My little sister, Penny, recently suggested that I write some about my childhood. She said she would enjoy learning more about our family. There is about a 12 year difference in our ages. So I decided to think as far back as I could.

When I was about four years old I lived in a two bedroom house in a little town called Carbondale. We were crowded. I had three older brothers and my baby brother. There were seven of us living there! I can remember my oldest brother had a bed out on the back porch. This was about 35 years ago.

In my most vivid memory I was standing in the front yard of our home looking down at my hand as it was getting dark. I had burnt my hand on an iron. It had a big puffy blister in the palm. I decided I would bust the blister. I soon learned the reality that when you bust blisters they will burn. I ran in the house crying and showed Mom. I then think she put some kind of cream on it. That's the earliest memory I could remember.

Dr. James Dobson, well known Christian psychologist, once told of his earliest childhood memory on his radio program, Focus on the Family. When he told it I could hardly believe it. He said he remembers lying in a crib and his grandmother (possibly great) was leaning into his bed. He remembers she had a hat on that had two ties hanging down from her head and they had little puffballs on the end.

Danny and I have tried to nurture this ability in our children. Some say traumatic memories can remain more vivid in our mind. When our oldest, Samuel, was about 2 and his younger brother, Jonathan, was still a baby such an instance occurred. We were all in the living room and Danny was reading a book to us. Suddenly someone came by and threw a porch light globe through our big front window. Glass flew everywhere but no one got hurt. I put Sam in his high chair to keep him safe from any broken glass. Samuel couldn't speak real well but when the police came, he stood up in his high chair, and said, "Gas boke." over and over to the police officer. The man was kind and helped calm him down. So from time to time we'll ask Sam if he remembers. But I think it's mostly vague to him now.

That's all I'll do right now. I'll be able to do more entries about growing up in the days, weeks and months to come.