Tell us something from your childhood we dont know about you (10 years old or younger)

John@Outfront

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When i was 4-8 years old i slept with my tools, they may have been plastic hammers and screwdrivers but they were tools, not teddy bears.  My Mom said she could have wrote a book about all the things i did (or shouldnt have done is more like it)

she said i should have died multiple times, would climb up on the roof of the house and walk around naked (when i was very young of course ) ate rat plosion and had really bad reaction where they were holding me down in bed for hours.  i dont think they took me to the hospital, thats probably what contributed  to my hair loss. 

 
@John@Outfront

When I was about 3, maybe 4 years old, my mom put me down for a nap. She was doing some stuff around the house. My dad was at work and my brother was in Kindergarten.

My mom came in to check on me and I was no where to be found....panic mode set in as she went through the house looking for me. She feared I was in the pool...but no, no where in the yard...she went out front, NOTHING...Vanished!

She called my Dad then called the Cops...now some time had passed, but by the time she called the cops....a lady had just called in saying she found a young boy wandering around the neighborhood!   :kenk:

They put 2 and 2 together and realized I was the one.

Apparently, I got up from my nap and went out the back door and down the driveway and was just out front. 

Some lady drove by, saw me out front and picked me up without even knocking on any door to see if I belonged somewhere or if a neighbor knew who I was. She took me home and called the cops!

The cops then chewed my Mom a new one for being negligent. My poor Mom. 

Wrought Iron gates went up across the driveway after that!

:lmao:  

:dbart:  

 

 
Until I entered the 2nd grade, I lived in East Los Angeles 1 block from Garfield HS, St. Alphonso's Church, Atlantic Blvd / Whittier Blvd....the Heart of ELA.

Both my grandparents (Mother/Father) lived 2 blocks apart, Great aunts and cousins...all in a 1/2 mile radius.

My one Grandmother had female "Roommates" all thru my childhood that lived with her. She was not healthy with diabetic issues and these ladies were there to help her.

It never dawned on me, there names were of the like "Tiger", "Sunshine", "Princess" and there was even a "Champagne"    :lol:

Until I followed one across the alley to a bar one day...I never knew they were all strippers :dancer:

I went back t peak in that back door often as I could from then on...LOL.

Grandma had to stop with those type of live-ins afterwards. Puberty came way too early :lmao:

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Some history on that area if your interested in ELA.

https://www.lataco.com/east-la-latin-strip/

 
my dad died when i was eight, but before that when i was like 6, i took apart my bike to paint the frame, it didnt dawn on me that i shouldn't have rested the frame up against my Dads 63 corvette with a 427 engine to paint my frame.

im thinking this is one of the times my mom thought i should have died.......

 
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No me, but my youngest son............

When my wife would take them into the Marshals, or Sears or one of those places that had the huge round racks with shirts hanging on hangers, he thought it was fun to hide under one of them & when my wife would call his name he would not answer until she was crying & frantic.  Then he knew if he came out he would get an ass beating so the motivation for not coming out changed.  ROFLOL. 

Then when I got home from work, I got the "guess what YOUR son did to me today" ass beating.  LMAO.

Good times........... good times!!!!! 

 
Until I entered the 2nd grade, I lived in East Los Angeles 1 block from Garfield HS, St. Alphonso's Church, Atlantic Blvd / Whittier Blvd....the Heart of ELA.

Both my grandparents (Mother/Father) lived 2 blocks apart, Great aunts and cousins...all in a 1/2 mile radius.

My one Grandmother had female "Roommates" all thru my childhood that lived with her. She was not healthy with diabetic issues and these ladies were there to help her.

It never dawned on me, there names were of the like "Tiger", "Sunshine", "Princess" and there was even a "Champagne"    :lol:

Until I followed one across the alley to a bar one day...I never knew they were all strippers :dancer:

I went back t peak in that back door often as I could from then on...LOL.

