There are a few stories that were told of me at family get togethers from between the age of nine months to the age of two and a half. According to my family I was walking by nine months . I have seen a picture of me standing on a couch holding my dad's hand and I was pretty small so it is possible.
One of the first stories to be told has to do with my climbing ability. In those days mom hung her laundry on a line outside to dry. That line was held up by a two by four. The story goes that somehow I climbed up that board all by myself without disloging it from the line or falling. No one saw me do it and they have no idea how I did it. The first time they heard about it I was screaming my lungs out because I couldn't figure out how to get back down. At a guess I would say I climbed about five feet at a 45 degree angle without any assistance.
That is always the first story they tell. The second is fairly similar except that it took place at my aunt & uncles across the village from where we lived.
I have tried to find a photo of the cupboard in the story but have not really found one that is similar enough to illustrate what I'm talking about so I am going to try a word picture. It was a cupboard about three feet high with two doors and two drawers on the bottom a small prep counter then a hutch that stood another three feet or so high. In all it was about six feet from floor to top. On the hutch were two sets of two doors and several small drawers. This cupboard was my aunts pantry & dish cupboard. Near the top of one of the door units on the hutch part was where the margarine & sugar were kept. Without the aid of a chair, (at least no chair was ever mentioned) I climbed up this huge thing all the way to the top to reach the margarine. Don't ask...I guess I really liked margarine. Anyway my mom and my aunt found me happily eating margarine from its container. Again no explanation as to rather I was literally hanging on like a monkey or if I had some how gotten back down with my treat. I was around two and a half I was told.
The third story has to do with my favorite aunt. The shack that we lived in was on top of a small rise. Below that rise was where my aunt, her boys and my grandfather lived in an old clapboard house. My dad always laughed about this because even though I was small I had a big appetite. I would have a meal with my parents and then I would run down the little rise and have the same meal with my aunt and her family. Nearly every day I did this. He always said he used to wonder where I put it all because i was solid but I wasn't heavy.
I loved spending time at my aunts house, I was introduced to ballet there because she had a TV. Her sons acted like big brothers to me for a long time until they grew up & left home.
One last story and this is a much my mom's story as mine. My mother always looked young for her age and she was almost nineteen when this event happened. The first thing you need to remember is that she was the female half of a set of twins, the second thing you need to remember is that back in the 1950's & 60's you had to pay to go to highschool much the same way as we pay for college and university now a days. Her parents couldn't afford to send both her and her brother so she was finished school when she was 14.
On this paticular day we were at my aunts house. Mom was watching TV and I was sitting looking at a newspaper, even turning the pages like I was reading it. The truant officer came looking for one of my cousins and when he asked mom why she wasn't in school. She just smiled and pointed at me. It always makes me smile because apparently the truant officer apologized and left in a hurry. For my part I guess that was when I first realized that reading was an important thing. Even at so young an age I had already fallen in love with the printed word. I was 18 months old.
