SNGF - A Childhood Memory

Every Saturday, Randy Seaver posts a blog topic under the theme "Saturday Night Genealogy Fun." Also, every Saturday, I have plans which prevent me from fully enjoying the SNGF experience....until tonight. Finally, I get to play along!

Here is tonight's topic: What is one of your most vivid childhood memories? Was it family, friends, places, events, or just plain fun?

Though I'm still young (cough, cough), I have countless childhood memories. How to pick just one? I've decided to go with my earliest childhood memory.

When I was about two years and change, I fell and hit my head against my parents' coffee table. This piece of furniture was the epitome of 70's decor complete with cork touches and smoky glass panels. It was dark, hard wood with very sharp edges & corners that would make today's helicopter parents cringe.

Anyway, I whacked my head on it and took a small chunk out of my ear. It must have looked bad because my earliest memory is of my mom and grandmother inspecting my ear at close range. I don't remember the pain or the gore, just all the people around me staring at my ear.

As you can see, I've recovered from this traumatic experience to become the awesome person that I am. The missing nick is hardly noticeable, mostly because I have an even bigger deformity that gives that same ear a small point like Spock--but that's a story for another night.

This all went down in the early 1970's, but would you believe my parents still have that table? It's such a basic design (save for the corners of death) that it never really goes out of style. It's survived the kids, grandkids and countless child visitors to the house. If there's a toddler around, my parents now throw a sleeping bag over the table for protection. That bit of child safety means I'm probably the only kid that will lose a chunk of ear on that table for many generations to come.