Grandma had to stop with those type of live-ins afterwards. Puberty came way too early :lmao:



Some history on that area if your interested in ELA.

https://www.lataco.com/east-la-latin-strip/
Had kind of a similar situation. Between our house and the neighbors some “illegals” parked a trailer and lived out of it. They were all women and cleaned the houses in our town, at the time i didnt realize they were also prostitutes, and i never understood why they lived in our front yard. They would invite me in their trailer and it wasnt uncommon for them to be naked inside and they showered with a hose outside. But as a kid COOL!

my dad was a POS person and checked out mentally early in my life and split all together in my early teens. (Didnt hear from him for about 20 years) He recently died and we had to go clean out his crap and found out we have a half sister From one of these prostitutes, and another older half sister somewhere in the midwest

 
Age, I don't remember. I was pre teen. My dad was a car guy and took care of all of them from engine building to detailing. I washed the cars and helped wax at an early age. One hot summer day, I decided I would wash and wax the 65 Buick GS Skylark. It had a fresh paint job, burgundy metallic, just a few months old.  I washed the car, dried it, then went into the garage to find the wax. I found the can of Turtle wax with the pad applicator. I knew how to apply the wax, small circles, one panel at a time.  It was perfect.  Dad got home 6 hours later to find the car still in the sun and still covered in hard shell turtle wax. Not a spot missed with wax. I was inside watching tv when I heard him lose his chit in the driveway.  I then learned that waxing a car and leaving the wax on wasn't the  right approach. I figured leaving it on longer would be a good thing. Boy was I mistaken.  After the hellfire of my dad, we went to the store, bought compound, pads, more wax etc. We worked on that car for 2 days to fix my screw up.

The car cleaned up but the paint was never the same.

 
No me, but my youngest son............

When my wife would take them into the Marshals, or Sears or one of those places that had the huge round racks with shirts hanging on hangers, he thought it was fun to hide under one of them & when my wife would call his name he would not answer until she was crying & frantic.  Then he knew if he came out he would get an ass beating so the motivation for not coming out changed.  ROFLOL. 

Then when I got home from work, I got the "guess what YOUR son did to me today" ass beating.  LMAO.

Good times........... good times!!!!! 
when i knew i was in trouble, i would put on 5 pairs of underwire, when my mom would spank me it would say that didnt hurt....wait until your father gets home.........

 
When I was young(2-3rd Grade) and we lived in Norco we were horse show people.  Every weekend it seemed we were off to some horse show.  For me it was always a great adventure. As soon as we got there I was set free with nothing more then a don't do anything stupid and a set of times ( usually went along with the different classes) that I had to be back at the barn or where we parked by. I would then go find the other kids my age and we would find someplace to go play and explore.  At one of these shows we found the entrance to a pretty large storm drain. We started to explore all the tunnels that connected to the one large tunnel.  Well we went in this one tunnel that we ended up crawling on our hands and knees.  We would follow these things for a couple hundred yards maybe then there would be a grate with a large box/ opening under it.  From there we would either go back the way we came or off to another light at the end of a tunnel.  Well I was towards the back of the group of kids climbing thru these things when I came up to one of the grates. I could hear a lot of commotion going on. I could hear horses people and lots of people yelling.  As I came into the lit area I looked up to see my Dad looking thru the grate at me.

What had happened is that the first kid spooked a horse setting off a chain reaction that nobody could figure out until my Old Man looked down and see's me. Busted.

Yeah that was the last time for a while that I got to roam the fair grounds/ horse show on my own... or sit down.

 
I grew up in OC and was always doing mischief as a kid. I remember (pre-school) running around the cul-de-sac we lived on naked with my mom chasing me, she was so mad and I was laughing my ass off.

Shooting out streetlights with our BB guns. The old mercury vapor lights were cool when they busted and melted down.

We used to make firecrackers out of caps, thread them on a needle and pack them tight then use scotch tape to bind it and use a match stick for a fuse. I almost burnt down a palm tree when i tucked one of these firecrackers in the bark and set it off. Fire dept showed up and I was scared to death I would go to jail the rest of my life, but they never knew who did it!

And there was many more incidents of mischief to list.

Just before my mother passed from cancer, i sat with her and apologize for all the mayhem I did all throughout my childhood. She knew most of what I did, but not all. We laughed our asses off recalling what I did as a kid. I was definitely a PIA!

One thing I NEVER experienced was having a mentally screwed up adult talk to me about whether I was a boy or a girl! 

 
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around 5-6 my dad went to the lawnmower shop and picked up a blown up engine for me so i would stop taking apart his running lawnmower. i used to carry that engine around in my little red wagon that i modified by making a lift kit.  around the same age i also got some tools out and took apart the gate on the side yard so i could get in the front yard.

