The idea of recalling one’s earliest memory has always eluded me. As if someone could just sift through the files of their life’s memory and find the very first memory that they can recall. Maybe some people can do this, I am not one of those people.

My earliest memories are a mix of things that overlap and distort each other. The house that I spent the first 12 years of my life in play a big part in those memories. It was a large white house that was on a very busy street in Elgin Illinois. In a neighborhood that was not bad, but was also not good either. It was near the edge of town on the wrong side of town. Across the street was a low income apartment complex, two doors down was a water treatment plant, and down the road a piece was a biker bar that had a pretty bad reputation.

As kids we referred to the water treatment plant simply as “the stink.” It had a large open area of concrete with some random large metal objects sticking out. It was a place we often used for games like kick ball and softball. We freely played in and around the whole area and I never remember seeing anyone work there. The smell of sulphur was always strong and large black walnut trees offered ammunition every year for kid wars.

Next to the stink was a bottling plant. A small brick building with a dock on one end. Over the door hung a Squirt soda sign. The dock area made for a great ramp for my Huffy. I am not sure if the plant was functional because I don’t remember there ever being any activity there.

I know this post is sort of random. I have been kicking around the idea of mixing in my memoirs into this blog. I know memoirs are usually something reserved for those late in their life. But thanks to my wife’s grandfather I have learned the importance of memoirs to a family’s history. And I think to us all. There is also the personal benefit of getting these memories down while I still have them. So I am going to work on adding memories to this blog, if only for my personal record.

I’ll come back to that house on St Charles Street. Because that is where the memories start.