Today’s prompt from Long and Short Reviews is, what is your earliest memory? More on that story in a few minutes! First, let’s check in with….
WWW Wednesday
WHAT have you finished reading recently? The Book of Common Prayer by Alan Jacobs. A history of the English prayer book which only barely mentions the American BCP. Interesting but disappointing. May post a review today, but right now it’s 25% review and 75% interesting quotes.
WHAT are you reading now? Closer and closer to finishing Man of Iron, a biography of Grover Cleveland; halfway through The Battle Cry of Freedom, a history of the “Civil War era”. It’s quite interesting: even before the war begins, the word ‘reconstruction’ is used to refer to the potential reunification of the four-initial seceding states, when Lincoln and Davis were still contemplating their shared problem of “Well, what happens now?”
WHAT are you reading next? Battle Cry is going to keep me occupied, I do believe, but after that I need to focus on science to finish out the Science Survey for this year. One title I have is When the Earth Had Two Moons.
Long and Short Prompt: Earliest Memory
My earliest memory is of hiding in the cupboards as a little thing: looking back, it strikes me as unusual that there was space to crawl, even at 3 or 4, because my parents have always been ones for keeping lots of canned food and cooking supplies on hand. My earliest dream-memory also involves hiding. In the dream there were monster-like people who lived in my neighborhood, and I accidentally hit the son of the monsters when we were playing. In the dream I was scared and ran away to hide under the house, and when the son and his monster-father came looking for me, I started hitting myself on the head and insisting that we were even.
Reading Freely 
I hid in similar spaces for hide and seek. Kids can get everywhere… something I had to relearn when I had to raise one 😂
That’s sweet!
Too bad the first one is disappointing.
Last #book I finished: Cat + Gamer #5, by #WataruNadatani
Amreading: The Winter of our Discontent, by #JohnSteinbeck
Amlistening to: The Big Book of Christmas Mysteries, ed. by #OttoPenzler
TBR Reading next: A Winter Book, by #ToveJansson
That’s one Steinbeck work I’ve not tackled!
Ah, kid’s imagination… Feels so real at the time! 🤣
The fact that I still remember it ~35 years later is telling!
Love your oldest dream memory!
Did the monster-father agree that you were even?
Not that I remember! It may have been one of those “wake you up” nightmares.
My earliest memory is of the university library stacks, where my mom was getting her Master of Education. Seems inevitable then that I’d end up with my MLS and work in the library for 10+ years, lol
The Battle Cry of Freedom is one of my favorite reference books on the Civil War. We used it as a textbook for my college course.
Kids can get into the oddest of places. Thanks for sharing your memories, Stephen.