 
When I was around 4-5 years old, My brother (year younger) and I climb this tree and it allowed us to climb on the roof (wood shingles and all) of our house.  We then rigged a pulley system and pulled some tricycles up onto the roof.  Which allowed us to ride them all over the roof.  My Mom at the time was a full blown alcoholic and was "resting" and had no idea what we were up to.  A neighbor called my Father at work and he had to to come home and deal with us.  I don't remember if we got in trouble or not, but we got into all sorts of Mischief when Mom was "resting".

Another no idea "Where Mom is moment", my brother and I for some reason pulled the hose into our house and flooded the living room, we also flooded the station wagon at some point as well.  I can't imagine how mad my Dad would have been when he came home from work????

 
when i was really little like 4,  i would tie thread from one cabinet handle to the next, crisscross the kitchen and then take all the screws out of the hinges. when someone would walk into the kitchen and run into the thread it would yank all the cabinet doors off.

my brother was always smarter than me being 5 years older, he always got the last laugh.  i was crinkling up tin foil and smashing it flat with a small sledge hammer to see how flat i could get it.  my brother came into the garage and was seeing what i was up to.  he wanted to try it.  well i had a special ball of foil for him with a whole bunch of rolls of caps in it. little did he know when he used all his strength to flatten it, it was like an M80 went off, hurt his ears.  that day, at least for a moment, i got the last laugh......

 
I baptized myself in used motor oil from my Dad's Baja Bug when I was about 2.  Had the oil pan on top of the work bench, I hung with Dad in the garage all the time and wanted to "help" by bringing it back to him.  Ended up tipping the whole shebang over my head. 

 
I have a lot of memories from childhood, some good, some bad. My father died in Vietnam in Feb. '65. That hit me very hard - he was a very funny, smart guy and loved cars, music, racing, audio equipment, Hamm's beer. He bought me a tricycle with a plastic engine that looked and sounded like a Harley, thanks to batteries and a speaker.

My mom was able to keep it together and was all over me like white on rice. She knew everything, including what I was thinking of doing, before I thought of it. One time we were in a grocery store and I saw the first black man I'd ever seen, he was very dark. I said, "Mom! Look! That man is covered in grease!" He started laughing his ass off, my mom was mortified and dropped her basket and grabbed me, apologized to him and dragged me out of there! All the way home, I was asking "How? Why? Where?" and she explained the difference in skin color, including a continent called Africa and the Sun's relationship to the equator, etc. She knew better than to say, "Never mind" or "because I said so!"

Another time, about 6 or 7, I woke up and was convinced I was actually the son of Queen Elizabeth and I was the younger brother of Prince Charles. My mom wasn't convinced. She had told me long before, "If you're walking down the street and you hear a baby crying in a dumpster, don't open the dumpster and take the baby out. It will ruin your life, just like you ruined mine. I should have left you in that dumpster." So she reminded me she found me in a dumpster. I said, "Exactly! The Queen mum had an affair with an Asian member of the household, so rather than admit it, they put me in a dumpster to hide my birth." Mom said, "I don't know where you got this idea, but the Queen lives in England, and I found you in a dumpster in Oakland. Now eat your breakfast before it gets cold." 

I insisted that she call Buckingham Palace and inform them that I had been found and they needed to come get me immediately. Mom said, "I'll see what I can do." When I asked what she found out at dinnertime, she said, "I managed to get in touch with the Royal Secretary who categorically denies the existence of any illegitimate child. Sorry, you'll just have to settle for this palace."

:lol:

I don't know where that idea came from, probably some wild dream. Mom didn't believe in "proportional response." Even the smallest infraction resulted in a nuclear response. 3 minutes late for dinner resulted in a belt whooping that made it impossible to sit for at least a day or two. She was only 4'11" and 94 lbs, but she could swing a belt like Babe Ruth swung a bat and she was always ready to hit a home run!

One day, I was probably 7 yrs old, she aid, "Promise me something." "What, mom?" "Promise first, then I'll tell you." "OK mom, I promise." "OK, promise me that no matter how bad things get when I get old, you will never put me in a nursing home. You will move me in your home and take care of me. If necessary, you'll change my diapers." "Why would you be wearing diapers?" "Sometimes it happens when people get really old. I changed your diapers for a couple of years, so it's only fair you change mine if needed." "Mom, I don't know if it works that way. I'm supposed to get married, have kids and change their diapers..." "SHUT UP!! YOU ALREADY PROMISED!!"

