s topic today since I’ll have a different regularly scheduled blog post that day. Today’s scheduled topic was supposed to be a regret, but I honestly don’t have any big regrets and my small regrets aren’t all that interesting (except maybe one I’ll mention below, which ties in to one of my earliest memories).
I was born in 1972 and my earliest memories date from 1976, when I was four. I have some vague recollections of celebrations of the Bicentennial but I can’t remember anything concrete of that. I do however remember seeing the 1976 “King Kong” re-make. The funny thing is that my one clear memory from it was that I was excited to go to the movies because I could get the Reese’s peanut butter cups candy that had THREE of the cups instead of the regular two. But I do remember liking the movie. (I’m at least a second generation monster movie fan – see previous blog post on guilty pleasures and cheesy Sci-Fi movies – although I have a suspicion that my mom got it from her father, so I’m probably the third generation.) Because of that movie, I wanted to visit New York to see the Twin Towers of the World Trade Center, which Kong climbed in that version. I also wanted to visit New York at that age because that’s where Sesame Street is, but that’s another story. 🙂 And that’s where my regret mentioned above comes in – I didn’t managed to visit New York until 2006, after it was too late to see the Towers. At least I did get to visit the famous landmark that other on-screen versions of Kong have climbed, the Empire State Building.
My other memory that I think dates from 1976 as well was visiting my grandmother’s classroom for her retirement party. I mostly remember that because her students spoiled me rotten with attention (and I vaguely remember cake being involved) and it being decorated with a bunch of red, white, and blue things.
So, they aren’t the most exciting early memories, but they are happy ones.