In 2010, she came down with Alzheimer's and I moved her in. For the next almost 8 yrs, we got closer than ever before. She remembered events from 40 or 50 yrs ago like yesterday, but not yesterday. She told me stories about my father from before my birth. My grandparents had disowned her when she started dating a gaijin (foreigner), but when I was born 5 or 6 yrs later, grandma had a change of heart and wanted us back in the family. Allegedly, grandpa asked grandma, "We disowned her, why do you want her back now?" She answered, "Don't be stupid! She has our first born grandchild!" Mom started reverting to speaking some Japanese, which she was still fluent. English became a little harder for her to find the correct words. She finally admitted that she loved me, I was her favorite kid and she really liked my cooking. She also laughed at all of my stupid "dad jokes" every day, because she didn't remember them from the day before.    :lol:

 
One day at about 6 yrs old, I decided that I needed to travel, see the world. So over breakfast, I told mom that I was going to leave and travel the world. "So you're running away from home?" "Yes, I guess you could call it that." "Great! I was getting tired of supporting you! Eat your breakfast and I'll pack your lunch for you like a hobo!"

After I ate breakfast, she told me to go outside and find a stick. She packed a sandwich and other lunch items into a bandanna and tied it to the stick. She wished me good luck and said, "don't cross the street."

I go out to the front yard and turn right. I walk to the end of the block and turn right. I keep turning right and end up back at home again. So I go further up the street and spend the morning with my gorgeous babysitter who lives halfway down the block. At lunch time, I go back to the house. Mom asks, "What are you doing here? I thought you were out seeing the world?" "You told me not to cross the street, so I walked all the way around the block and ended up back here." "Well, you might as well come in and eat your lunch at the table and tell me all about the world out there." So I came in, ate lunch with mom and forgot all about traveling for the next 17 yrs or so.

Mom sometimes got tired of me and I don't blame her. I was the most curious kid of all time, constantly asking, "Why? How? Explain it further?" and I imagine it was very tiresome. She hired a very beautiful Latina who lived halfway down the block to babysit me. She was beautiful, thin, nice big boobs and she was the most beautiful woman I'd ever seen, she was probably 17 or 18. She had a porch swing and we would sit there in the shade and I'd lean over and rest my head on her lap, her breasts on the side of my face. She didn't seem to mind. She also had a Vato boyfriend, white tank top, khaki pants, wallet on a chain and a really nice lowrider. When he'd come over to see her, I'd ask him what he was doing there, harassing my woman? He would just laugh and say he wanted to just hang out with us.  LOL  He was a really tough looking guy, but he was actually very nice and patient with my BS about his GF being mine. She'd sit in the middle of the porch swing, I was on one side of her and he was on the other side. I'd rest my head on her lap and they'd talk about her day or his day or make plans for a date. I still can't believe how nice and patient he was with me. Maybe she told him he had to, or else!

:lol:

 
When I was young, mom could cook any meal from any country, mostly Filipino, Japanese, Italian, Chinese, American, etc. She didn't cook anything from Africa or South America, but she made great tacos, burritos and enchiladas. Once a week, she cooked 2 t-bone steaks and she always gave me the tenderloin side. When I was 8, she married my step dad and a yr later my half sister was born. After that, she cooked 4 T-bones and my sister and I ate the tenderloin side. Shortly after that, one night I wanted more meat so mom gave me some off her plate. I got really confused, because it was completely different than what I was used to. It was tougher, didn't taste as good. When I asked her what it was, she said, "T-bone steak." When I asked why she had fed me the tenderloin side, she said, "When I was your age, we were in WW II and grandma had to feed 11 of us a big pot of watery rice soup and if we were lucky, a fish head for flavor. I was always hungry and I swore my children would not eat scraps, never go hungry. That is what mothers do for their children. Now shut up and eat!!"

That was the closest she ever came to saying she loved me as a kid. I once asked her about that and she said something like, "Talk is cheap. Look around at your toys, your encyclopedias, your reference books. If you cannot tell you are loved by all that I do for you, you're even stupider than I suspected!" She wasn't a fan of snowflakes. She was more like a flame thrower.      :lol:

 
I was 2 years old and climbed around into the drivers seat of my moms 68 Volkswagen bus truck. She backed it into the driveway and then went inside unloading groceries. I turned the ignition key and because it was left in gear, it lunged forward. It putted across the street and went down into the neighbors yard and got hung up on a fence. Dad came home and had to pull it out with his truck. 
That was my first time driving. I don’t think I drive much better now. 

 
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